Thou Shalt Not Kill^H^H^H^HMurder

[pne]

While meta-moderating on use Perl, I came across an interesting journal entry which discussed whether the sixth commandment condemns killing (i.e. all taking of life) or murdering (i.e. unlawful taking of life).

I had also been taught that the meaning was closer to "murder" (though the explanation I had heard was that in KJV times, ca. 1600, the meaning of "kill" was narrower and corresponded better to what we call "murder" these days, with the general-purpose shedding-of-life verb being "slay").

Of particular interest, I felt, was one comment in that discussion where jdavidb talks about kill, murder, and translations, and points to a Google search he did as well as one of the search results, which is a document by (as far as I can tell) a Jewish scholar illuminating the situation and claiming that the misconception was far older than KJV times and was already present in Jerome's Vulgate.

Comments

[neo-rowen.livejournal.com]

Very interesting.

[timwi.livejournal.com]

I found it particularly amusing to read how many people don't realise the Bible was not originally written in English. Just how much more ignorant can you get? :)

[pne.livejournal.com]

Yes. "If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" Or who think that people said "thou" and "thee" in Palestine. Or that modern translations are necessarily worse than the KJV when they disagree in the wording.

Random old journal entry link: "John the Methodist"? (http://www.livejournal.com/users/pne/9372.html).