The 109th Congress should:
- eliminate capital punishment from all federal crimes.
Kevin Craig opposes the shedding of blood. "Capital punishment"
in western civilization is historically derived from Biblical passages
which demanded that the blood of capital criminals be shed:
Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood
shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.
Genesis 9:6
Smaller sins could be atoned for through the temple sacrifices: lambs,
turtledoves, etc., but some crimes were so serious that atonement could
not be made in any other way than by the shedding of the blood of the
criminal himself:
So you shall not pollute the land where you
are; for blood defiles the land, and no atonement can be made for the
land, for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who
shed it.
Numbers 35:33
In cases of unsolved homicide, Deuteronomy 21 required the town elders
to shed the blood of a heifer in order to atone for the shedding of
innocent blood:
{7} "Then they shall answer and say, 'Our hands have not shed
this blood, nor have our eyes seen it.
{8} 'Provide atonement, O LORD, for Your people Israel, whom You have
redeemed, and do not lay innocent blood to the charge of Your people
Israel.' And atonement shall be provided on their behalf for the blood.
{9} "So you shall put away the guilt of innocent blood from among
you when you do what is right in the sight of the LORD.
Christian theologians for 2000 years have rightly concluded that in our
day only the blood of Christ can provide such atonement in cases of an
unsolved homicide. Yet they persist in requiring the shedding of the
criminal's blood when the homicide is solved.
More here.
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