Many believe that Jesus’s exhortation to love your neighbor as ourselves contradicts the Old Testament law that brutally spoke of eye for eye and tooth for tooth justice. In this podcast, we show how the eye for eye law was actually the foundation of Jesus’s teaching to love your neighbor.
In many ways, the Bible seems like a book of opposites. In the Old Testament law it was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But in the New Testament, Jesus said we must forgive those who do you wrong. These two views are so extreme, they seem almost irreconciable. Yet the sad story of the senseless murder of Brian Muha best explains this paradox. Brian was attending school at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, where he planned to become a doctor. He had returned home to briefly to visit Rachel, his mother, and was heading back for summer classes.
Español: “Ojo por ojo” significa que amas a tu prójimo como a ti mismo “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,” Moses (Exodus 21:24 NASV) “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” Jesus (Mathew 22:39 NASV) At first glance, the Bible seems a book of extremes. In the rough and tumble Old Testament, you have the law demanding “eye for an eye” compensation if a person was injured. If you gouged out a person’s eye, then your eye was gouged out. Then in the New Testament you have Jesus who taught “love your neighbour.” Anyone reading these passages would be very confused — “eye for an eye” does not seem very loving. But have you ever noticed there is something strangely missing in the Old Testament? There is not one account of a person having their hand cut off or their eye gouged out due to a crime they committed — even though the law required it. Jesus wades into the controversy Then to make matters worse, Jesus weighs in …
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