iety and death. Midway through the Decalogue in Exodus, the declaration is straightforward: Thou shalt not kill. Ambiguity arises as Exodus qualifies the basic statement, for example in the matter of personal injury:
Whoever strikes a man a mortal blow must be put to death. He, however, who did not hunt a man down, but caused his death by an act of God, may flee to a place which I will set apart for this purpose. But when a man kills another after maliciously scheming to do so, you must take him even from my alter and put him to death. . . . A kidnaper, whether he sells his victim or still has him when caught, shall be put to death (Exod. 21:12-16).
The whole ethical question of Thou shalt not kill is further complicated by the unfolding Biblical narrative, for example the fact that the Israelites battle and kill their way across the desert area to make their way into Canaan, beginning at Jericho and continuing afterward. To settle where they will, the Israelites kill virtually every people in their path, taking some 40 years to wander the desert in the meantime. Yet Thou shalt not kill looms in the background of their activities. Thus the contradiction between the terse and definite words of the Decalogue and the elaborations on the theme, as well as activities of the Israelites that follow suggests that Thou shalt not kill except under the conditions hereinafter set forth might have been more useful, if less poetic, wording.
Poetry and paradox aside, in the modern period definite lines of argument for and against capital punishment have decisively emerged. The general line of argument in favor of capital punishment is this: "The ideal of equal justice demands that justice be equally distributed, not that it be replaced by equality" (van den Haag 285). Injustice, on this view, lies not in the possibility of wrongful execution but in allowing capital criminals to escape punishment. The general line of argument against capital p...