Thou shalt not kill

[tracer]

In the Commentary from 5-Sept-2003 (http://www.randi.org/jr/090503.html), Randi made the following comment about the Sixth Commandment:
6. Thou shalt not kill.

Sounds reasonable, if we ignore the firing squads, the electric chairs, the gallows, the lethal injections, that is.
Allow me to be about the millionth guy to point out that the phrasing "thou shalt not kill" is only the phrasing of the King James Translation. Other translations often render that sentence as "do not murder", which doesn't include executions.

[Brown]

My understanding is that the Hebrew word interpreted as "kill" in the Old Testament commandments refers to murder. In the New Testament references to the commandments, however, the Greek word for "kill" is used, not the Greek word for "murder."

I recognize that my understanding is hearsay. Everyone should feel free to confirm or to correct what I have said.

[WildCat]

Also, in the Old Testament this commandment only refers to killing other Jews. There's plenty of passages where the Israelites eagerly slaughter other tribes, and God even offers guidelines on the booty they should collect from such slaughter. I believe the All-Mighty One even demands human sacrafices for Himself.

[uruk]

My understanding is that the Hebrew word interpreted as "kill"

I have a friend who studied and learned biblical Hebrew and Greek when he was going for his divinity degree.
He wanted to be able to read the bible in the original greek and hebrew rather than relie on someone's interpretation.

He later had a dissillusionment and left the church.

I sent him a message and will post what he replies.

[uruk]

I case anyone still cares. Here's the response from my biblical
scholar friend.:




Well, according to Tom, the literal translation of the 6th commandment can be "slay", "kill" OR "murder." Turns out the literal translation does nothing to tell us what was meant when it was written initially. Sorry. No moral clarity there.

He says the issue of translation is not just which word is chosen to interpret the original Hebrew or Greek or Aramaic, but that each translated Bible on the market today is descended from a whole family of manuscripts. It's appearantly a lot more elastic that your average Fundie on the street would have you believe.

Also, I asked about the best Bible translation for you (the most literal) and he says (believe it or not) that the King James Version is actually the most literal -- he did a lot of checking to make sure of this for himself so he's probably right. He also says you can also read the New American Standard and that's pretty literal (NOT to be confused, he says, with the New American Bible, which is interpretive). I think the New American Standard uses more contemporary language than the King James.

Appearantly, he went on to explain, many people try to discredit the King James Version because:
a) they are scholars and have an agenda in saying the Bible is not to be interpreted literally
b) they are Christians and have an agenda in promoting their own interpretation to support their denomination
c) they are translators that have an agenda in selling their own translation of the Bible

[Cecil]

Some clarification on the "do not kill" rule. http://www.theonion.com/onion3734/god_clarifies_dont_kill.html

Responding to recent events on Earth, God, the omniscient creator-deity worshipped by billions of followers of various faiths for more than 6,000 years, angrily clarified His longtime stance against humans killing each other Monday. "I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you'd get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important," said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. "I guess I figured I'd left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?" "But somehow, it all gets twisted around and, next thing you know, somebody's spouting off some nonsense about, 'God says I have to kill this guy, God wants me to kill that guy, it's God's will,'" God continued. "It's not God's will, all right? News flash: 'God's will' equals 'Don't murder people.'""Why would you think I'd want anything else? Humans don't need religion or God as an excuse to kill each other—you've been doing that without any help from Me since you were freaking apes!" God said. "The whole point of believing in God is to have a higher standard of behavior. How obvious can you get?"

[UnrepentantSinner]

If you consult an on-line Strong's Condordance and check the word used in Exodus 20:13 the connotation is clearly murder.

http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/words/1065156979-5126.html

There's no reason why after all these years of pulling out this old dried out rotten Chestnut for people like Randi to fallaciously be pointing out the supposed contradiction between this commandment and capital punishment.

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by tracer
In the Commentary from 5-Sept-2003 (http://www.randi.org/jr/090503.html), Randi made the following comment about the Sixth Commandment:

Allow me to be about the millionth guy to point out that the phrasing "thou shalt not kill" is only the phrasing of the King James Translation. Other translations often render that sentence as "do not murder", which doesn't include executions.

Or war, or avenging the honor of your sister Dinah, or getting rid of Amalekites, etc, etc.

In general killing unpleasant foreigners is OK (or in some cases required).

It really only applies to fellow Hebrews and approved "alien residents".

Actually, when you think about it, those are not such unreasonable exceptions. None of that "turn the other cheek" nonsense of that silly other fellow. :p

[DrMatt]

Originally posted by WildCat
Also, in the Old Testament this commandment only refers to killing other Jews. There's plenty of passages where the Israelites eagerly slaughter other tribes, and God even offers guidelines on the booty they should collect from such slaughter. I believe the All-Mighty One even demands human sacrafices for Himself.

The actual Hebrew, in any case, is a very short admonition without any of these details.

[uruk]

But we are god's creation. Whay can't he just slaughter us whenever he sees fit? Who are we to argue with him? He has prophets to tell us what he wants us to do, So what's wrong with some prophets who do the slautering for him too.

We are his toys. If he wants to break us, what can we do about it.

Logical thinking brought to you by the prophets who slaughter in his name.

[Skeptic]

1). The sixth commandment is "lo tirzach": a command. It literally means "do not murder". "Tirzach" is the second person, present, imperative active of "retzach". Almost always, either in biblical or modern hebrew, the word means "murder"--as in deliberate, wrongful killing.

Virtually the only case when it means "slay" or "kill" in the OT is in the legal expression "rotzea'ch be'shgaga"--literally, "a murderer by mistake"--which refers to what today we would call "involuntary manslaughter". This is a special case, however; the very fact that the word "in mistake" are added means that usually murder is intentional.

The word is NEVER used for ANY other kind of intentional killing except murder. Whenever the bible describes, for example, a soldier killed in a war, or someone killed for a sin, other words are used.

The commandment, therefore, refers to murder--one cannot be commanded not to have an accident that kills someone, which is a derivative sense of the word anyway. One can only be commanded not to do something intentionally; and therefore one is commanded "not to murder".

2). The "Murder" of the commandment does NOT apply only to killing other jews. While the bible is far from egalitarian, and does command holy way against certain nations, it by no means allows killing of foreigners qua them being foreigners. If one kills a foreigner not as an act of war, one is a murderer.

[Abdul Alhazred]

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861)
The Latest Decalogue (http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem487.html)
-------------------------------------------------

Thou shalt have one God only; who
Would be at the expense of two?

No graven images may be
Worshipp'd, except the currency:

Swear not at all; for, for thy curse
Thine enemy is none the worse:

At church on Sunday to attend
Will serve to keep the world thy friend:

Honour thy parents; that is, all
From whom advancement may befall:

Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive
Officiously to keep alive:

Do not adultery commit;
Advantage rarely comes of it:

Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,
When it's so lucrative to cheat:

Bear not false witness; let the lie
Have time on its own wings to fly:

Thou shalt not covet; but tradition
Approves all forms of competition.

:p