If There Is No God: The Battle Over Who Defines Good and Evil by Dennis Prager - 5

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in his image did God make man.

—GENESIS 9:6

Taking the life of a murderer is another Noahide Law—a law binding on all humanity. Indeed, the Torah considers the death penalty for (premeditated) murder so essential to creating a civilized society, it is one of the first three commandments God gives to mankind.

In the Torah’s view, God deems taking the life of premeditated murderers fundamental to the moral order of society—every society, not just Jewish society. Very few commandments in the Torah are demanded of all people, but the death penalty for murderers is one of those few; it is listed here prior to the existence of the Israelites.

The verse also makes it clear that God expects human beings to take the murderer’s life, providing a direct rejoinder to those who believe that only God is allowed to take human life. But that is obviously not true. Not only are people commanded to execute murderers, but human beings are permitted to kill others in self-defense and when fighting in a just war. The notion that only God can take human life is nowhere stated in the Bible. What is clear is that human beings can kill, but only in morally justifiable circumstances.

In addition, this is one of very few commandments in the Torah accompanied by an explanation: A murderer’s life is to be taken because “in His image did God make man.” We are to take a murderer’s life precisely because human life is uniquely precious. Unlike all other creatures, human beings are created in God’s image.

Opponents of the death penalty argue the very opposite: Precisely because human life is uniquely precious, we should not take the life of even a murderer. But both in the view of the Torah and in terms of simple logic having nothing to do with God or theology, allowing every murderer to keep his life reduces the worth of human life—because it belittles murder.

This is easily demonstrated. Imagine the punishment for murder were the same as the punishment for shoplifting. Everyone would acknowledge this would belittle the seriousness of murder. And when murder is belittled, the worth of human life is cheapened. Society teaches how bad an action is by the punishment it metes out. Only when a society takes the life of a murderer is it announcing in the clearest way possible that murder is the ultimate sin. Keeping every murderer alive makes no such announcement—even if it involves life imprisonment. Life in prison is a harsh punishment—but the murderer, while not free to leave prison, is allowed to keep his life. I have talked to murderers in prison for life; every one of them far prefers imprisonment to death. It is also worth noting, however, that at the largest maximum-security state prison in America—the State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana—I asked about a dozen men convicted of murder if they believed some murderers should be put to death. The majority raised their hands.

Why did Israel, which banned capital punishment, make an exception and execute Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust?

It did so because the Israeli government, judiciary, and the overwhelming majority of Israelis—and, one would hope, the overwhelming majority of mankind—believed that allowing Eichmann to keep his life after having organized the murder of millions of innocent men, women, and children would constitute an injustice of cosmic proportions. They believed, in short, that Eichmann had forfeited his right to life.

But if a person forfeits his right to keep his life after murdering millions, why does he not forfeit the right to keep his life after murdering a hundred people—or, for that matter, one person? Every human is, after all, infinitely precious.

The Torah is preoccupied with justice. And allowing every murderer to keep his life is a cosmic injustice.

Perhaps the following will illustrate this point better than any argument:

On the afternoon of July 23, 2007, in the American town of Cheshire, Connecticut, two men entered the home of a physician, Dr. William Petit. They beat Dr. Petit severely with a baseball bat, tied him up, and dumped him in the family basement. One of the men then raped the doctor’s wife, Jennifer, and the other sexually assaulted their eleven-year-old daughter, Michaela—an assault he photographed with his cell phone. While the men were preoccupied with the females, Dr. Petit managed to escape, but the two men strangled Mrs. Petit to death, tied the two daughters to their beds, doused them with gasoline, and while the girls were still alive, the murderers set fire to the house.

Those opposed to capital punishment believe that those two men have a right to keep their lives. These people believe there is nothing a person can do to deserve to be put to death.

And what about the loved ones of those who are murdered? For the great majority of such people, their suffering is immeasurably increased knowing that the person who murdered their son, daughter, husband, wife, parent, close friend—and who often inflicted unspeakable suffering and unimaginable terror on that person—is alive and being cared for. Putting their loved one’s murderer to death doesn’t bring their loved one back to life, but it does provide some sense of justice.

That is why Dr. Petit, whose life was devoted to saving lives, publicly announced that he wanted the murderers of his wife and daughters put to death. In words addressed to those who oppose capital punishment, he said, “My family got the death penalty, and you want to give murderers life. That is not justice.”

The doctor’s position is the same as the Torah’s.

While it is true there are a number of laws in the Torah whose violation calls for the death penalty, I believe in almost every case, aside from murder, the death penalty is listed in order to show how serious the Torah deems the particular sin, not in order to actually be carried out. In the case of murder, however, the Torah repeatedly emphasizes putting murderers to death is a fundamental moral building block of a decent society. The death penalty for murder is understood as necessary to preserve the sanctity of human life. Precisely because human beings are created in God’s image, anyone who intentionally takes the life of an innocent person loses his or her own right to life. Any lesser penalty means that the taking of a life is not considered the horrible offense that it is.

Genesis explicitly adds another critical element: It is human beings, not God, who are to execute murderers. It is as if Genesis foresaw the argument that capital punishment should be abolished because “only God can take life.” Genesis makes it as clear as possible that this is not the Torah’s view: “By man shall his [the murderer’s] blood be shed.”

So important is the death penalty for murder that it is the only law in the Torah repeated in each of its five books:

Genesis 9:6 (this verse).

Exodus 21:12: “He who fatally strikes a man shall be put to death.” That the Bible intended this punishment only for premeditated murderers is made clear in the following verse: “If he [the killer] did not do it by design . . . I will assign to you a place to which he can flee” (Exodus 21:13).

Leviticus 24:17: “If anyone slays a human being, he shall be put to death.”

Numbers 35:16: “Anyone, however, who strikes another with an iron object so that death results is a murderer; the murderer must be put to death.”

Modern opponents of the death sentence view the death penalty as an ancient and morally primitive punishment for murder. They therefore regard lesser punishments for murder as reflecting a more morally advanced society and culture. However, the premise is not true.

The societies that surrounded the ancient Hebrews, some of whose legislation is older than that of the Torah, offered murderers alternatives to capital punishment. For example, the family of the victim could accept money from the murderer in return for absolution. It was in direct repudiation of this practice the Torah legislated “And you shall not take reparation for the soul of a murderer who deserves to die, but he shall be put to death” (Numbers 35:31). Allowing murderers to pay a bribe to the family of the victim granted a great advantage to wealthy murderers. To this day, highly affluent murderers—being able to hire the finest defense attorneys—almost always avoid execution.

Deuteronomy, the Torah’s fifth and final book, rules that if a premeditated murderer tries to claim asylum in one of the cities of refuge (set aside for those who had killed someone unintentionally), he should be expelled from the city of refuge and executed: “Do not look on him with pity. Thus you will purge Israel of the blood of the innocent” (Deuteronomy 19:11–13).

Deuteronomy 19:20 adds the commonsensical notion that the death penalty is necessary “so that people shall hear and be afraid.” Relying on common sense, the Bible argues the threat of being put to death will deter at least some people from committing murder. One of the reasons for all societal punishments is to deter crime. To deny the death penalty would ever deter murder is to argue murder is the only crime that can never be deterred.

The Bible is so emphatic about the death sentence it also decrees, “You shall take a murderer from My very altar to die” (Exodus 21:14). Murderers cannot claim sanctuary in a temple, as was and has been permitted in many societies throughout history, because allowing a murderer to seek safe haven in God’s sanctuary makes a mockery of the God who hates murder.

Within the context of the time at which it was written, the Torah had the equivalent to the American criterion for conviction: Guilt must be established beyond a reasonable doubt. In the case of the Torah, this was accomplished by mandating a minimum of two eyewitnesses (Numbers 35:30). I would argue that DNA evidence today, for example, would constitute “two eyewitnesses” to help ensure an innocent person not be executed.

In Judaism, the Bible is not the only source of law: Talmudic law often carries almost equal weight, and Jewish opponents of the death penalty frequently cite the famous Talmudic statement that a Jewish court that sentenced one person to death every seven years (one rabbi said every seventy years) was known as a “killer court.”

Yet within the very same paragraph, Rabbi Simeon ben Gamliel, the head ( nasi ) of the Sanhedrin (the Jewish High Court) dismissed this view: “They [the rabbis opposed to capital punishment] would have increased bloodshed. . . .”

Moreover, the “killer court” statement was made at a time when Jews had neither a state nor the political power to put these views into practice. The statement was purely theoretical. As the authoritative Encyclopedia Judaica notes, when “the Sanhedrin had power to inflict the death sentence . . . they exercised it.”

To their credit, the rabbis made it difficult to administer capital punishment. For example, aware that confessions were often obtained through torture, Jewish law forbade admitting confessions—no matter how nonviolently obtained—as evidence in capital cases. But the Talmud also ruled that in times of great violence, the death sentence could and should be restored to wider use.

Much of rabbinic opposition to capital punishment was rooted in opposition to practices among the Romans who controlled Judea; they executed vast numbers of innocent people and used torture to extract confessions.

It would appear, therefore, that the rabbis who made the death sentence very difficult to administer were thinking either in terms of a state in which murder was extremely rare and/or an unjust state. Their thinking was not intended to apply to a state in which murder was common.

Because every human being is created in God’s image, murder is the ultimate crime. Hence, the Bible insists it deserves the ultimate punishment.