Eye for an eye - tooth for a tooth ......What's the rest of the passage and what does it mean?
I hear this ALL the time where I live - but few people recite the whole passage.
Do you know it and do you know what it means?
I hear this ALL the time where I live - but few people recite the whole passage.
Do you know it and do you know what it means?
Anonymous
Favorite Answer
I don't know, but what I do know is that Mahatma Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." A tooth for a tooth makes the whole world hungry. Therefore, I imagine an ear for an ear would make the whole world deaf. I don't anyone wins with revenge in the long run. That's why in Albania now there are families feuding over others for revenge. They call them "blood feuds." I studied this in my cultural anthropology class. In the end, nothing is solved.
RevDrD.
This saying comes from the law of the Old Testament and had to do specifically to a man wounding a pregnant womans baby, It is found in the book of Exodus. If a man struck a pregnant woman and harmed the child: an exact duplicate of the babys wounds were to be inflicted back on the attacker as punishment, ie. an eye for and eye, wound for wound etc.
Skippy
Isn't this from the Code of Hammurabi?
Oh crap! It is from exodus
The principle of justice that requires punishment equal in kind to the offense (not greater than the offense, as was frequently given in ancient times). Thus, if someone puts out another's eye, one of the offender's eyes should be put out. The principle is stated in the Book of Exodus as “Thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”
Moi
Exd 21:24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
Lev 24:20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him [again].
Deu 19:21 And thine eye shall not pity; [but] life [shall go] for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Mat 5:38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
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The phrase "an eye for an eye", Hebrew: עין תחת עין, ayin tahat ayin, is a quotation from Exodus 21:23–27 in which a person who has taken the eye of another in a fight is instructed to give his own eye in compensation.
Exodus 21:23-25 (English Standard Version)
"But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."
At the root of this principle is that one of the purposes of the law is to provide equitable retaliation for an offended party. It defined and restricted the extent of retaliation in the laws of the Old Testament (e.g., Ex 21:23–25, Lv 24:18–20, Dt 19:21).
The term lex talionis does not always and only refer to literal eye-for-an-eye codes of justice (see rather mirror punishment) but applies to the broader class of legal systems that specify formulaic penalties for specific crimes, which are thought to be fitting in their severity. Some propose that this was at least in part intended to prevent excessive punishment at the hands of either an avenging private party or the state. The most common expression of lex talionis is "an eye for an eye", but other interpretations have been given as well. Legal codes following the principle of lex talionis have one thing in common: prescribed 'fitting' counter punishment for an offense. In the famous legal code written by Hammurabi, the principle of exact reciprocity is very clearly used. For example, if a person caused the death of another person's child, the killer's own child would be put to death (Hammurabi's code, ¶230).
Under the right conditions, such as the ability for all actors to participate in an iterative fashion, the "eye for an eye" punishment system has a mathematical basis in the Tit for tat game theory strategy.
The simplest example is the "eye for an eye" principle. In that case, the rule was that punishment must be exactly equal to the crime. Conversely, the twelve tables of Rome merely prescribed particular penalties for particular crimes. The Anglo-Saxon legal code substituted payment of wergild for direct retribution: a particular person's life had a fixed value, derived from his social position; any homicide was compensated by paying the appropriate wergild, regardless of intent. Under the British Common Law, successful plaintiffs were entitled to repayment equal to their loss (in monetary terms). In the modern tort law system, this has been extended to translate non-economic losses into money as well.
References in books and popular culture:
* Mahatma Gandhi used the phrase "An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind", in reference to his Satyagraha philosophy of nonviolent resistance.
* Martin Luther King Jr. used this phrase (probably inspired by Gandhi) by changing it to "An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind", to show what violence between races cause.
* Lex Talionis was mentioned by Morgan Freeman's character "The Boss", in Lucky Number Slevin, the 2006 hit crime thriller film written by Jason Smilovic.
* The Greek philosopher Socrates does not agree with this saying. He is quoted saying "One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him."
* In an English episode of Death Note, Light punches L in the face, and L soon kicks Light in return, saying "an eye for an eye, my friend".
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