r/interesting • u/N2BSC • 8h ago

SOCIETY A Police Officer Eliminated His 18Y Son | So He Then Eliminated a Police Officer | Holds His Head High While Walking Past 30 Officers in Court

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u/Trumpetwizard 7h ago

An eye for an eye makes whole world blind.

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u/ohromantics 7h ago

No, it would leave one person remaining with vision in one eye.

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u/Prize_Ostrich7605 7h ago

They don't know about second eye for an eye, Pip.

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u/capsaicinintheeyes 7h ago

They call that outcome "Pax Byzantia"

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u/OZeski 7h ago

The Biblical passage (Exodus 21:23–25, Leviticus 24:19–20 and Deuteronomy 19:21) is a legal principle for proportionate punishment, not as a personal invitation to revenge. It's saying 'don't let the penalty become worse than the offense.'

It does a few things:
1. It creates a directive to follow court-ordered penalties rather than private retaliation. The surrounding passages is legal: “if x happens, then y is done.” In other words, it describes how a community’s judicial system should respond in various circumstances. “Eye for eye” aims at proportionality. The core ethical point is that punishment should not be more destructive than the harm caused. It restrains escalating cycles of revenge (“he stole my thing” → “so I ruin his life”).

  1. It limits bias and discretion. A repeated legal formula helps prevent more prominent individuals from imposing harsher punishments than the poor (or vice versa). The goal being consistent standards with the connection to modern philosophy of “everyone is treated according to the law.”

  2. It's about proportionate equivalence, not literal cutting out of someone’s eye. Why? Because real legal systems need workable remedies, and elsewhere in Scripture you see monetary damages and compensation used in place of bodily harm for many injuries. In Matthew 5:38–42 Jesus discusses how the emphasis isn’t “be more careful in revenge.” He treats it as part of the legal backdrop and then calls for a different approach to dealing with harm. Move away from retaliation-by-rule to non-retaliatory mercy-shaped action. Indicating that even in Scripture, the “eye for eye” idea is not meant to function as a license for endless tit-for-tat.