What exactly is meant by the 6th commandment, Deuteronomy 5:17, “You shall not murder” (NIV translation)?
Yes, the bible is full of contradictions, as you’ve pointed out… I had to laugh at the use of “malice aforethought” in the NIV translation — that is a modern term, coined during the 20th century and used in legal language in the US. It’s absolutely not in the bible, and it would have to be a real stretch to translate ancient hebrew using that term. Talk about making the bible fit preconceived notions…! The wording in the 6th commandment doesn’t justify translating it as “murder.” The wording there is “kill.” Murder (the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought) is a much more modern concept. Peace.
The Mosaic Law is inconsistent and full of very strange things. Christians tend to pick and choose, they decide what they believe and then go through the Old Testament to find backup, but if you point out something in the OT they don’t believe they say that the OT was made obsolete by Jesus. For instance, they point to the ban on homosexuality and say ‘Hey, it’s in the Bible! We have to believe it! No choice in the matter!’ But point out where, in Leviticus, it says that disobedient children must be put to death and they’ll say ‘Oh, I know God doesn’t really want us to do that!’ I think it’s most reasonable to believe that the original intent of the Mosaic Law was for the Hebrews after the Exodus, a people without a nation (like the Kurds today, or the Basque). The Law was meant to define them, to give them a cultural identity. Nations with governments–democratic or autocratic or whatever–tend to develop laws of their own that are more complex, more suited to actual conditions, and a
