Discussion 1 to the 6th Commandment
On the Sixth Commandment
by Scott Klajic
To add to this discussion (or any other,) please use the Contact form. This discussion has been continued.In case it was not totally obvious--the Bible was not written in English. The text in question was written in Hebrew. The English language has available a word to describe an amoral killing. Simply, "kill." It also has a word for a moral killing, it is "murder." The Hebrew langauge also distinguishes between these. The original text uses the word for "murder" here, and not "kill."
The King James translators (humans) made a fatal error when they translated this passage to read "thou shall not kill." Especially when they had "murder" available. (This error has been corrected in every scholarly version since) Futher, you contend that the Bible does not go on to make room for the exceptions (When killing is OK) You have not read the whole Bible then, because it is all over the text. That's how you are supposed to read the Bible--certain portions shed light on others.
"Thou shall not kill" has been the cause for anti-capital punishment types to misuse the Bible in support of their argument. Again, the scripture calls for the death penalty elsewhere, once again forcing the "if-I-can't-fit-it-on-a-bumper-sticker-than-it-is-too-complicated" crowd to engage in something way too hard for them--research. But what difference does it make? You do not believe the scripture is what it claims to be, so why struggle to make it relevant in our time and consider yourself subject to it's teachings?