Eye-for-an-eye

IN her ‘Last Word’ column (Irish Examiner, Nov 29), Suzanne Harrington rightly condemns the error of fundamentalism, which takes a literal meaning where it is not intended.

So it is rather droll when she does much the same thing herself. She interprets the biblical eye-for-an-eye as being vindictive, when it was intended to be restrictive. This teaching was for times and climes in which law and order had to be upheld by individuals and families; by clans and tribes. There were no gardaí.

In such circumstances, there was the temptation to escalate violence in the name of justice. So Moses limited the retribution which could be exacted to “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But in civilised society today, this teaching does not of course have the same force.