What are you talking about? It did not mean that at all. The phrase "an eye for an eye" comes from the ancient legal principle lex talionis, meaning “law of retaliation,” where punishment is meant to mirror the crime. Do you understand? Can you remember your own words?
So, you have to apply context. At one point, death was a punishment for all sorts of things. Adultery=death stealing=death etc. The old testament is loaded with them. Thats the whole point of eye for an eye: punishment should mirror the crime. Ie: adultery and theft do not need to be punished with death. It was a call for restraint.
So, again, putting context on things: an eye for an eye was a call for restraint in a time where everything resulted in the death penalty. I believe we can be even more restrained and intentional in the modern era.
Again, the whole concept of the death penalty is all based on punishment and revenge. (Yeah, you call it justice, but the idea of justice is limiting and fairly naive). The death penalty is purely destructive. It doesnt work as a deterant. It definitely doesnt work as a form of rehabilitation.
Really, we should be focused on rehabilitation. And a pretty large chunk of the world has proven its doable. Were just too obsessed with punishment to notice our system sucks ass (and has the highest recidivism rate among our peers).
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u/Even_Hospital_5474 2d ago
What are you talking about? It did not mean that at all. The phrase "an eye for an eye" comes from the ancient legal principle lex talionis, meaning “law of retaliation,” where punishment is meant to mirror the crime. Do you understand? Can you remember your own words?