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A Miscarriage of Biblical Justice by arendt
....B. The Book of the Covenant ....Laws concerning blows and wounds
....(Yahweh said to Moses...)
....If people quarrel and one strikes the other a blow with stone or fist so ....that the injured party, though not dead, is confined to bed, but later ....recovers and can go about, even with a stick, the one who struck the ....blow will have no liability, other than to compensate the injured party ....for the enforced inactivity and to take care of the injured party until the ....cure is complete.
....If someone beats his slave, male or female, and the slave dies at his ....hands, he must pay the penalty. But should the slave survive for one ....or two days, he will pay no penalty because the slave is his by right ....of purchase.
....If people, when brawling, hurt a pregnant woman and she suffers a miscarriage ....but no further harm is done, the person responsible will pay compensation as ....fixed by the woman's master, paying as much as the judges decide. If ....further harm is done, however, you will award life for life, eye for eye...
........Exodus 21:18-24
Can someone tell me what Bible the fundamentalists are reading? Could the words above be any clearer? God says to Moses that a causing a miscarriage shall be punished by no more than a fine. How, then, can it be Biblically-correct to try people for murder when a miscarriage occurs? (Such laws have been put on the books in Theocratic America recently.)
The Jews, who also include Exodus in their sacred texts, disagree. The Jewish religion believes that the soul enters the body with the first breath. They also believe that it is a sin to knowingly bring a seriously defective child into the world to suffer. They encourage abortion for Tay-Sachs and other genetic diseases. So, we have two religions, both reading the same book and coming to completely opposite conclusions.
It is laughable that the fundamentalists don't mention this verse. It sits two verses away from one of the most well-known examples of Biblical cruelty - the infamous call for eye-for-an-eye justice that has led to endless cycles of revenge murders in places like Ireland, Yugoslavia, Kashmir, and the Middle East.
That is about as far as I can take the straightforward, "God said do this" form of Biblical analysis. But, as someone who believes in rational laws, the surrounding context is appalling.
In these few verses, we see the casual acceptance of literal slavery, the casual acceptance that it is perfectly OK to beat your slaves to death because they are, after all, your property. But, they must die slowly and quietly or you must pay an unstated "penalty". Probably for upsetting the frail sensibilities of the slave-owning class.
As far as violence goes, if a quarrel turns violent, but not murderous, there is no penalty for the one who struck first and started the violence, even if the blow caused the victim to be crippled for life. There is only the requirement to nurse the sick person until they are out of danger of death. This is "justice"? This is "compassionate conservatism"? I beg to differ.
This is primitive, might makes right, tribal rule. Aggression against slaves is, worst case (murder) punished by some vague penalty. Aggression against non-slaves is considered a matter of minimal provision of health care.
So, tell me, Biblical literalists, Leviticans, why is it that poor people who hurt each other in fights get huge jail sentences in America? According to your justice, they should hand each other a band-aid and call it even.
If fundamentalists can see these contradictions to American law and don't really want America to be a slave-holding, women-hating theocracy, they are hypocrites. If they can't see them, they are delusional and dangerous revolutionaries. This crap cannot be justified in a modern society. This violence cannot be elevated to divine law. It is a call to slavery, which this country fought a Civil War to end. It is a call to push women back down into the status of property.
So, Leviticans, if you are literal, you should be arrested for advocating crimes under the current laws. If you aren't literal, you are a pathetic bunch of whining losers. My opinion is the former. I've never heard a Levitican whine. I hear their snarling under my window day and night. America has become a dark place because of it.
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