Normally in society today adultery, even though it is a crime in most states it is not one that people who commit it usually spend time in jail for, if it were our jails would be more overcrowded than they are now. In Biblical times it was crime that usually ended in punishment. For example the story of David and Bathsheba, even though Bathsheba was married she had sex with David and had gotten pregnant, David in turn had her husband put into a position during fighting that would have him killed, and after a while David and Bathsheba were married nd they had a son and named him Solomon.
In today’s society “adultery is an all-to-common behavior” (Jones, 2006, p. 103), as “society is more tolerant of adultery today than it was in David’s lifetime” (Jones, 2006, p. 103). The story of Joseph’s brothers, who acted out of sibling rivalry and jealousy, took Joseph into the fields with the intention of killing him instead sold him to the Midianite merchants “for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites who took him to Egypt” (Jones, 2006, p. 36).
This type of crime was illegal in Biblical times, it is today and it is referred o as human trafficking and it is a prevalent problem as people are taken or abducted and being sold for use as labor for little to no money in factories, or even used as prostitutes. Most of those that are taken or that become victims are young children and women. Human trafficking is similar to enslaving another person, and slavery was abolished hundreds of years ago. “U. S. Congress passed and President William Jefferson Clinton signed into law the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA)” (Stolz, B. 2007), the TVPA is in place to “protect victims, revent trafficking, and prosecute traffickers” (Stolz, B. , 2007).
History is full of stories about crimes and one of the worst is that of Hitler and the Holocaust. The Bible also has stories of war crimes one of the most heinous ones can be found in Exodus 1, where Pharaoh ordered the deaths of all male newborns has been compared to the same type of crime that Hitler was guilty of during the Holocaust years, the crime of genocide, to which the midwives did not follow through with because they feared God’s wrath more than they feared Pharaoh.
At the time the ordering of the killings, “was not a crime because the ruler who ordered the killings was legally accountable for is actions” (Jones, 2006, p. 55), as the laws did not apply to him because of his status. This crime would be referred to as Genocide or race killings, just as Hitler wanted to remove the Jewish race, Pharaoh wanted to remove the male race. “As long as there is life on earth, there is war” (Jones, 2006, p. 89). That is a powerful statement, but it is also a truthful one.
The battle between Saul and David took place in the Bible and ven though David was looked upon as a hero for killing Goliath, he could still be considered a war criminal as he went and killed cities full of people. Saul committed the heinous act of killing priests and their families. There are still wars going on in today’s society, the Middle East is constantly in conflict and the death toll is astronomical. According to the Congressional Research Service, as of December 2014 United States Military Deaths just in Operation Iraqi Freedom there were 4,412 (Leland, Nese F. DeBruyne & Anne, 2015, p. 7).
Sedition means, Communication or agreement which has its objective the stirring up of treason or certain lesser commotions, or defamation of government” (Jones, 2006, p. 143). We live in a nation where we have many freedoms, all of which are protected by the Constitution, and while we do not always agree with the government’s decisions, we do have the right to speak our opinions and protest them in a peaceful manner. One of the freedoms we have is that of freedom of religion, the government does not and cannot tell us how to worship God, we do not have to hide or sneak around to practice our
Christianity like “many Christians in non-Western countries live every day with the fear of physical persecution and death at the hands of a totalitarian government” (Jones, 2006, p. 146). John the Baptist was beheaded and his head was served up on a silver platter because he spoke out against Herod, which was a form of sedition. John the Baptist reinstates one of the greatest freedoms that we have and that is of the First Amendment, “as it took the sacrifice of many lives at the hands of many tyrants, both in biblical times and in subsequent eras, to teach us how recious and important that right is” (Jones, 2006, p. 65). One of the biggest miscarriages of justice came with the trial which was more like an inquisition and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Even though he was charged with blasphemy, that did not carry a death sentence and since they had already predetermined that he was guilty, they trumped up a treason charge which did at that time carry the penalty of death.
Throughout history every religion has accused the others of blasphemy for one reason or another, but “if Christians are strong in their faith, they will ombat anti-Christian ideas with the Gospel of Christ” (Jones, 2006, p. 02). Conclusion This book is one of the best that I have read in a long time, it incorporates Biblical times with modern times and shows that even though some of the crimes are the same, the punishments are very different in today’s society. Jocelyn Pollack, an author and criminologist states, “Evil is still one of the great mysteries of life” (Jones, 2006, p. 61), we may never know the driving force that compels people to commit criminal acts, but we do know hat they will always exist.
No matter how simple or how heinous the crime is, there will always be punishment of some form for it, that is fair and just and not cruel and unusual like be crucified was for Jesus Christ when he was nailed on the cross and left to die. A lot of the crimes that took place in the Bible carried the eye-for-an-eye mentality rather than seeking justice in the proper manner. Matthew 5:18, “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished”.
