fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. (Leviticus 24:20, ESV)
I get the impression that most people think eye for an eye Old Testament justice is primitive and severe. But the lex talionis, as it is called, comes to us in a complex narrative that provides a strong foundation for equitable justice for all.
Part of what drives the story in Leviticus is the guilty man's mixed ethnicity. He is only half-Israelite. The implied question from the camp is, "what kind of justice does this guy get, a guy that doesn't fit into the categories we have?" God tells them justice is the same. Even a sojourner in the land should get the same treatment as the Israelite. This is important because human nature has a tendency to want to exact more from the guilty than the guilty have done, especially if they are different from us. And eye for an eye explains that NO MORE than x shall be done. On the flip side we also see a human tendency to judge on behalf of the powerful over the weak. Eye for an eye reserves justice for the weak against the powerful. The elite don’t get a free pass, NO LESS than x shall be done.
We don’t see this kind of justice in our day and age. Our penal system is a mess. And most efforts in recent years to fix it have only made it worse.
We tend to ignore this problem because the system does, by-and-large, remove undesirables from the camp of the power class. Our system protects our day-to-day experience. We consider this justice. And we will probably continue to do so as long as it works for us.
Keeping the camp safe and pure is a key part of justice. This is in the Leviticus story too. Injustice isn’t only between the guilty and the victim, the camp is also an interested party. But we have made the camp into an idol, the other parties of injustice get sacrificed at its altar.
A victim’s hope for equal justice is reduced to how much jail time the guilty receives. And even then it isn’t the sentence of a work-free life of medical benefits, education, libraries, 3 meals a day, and gym membership that satisfies the victim. Victims can hope for no real justice. They are only left with the disturbing temptation to hope new crimes are visited upon the guilty during their stay.
Which brings us to the criminals. All sentences are the same - incarceration. The only difference between eye justice and tooth justice is time (and sentences are inconsistent). Again, unofficially, “justice” is served at the depraved hands of the community of the incarcerated. This, of course, is no true justice.
Our current system only serves one element. The guilty party and the victim are run through a disturbing charade so that the power class can pat itself on the back for its well ordered and clean society. It praises itself for its humane system - evolved beyond the primitive nature of yesteryear. Yet righteousness is not to be found here. We hate to punish so we pretend to rehabilitate. But we know pseudo-rehabilitation doesn’t serve justice so we punish anyway (with our hands clean) by quarantining criminals in a sub-human thunderdome. We end up doing none of the things we say we prize and all of the things we say we loathe, and we do it with a smile because it works for us.
My only real point of contention on your post is the weight placed on the preservation of 'the camp'. I think this is a slippery slope (as you noted we have made the camp an idol). The tendency would be to remove those who 'don't fit' within the camp so as to preserve the purity of the camp. There are plenty of examples in history of how this was conducted as a means of genocide. I don't feel that society, or 'the camp', is ever party to a crime.
ReplyDeleteI do completely agree that we are a one trick pony with regard to justice. Every parent knows that each child is different and to communicate the message of discipline one needs to speak a language the child will understand. A stern look to one child may carry the same weight as a day in timeout to another.
If the camp doesn't matter then why even have a justice system in the first place? The victim should take care of justice himself.
ReplyDeletebecause the victim may be unable (physically or mentally) to administer justice. Or they may seek revenge. It is better that the arbiter of justice be a 3rd party.
ReplyDeletewhy? who cares?
ReplyDelete