{"id":281,"date":"2011-04-01T18:20:10","date_gmt":"2011-04-01T22:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/?p=281"},"modified":"2011-04-01T18:20:10","modified_gmt":"2011-04-01T22:20:10","slug":"which-is-it-eye-for-an-eye-or-turn-the-other-cheek-banned-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/?p=281","title":{"rendered":"Which is it? Eye for an Eye or turn the Other Cheek? (BANNED QUESTIONS)"},"content":{"rendered":"

How do we reconcile the Old Testament command for vengeance (eye for an eye) with Jesus\u0092 command to turn the other cheek and love our enemies?<\/strong><\/em>(Order BANNED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE BIBLE<\/a>, now available at Chalice Press<\/a> and other booksellers.)
\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Becky Garrison: <\/strong><\/p>\n

Our hatred of the \u0093other\u0094 is nothing new. At the time of Jesus\u0092 birth, the Samaritans and the Jews had been at each other\u0092s throats for literally hundreds of years. At the time when Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25\u009637), the concept of a Samaritan coming to the rescue of a Jew would have been considered just as incongruous as if, say, a Focus on the Family follower marched in the New York City LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) Pride Parade today.<\/p>\n

But as the parable made clear, the Samaritan was considered the Jewish man\u0092s \u0093neighbor.\u0094 By implication, that means the definition of \u0093neighbor\u0094 has to be expanded to include all of God\u0092s children, including those of different social classes, races, creeds and political affiliations. When Jesus commanded His followers to \u0093go and do likewise\u0094 by following the example of the Good Samaritan, he challenged the early church to look beyond its comfort zone. His disciples were required to obey the Greatest Commandment by showing His love and kindness to all <\/em>people, because everyone was their \u0093neighbor.\u0094<\/p>\n

The early Christian church cut across the various hierarchical lines that divided people. It did not seek to dominate the political establishment or maintain the status quo; rather its goal was to spread the universal love of Christ. In doing that, it transformed the world.<\/p>\n

Jarrod McKenna:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had just finished running a workshop for Greenpeace, The Wilderness Society and an anti-nuclear organization on the history and power of nonviolent direct action where I had explored and trained people in the transformative nonviolence of Gandhi, MLK and to the surprise of many gathered, Jesus. Afterwards a well-respected activist approached me away from others and asked with tears in their eyes, \u0093Why was this Jesus not found in my experience of church?\u0094<\/p>\n

This question goes to the heart of the Gospel. To the heart of mission. To the heart of discipleship. Why is it that people can\u0092t find the hope of the world in our churches? I think it\u0092s directly connected to the lack of schooling in letting God\u0092s love through us by \u0093loving our enemies.\u0094 To be merciful as The Triune God is merciful. Fierce Calvary-shaped love is how God has saved us and its how we are to witness to our salvation. Grace is both how God has saved us and the pattern of kingdom living the Holy Spirit empowers us for.<\/p>\n

\u0093Eye for an eye\u0094 is not about vengeance but the limitation of retaliation. In Christ, violence is not only restrained but transformed. On the cross God does not overcome evil with evil but with good (Rom. 12:21). There is nothing passive about Jesus turning the other cheek in the face of injustice (John 18:23). To turn the other cheek is to practice the provocative peace that embodies the healing justice of the Kingdom that exposing injustice with the presence of Love (Col.2:15).<\/p>\n

We don\u0092t need to reconcile vengeance or violence with loving our enemies. Instead we need to be open to the Holy Spirit\u0092s empowerment to witness to God reconciling the world to Godself through the nonviolent Messiah, Jesus.<\/p>\n

Rebecca Bowman Woods:<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know and Doesn\u0092t<\/em>, Stephen Prothero shares the story of a 1995 Colorado murder trial. During deliberations, one juror pulled out his Bible and quoted Leviticus 24, the \u0093eye for an eye\u0094 passage that concludes with \u0093He that killeth a man, he shall be put to death.\u0094 After the juror instructed his fellow jurors to go home and prayerfully consider this passage, they voted unanimously for the death penalty.<\/p>\n

The state Supreme Court ordered a new trial, ruling that jurors were not allowed to consult the Bible. Some Christians, led by Colorado-based Focus on the Family, protested the higher court\u0092s ruling. Perhaps rightly so \u0097 can a court really prevent people of faith from including scripture in their decision-making?<\/p>\n

But the real injustice, in Prothero\u0092s opinion, was that the jurors failed to consider the rest of the Bible, particularly Jesus\u0092 views on retaliation in Matthew 5:38-42.<\/p>\n

\u0093There are very few passages from the Hebrew Bible that are explicitly refuted in the New Testament, but Leviticus 24:20-21 (echoed in Exodus 21:23-25 and Deuteronomy 19:21) is one of them,\u0094 writes Prothero, a professor of religious studies at Boston University and a staunch advocate of religious literacy.<\/p>\n

Christians should rarely fall back on the \u0091New Testament supersedes the Old Testament\u0092 argument. In Matthew 5, Jesus warns that he has not \u0093come to abolish the law or the prophets\u0094 but to fulfill it. He teaches an ethic that \u0093embraces and extends\u0094 the law in several instances, and refutes it in a few.<\/p>\n

Amy Greenbaum, a friend who is in the process of becoming an ordained Reformed Jewish rabbi, says the \u0091eye for an eye\u0092 text in Leviticus 24 would not have been taken literally, even in ancient times.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kathy Escobar:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I started seeking God on my own when I was a little girl, apart from my family who were not Christians.\u00a0 I can’t explain it, really; I was always drawn to Jesus but couldn’t quite make sense of the Old Testament and a lot of the crazy things that were in there–whole communities being wiped out, God’s vengeance being poured out left and right.\u00a0 I tried to skip over those parts and somehow erase them from my mind and just focus on Jesus because that was a lot more comforting.<\/p>\n

Later, as I began to mature in my faith, I realized I needed to wrestle with this disparity.\u00a0 I admit, I still do. I rest on the new order that Jesus created through the incarnation, turning the old ways upside down.\u00a0 I think the contrast is important; the radical difference between vengeance in the Old and New Testament makes God’s point.\u00a0 Jesus changes everything, teaching what the Kingdom now<\/em> means.<\/p>\n

The Sermon on the Mount clearly sets the stage for this new way that completely demolishes the idea of “an eye for an eye.” I don’t think I have to pick apart all the reasons why the Old Testament contains certain stories or examples that are utterly confusing and seemingly contrary to God’s heart for people. I try to rest on the reality that through the gospels, all that changed.\u00a0\u00a0 The commands shifted, the law got summed up, and the Kingdom principles Jesus taught were going to be much harder to apply than the old laws by a long shot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How do we reconcile the Old Testament command for vengeance (eye for an eye) with Jesus\u0092 command to turn the other cheek and love our enemies?(Order BANNED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE BIBLE, now available at Chalice Press and other booksellers.) Becky Garrison: Our hatred of the \u0093other\u0094 is nothing new. At the time of Jesus\u0092 birth, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,42,48,11,19,10,37,1,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}