BIBLE TEACHING ABOUT MURDER

Anonymous

(Investigator 203, 2022 March)


MURDER CONDEMNED

The Bible condemns murder and predicts a terrible eternity for unrepentant murderers:

But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death. (Revelation 21:8)


DEFINITIONS and STATISTICS

The Global Study on Homicide by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reports that 464,000 people worldwide died as a result of intentional homicide in 2017. The majority of victims (80%) were men, except in domestic violence where the majority were women.

Intentional homicide is "unlawful death purposely inflicted on a person by another person". Therefore it presumably includes murder (intentional killing due to malice) and voluntary manslaughter (= killing without premeditation such as in the heat of passion).

In most years more people die by intentional homicide than in war. In 2017 the 464,000 victims significantly exceeded the "89,000 killed in armed conflicts." (Wikipedia)

Massacres of captives and civilians during war is also murder. And genocide (deliberate extinguishing of an ethnic group) often includes murder as the main method.

It's unclear whether intentional homicide deaths statistics include fatalities from terrorist attacks. In 2020 about 29,000 people were killed in 10,000 terrorist events. From 2006 to 2020 more than 320,000 people were killed by terrorists.


EXAMPLES of MURDERS

58 victims died in 2017 when a professional gambler smuggled assault-style rifles to the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas (USA) and fired into crowds at a music festival. (Hoyl 2019)

In Britain a 22-year old man who identified with the Incel [involuntary celibate] movement [in which men who fail to form relationships blame women] killed five people and finally shot himself. (Sunday Mail, August 15, 2021, p. 56)

Tasmania had its Port Arthur massacre in 1996 when a gunman murdered 35 people. He remains in maximum security "dim, pathetic, angry" and fat, "spending his days alone shuffling back and forth from his cell to the canteen". (Shaw 2022)

In Melbourne, in March 2020, a man stabbed five people. The fifth victim, before he died, called police who arrived and shot the murderer dead. (Varga 2020)

In Lebanon an intellectual who opposed Hezbollah was shot dead in his car. Gamel-Gabriel (2021) writes: "Lokman Slim, 58, was a leading secular voice in the Shia community … the latest in a long line of Lebanon's political killings…"

In Scotland 16 students and their teacher were shot dead in 1996. In the US 20 children and six teachers were shot dead in the "Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting" in 2012.

In New Zealand a gunman from Australia killed 51 Muslims at two mosques in March, 2019.

Journalism is dangerous when journalists expose political corruption, drug cartels, or criminals. Five have died in Mexico this year to mid February. In 2006 Anna Politkovskaya, a critic of Vladimir Putin and Russia's war in Chechnya, was shot dead in Moscow on Putin's birthday. In Malta, 2017, a 53-year-old journalist was killed by a car bomb apparently because she had "accused Maltese politicians and officials of corruption" and "exposed the tax havens of the rich". (Willan 2021)

In October 2018 Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul (Turkey) to get a document. Khashoggi was a critic of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia over failure to democratize the Kingdom and over the war in Yemen, and had fled to the USA in 2017. Inside the consulate 15 Saudi agents from Arabia suffocated Khashoggi and dismembered him. (Smith 2021; Sunday Mail 2021; The Weekend Australian 2021)

UN News reported that 62 journalists were killed in 2020 "just for doing their jobs" and a total of 1200 between 2006 and 2020.

Creighton (2022) reports: "The leader of Islamic State has blown himself up, and at least a dozen others, during a night-time raid by US counter-terrorism forces in Syria..." The ISIS chief killed himself, his wife, his three children, and other people to avoid capture. A previous ISIS boss, who appointed himself "Caliph", did the same in 2019, blew himself up killing himself and his children.

Further back in history is the massacre of 22 Australian Army nurses on an island east of Sumatra in February 1942. The nurses, survivors from a ship sunk by Japanese aircraft, were sexually assaulted by Japanese troops, then marched into the sea and machine-gunned. (Crouch 2022)

The Nazis killed millions of civilians, and the Mongols 10% of world population mainly by massacre.


THE BIBLE

Jesus calls the Devil "a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44) because the Devil, according to the Bible, convinced the first humans to disobey God and this introduced death into the human race. (Romans 5:12-17; Genesis 3) The first murderer among humans was Cain, a son of Adam and Eve. (Genesis 4:1-16)

Prior to Noah's Flood "the earth was filled with violence" (Genesis 6:11-13), implying a lot of murders occurred.

Genesis 9:6 allowed the execution of murderers: "Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person's blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind."

The comment about God's "own image" may either imply that innocent people are morally in God's image (Genesis 1:27) and to murder them is therefore an attack on God, or that humans do God's work when they execute murderers.

The Law of Moses includes the Ten Commandments of which Number 6 says: "You shall not murder." (Exodus 20:13)

Murder is intentionally killing someone due to enmity. Numbers 35:16-21 gives examples of killing with a stone, wooden weapon, and pushing or hitting with the hand. Death inflicted unintentionally was not murder. (35:22-23) However, if a person's negligence led to another's preventable death, the negligent person was to be executed. (Exodus 21:2-31)

A murdered person's relative could become an "avenger of blood" with the right to kill the murderer. With accidental deaths the killer had to flee to a designated "city of refuge" and live there until the current high priest died, otherwise the "avenger" could execute him also. (Numbers 35:9-15)

The Law of Moses was for Israel (Psalm 147:19-20), and therefore ceased to apply literally when ancient Israel perished. The underlying principles, however, are still valid such as murder being evil and requiring retribution, and the distinction between accidental and deliberate killing. Retribution by the next-of-kin apparently discontinued when formal government with law enforcement got established.

Biblical commands against murder today include:

There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family. (Proverbs 6:16-19)

We must not be like Cain who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. (I John 3:12)

But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, a criminal, or even as a mischief maker. (I Peter 4:15)


DISCUSSION

The Bible says: "One who justifies the wicked and one who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD." (Proverbs 17:15) When the victims are innocent this is what murderers do — justify themselves but "condemn the righteous".

Biblical ethics consist of rules and wisdom that promote life, health, prosperity, peace, joy, sound mind and pleasant relationships, but murder destroys all of these benefits.

God, according to the New Testament, forgives even murder and inflicts no punishment in the final judgment if the murderer "repented" — i.e. if he acknowledged he did wrong, is remorseful, and  sought forgiveness.

Jesus' trial was a farce and his execution equivalent to murder, but the people responsible could choose to "repent". (Acts 2:23, 36-38; 3:14-19)

The murderers in our opening quote (Revelation 21:8), get thrown into the "lake of fire" because:

And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their fornication or their thefts. (Revelation 9:20-21)

Why are unrepentant murderers punished so severely? Why do doers of less serious evils seemingly deserve the same treatment? Is eternal conscious punishment scientifically possible? The answers are reserved for a future article.


REFERENCES:

Creighton, A. ISIS chief blows himself up in US raid, The Weekend Australian February 5-6, 2022, p. 13

Crouch, B. Secret torment hero took to her grave, Sunday Mail,  February 13, 2022, pp 28-29

Gamal-Gabriel, T. 'Voice of courage' who held Hezbollah to account shot dead, The Weekend Australian, February 6-7, 2021, p. 10

Hoyle, B. $1.2bn to settle Vegas shooting, The Weekend Australian, October 5, 2019, p.11

Shaw, A. Alone In Hell, Sunday Mail, January 23, 2022, p. 23

Smith, S. Prince owned jets that flew Khashoggi hit squad, The Weekend Australian, February 27-28, 2021, p. 9

The Sunday Mail, Saudis: US lies about us, February 28, 2021, p. 61

The Weekend Australian Magazine, February 13-14, 2021, p. 17

Unger's Bible Dictionary, Paperback edition1983. Entries on: "Blood, Avenger or Revenger of" and "Cities of Refuge"

Varga, R. The Weekend Australian, March 14-15, 2020, p. 9

Willan, P. The Weekend Australian, July 31-August 1, 2021, p. 13

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Anna_Politkovskaya

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicide

https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/11/1104622

https://www.statista.com/statistics/202871/number-of-fatalities-by-terrorist-attacks-worldwide/

https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/geneocide.shtml

https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/gsh/Booklet1.pdf


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