Eye for an Eye, a Tooth for a...

As shown in Leviticus 24:19-20 "Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered."

My bible study books says that this "law of retaliation" was not created to condone vengeance but limit it. So if you hit some girl across the face, she could only hit you across the face and nothing further. It was meant to prevent these fights from spirally out of control. I never heard that perspective before. This will be important to keep in mind and contrast with the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament.

Bible as Social Doctrine

That title sums up Leviticus. There are so many rules and instructions on what to do and how to live and how to punish those who break any of the rules, it's too much.

I don't think it's possible to actually live by the book. It must be a very limited life. I'm glad I live in modern times where I don't need to wash myself and not be touched during my monthly. Maybe that was a good thing, they put in those provisions to protect the woman during her bitchy week.

Questionable Medical Practices!

I really don't like the idea of sequestering sick people, essentially treating them as if they are no longer human. I'm not just talking about leprosy, there were other medical diagnosis just made on a weird thing on the skin. It says if your boil is only skin deep then you are locked away for seven days until it is reexamined. If it hasn't spread you're declared "clean." If not, well then I guess you're thrown away with the leprous people!

So not compassionate, insensitive, i guess that was the times, so scared of these medical issues that they knew very little about. Probably similar to the way people treated those who were HIV+ or had AIDs, before we knew that it could only be spread through blood and certain body fluids.