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Date Posted: 12:39:11 02/13/08 Wed
Author: Kiernan
Subject: Some Thoughts on Justice and the Bible

At great risk of "jumping the gun" on Biblical material which we haven't gone over, I had a few thoughts on God's words to Noah in Genesis 9:6 in the wake of today's discussion of a Girardian view of justice. The passage says: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image."

Here is a passage traditionally (or, at least, in my tradition) interpreted as an injunction to capital punishment. Yet the language of the passage could allow it to be read differently. God says that his blood "shall" be shed, not necessarily that it "must" be. "Must" would connote an injuntion; "shall" could indicate a simple observation, or even prophecy (in the sense in which we defined it in 101, for those of you who were there). God could here be predicting the cycles of violence that will result from man's sin. Yet he says in the verse before that He, as God, will take his own account: "For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning; of every beast I will require it and of man; of every man's brother I will require the life of man." This "reckoning" does not necessarily have to be that of reciprocal, human violence - it could (perhaps must, because of God's nature) be a separate thing, above that.

So, perhaps, a reading of this as an injunction to capital punishment could be the very misreading which God is foreseeing.

This reading also connects nicely to Christ's words about "turning the other cheek" in the NT.

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