The Ancient Hebrew Law of Homicide (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from The Ancient Hebrew Law of HomicideFrom the very beginning of organized society, there must have developed two sets of laws, one for those within and the other for those without the clan. The latter is simple and short. A member of clan A has weakened clan B by killing one of its members. Clan B must retaliate by weakening the aggressor clan at least as much.This policy, however wise as against another clan, would be ruinous if applied within the clan. One member has killed another, and has thereby reduced the strength of the clan. If the aggressor be killed, its strength is further reduced. The direct clan-interest is that the aggressor be kept alive, unless he is likely to further imperil the community. It is this contingency which creates a necessity for devising a lesser punishment than death for homicide within the clan, and hence is evolved the system of imposing a money penalty on the homicide It is this contingency, too, which creates a necessity for ascertaining the circumstances of the tragedy and its underlying motive. Hence follows a subdivision of homicide into murder, which even within the clan may continue to be a capital offence, and manslaughter, which may readily be compounded for.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.