Death Penalty and The Bible Discussion

Major world religions have assorted stands on the ethics and morality of the death penalty. These perspectives are mainly based on the religious teachings from religious books, such as the Quran and the bible, which has various incidences of offenders being publicly executed. As indicated in the Hebrew bible, which is the source for the Old Testament, there are various crimes that should receive the death penalty as retribution. These Jewish laws were considered to be divine as they formed a core part of the covenant between Yahweh (their creator) and the children of Israel. The Christians did not revise the bible when they adopted the Hebrew bible as their tenet. Neither Christians as the body nor Christ as the messiah redacted or revised the laws since they edited the Jewish divine law texts.

In the Old Testament, the crimes that merited capital punishment were mostly the criminal activities against God, and to a lesser extent, the sexual transgressions. Important to note is that the Old Testament does not refer to child abuse or rape as sexual transgressions. They viewed masturbation and adultery as the worst form of capital crimes owing to the reason that it challenged the moral issues. In fact, Christians believe that disobeying God’s command was a form of a special capital crime. An example is the punishment that God gave to Lot’s wife when she looked back when escaping from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. God turned her into a pillar of salt. As well, Onan was also slain for his wickedness. When Er, his elder brother died, Onan was required to perform his brother’s duty by siring children. Rather than impregnating her, he spilled his semen on the ground because he knew that any child born of his brother’s wife wou...

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