The ten commandments - I'd rather not use them this way

[Joy]

God set up capital punishment long before the Mosaic Law. When Noah and his family came out of the Ark, God's instructions were:
And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. Gen 9:5,6

And the Lord worded it pretty strongly here, that murderers were to be executed:
So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. Num. 35:33

[Franklin]

They had jails in OT times too.

I should have been clearer. In OT times among the Israelites when the laws were given, there were no jails. Big cities had jails, so Egypt had jails. Israel (Judah) also had jails later. I guess they became big enough to build jails at the time of Solomon. But there is no discussion in the OT of how jails should be used, so the impact of jails on punishment is left up to us to work out.

[Ken]

God set up capital punishment long before the Mosaic Law. When Noah and his family came out of the Ark, God's instructions were:
And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. Gen 9:5,6

And the Lord worded it pretty strongly here, that murderers were to be executed:
So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. Num. 35:33

If we already had Old Testament law, what was the point of Jesus and the New Testament?

[Franklin]

God set up capital punishment long before the Mosaic Law. When Noah and his family came out of the Ark, God's instructions were:
And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. Gen 9:5,6

And the Lord worded it pretty strongly here, that murderers were to be executed:
So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. Num. 35:33

My answers to these things aren't very Christian, so I will be interested to see how Christians who oppose capital punishment respond. But I will give my non-Christian responses here.

Many rules changed after Genesis. The reason is simply that Genesis was about individuals, not communities, so rules about how to threat members of one's community aren't there. For example the Israelites aren't supposed to lie to each other, but Jacob, founder of Israel, lied to almost everyone. The prohibition against murder in the Ten Commandments is a rule within the community. Gen 9:5,6 refers to people who are not in the same community.

Num. 35:34 explains the reason for Num. 35:33, namely to prevent the land from becoming "unclean". But what could "unclean" mean here? I see two meanings - culturally unclean and genetically unclean. If you let evil people remain in society, then the culture suffers. And if evil people reproduce, then the gene pool suffers. So as with the prohibition against eating shellfish, it is the principle that matters. The principle in Num. 35:33-34 is addressed if the person is removed culturally and genetically from the population, which prison (without conjugal visits) accomplishes.

[Josh]

My view is that God established certain laws with Noah that universally apply to humans, and nobody is excused from them, not even Christians. An example of this is not to murder other people.

[ohio jones]

I should have been clearer. In OT times among the Israelites when the laws were given, there were no jails. Big cities had jails, so Egypt had jails. Israel (Judah) also had jails later. I guess they became big enough to build jails at the time of Solomon. But there is no discussion in the OT of how jails should be used, so the impact of jails on punishment is left up to us to work out.

However, the OT does discuss a form of voluntary incarceration in terms of the cities of refuge.

[Ken]

My view is that God established certain laws with Noah that universally apply to humans, and nobody is excused from them, not even Christians. An example of this is not to murder other people.

Every nation on earth has prohibitions on murder. Why are non-Christian nations like Japan and Korea so much better at following it than majority Christian nations like the US?

[Josh]

My view is that God established certain laws with Noah that universally apply to humans, and nobody is excused from them, not even Christians. An example of this is not to murder other people.

Every nation on earth has prohibitions on murder. Why are non-Christian nations like Japan and Korea so much better at following it than majority Christian nations like the US?

Maybe Japanese and Korean people commit fewer murders than American people do. If you like we could "drill down" into specific American states. For example, PA's murder rate is 1/7th that of Louisiana's.

[Ken]

My view is that God established certain laws with Noah that universally apply to humans, and nobody is excused from them, not even Christians. An example of this is not to murder other people.

Every nation on earth has prohibitions on murder. Why are non-Christian nations like Japan and Korea so much better at following it than majority Christian nations like the US?

Maybe Japanese and Korean people commit fewer murders than American people do. If you like we could "drill down" into specific American states. For example, PA's murder rate is 1/7th that of Louisiana's.

Of course the Japanese commit less murders. The question is why are majority Christian nations like the US more murderous than non Christian nations like Japan? Are Christians themselves more murderous? Or are they just way worse at building moral and nonviolent societies?

[Josh]

Of course the Japanese commit less murders. The question is why are majority Christian nations like the US more murderous than non Christian nations like Japan? Are Christians themselves more murderous? Or are they just way worse at building moral and nonviolent societies?

I don't believe in the concept of a state religion, thus the idea of saying there is a "Christian nation" doesn't make sense.

If you want a short answer, the answer is that most of what is called "Christianity" in America is nothing of the sort; specifically, it is a Christianity that seems to be OK with killing and is based on some very non-Christian ideas. Such as it being OK to kill an unborn baby, or an enemy soldier, and so forth. (Strangely enough the people who are OK with that are all worked up about how evil capital punishment is.)

If you would re-do your analysis and cover, say, Amish and Hutterites, you would probably find the murder rate to be quite low...