Death Penalty : Theologian Dale Recinella Responds to Biblical Justifica...
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Theologian Dale Recinella Responds to Biblical
J ustification of Death Penalty
Posted by Dale S. Recinella, J .D., M.1.S, Guest Blogger on March 29th, 2011
My dear Christian friend, Mr. Robert Michaels:
| read your 03/25/2011 01:03:32 AM PDT post in the Vallejo Times Herald concerning
the Bible and the death penalty. Thank you for your sincere and conscientious interest in
the issue of the death penalty. Perhaps because of my extensive writing and speaking in
the area of the American death penalty and religion, especially Christian religion, it is
proper for me to address you on this subject.
You have indicated that you are of the opinion that people of biblical faith must, after all
is said and done, support what is required by the Bible. | agree. For decades |
supported the American death penalty. My support was based upon what | thought was
in Holy Scripture. And you and | are not alone in that. The reason, | think, that over 86%
of all the executions in the U.S. in the last 33 years have occurred in the Bible Belt is
because good, Bible-believing people believe that the Bible requires it That was why |
supported it.
Well, 'm also a lawyer. After many years as a corporate lawyer God called me and my
wife to ministry. Now, with 13 years of ministry to the families of murder victims, to men
being executed, to families of the executed, and to staff at Florida's death row prison, |
have had to dig back into the Scriptures much more deeply than | had before in order to
find out exactly what God is expecting of us.
My conclusion is that God expects our society to punish wrongdoing-you may use the
word retribution and that's a fine word by my reading of the Bible. There must be
consequences for choosing to do harm to society, to people and to property. And it must
be just punishment or those who are not motivated by grace will scoff at the law and run
roughshod over the innocent.
That brought me to the next question, whatiis just punishment?
Let's say a criminal commits a crime that causes someone to be bumed over half their
body, or causes a person to be blinded, or to lose a limb. Does the justice required by
Scripture mean that we have to take that criminal and burn half his body, or blind him or
severe his limbs? We might want to-but that's not the question. The question is does
God's Word require such a burning or blinding or maiming in order for the punishment to
be just? Virtually all Christians agree that it does not. Time to be spent in prison is the
just punishment.
So, then, what if the crime committed involves the taking of human life? Is the killing of
the criminal the only just punishment allowed by Scripture? | do not think so. | think life
in prison without possibility of parole is punishment that fully grants retribution for the
evil done. And, you and | do not have to become killers ourselves in order to carry out
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Death Penalty : Theologian Dale Recinella Responds to Biblical Justifica...
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that punishment.
You have looked to Paul's Epistle to the Romans 13:3-4 to confirm God's mandate for
capital punishment:
"But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for (government) beareth not the
sword in vain: for (government) is the minister of God, a revenger to execute
wrath upon him that doeth evil." Authorized King J ames Version.
The two critical words here are sword and execute. If government bears the sword as
God's minister to execute offenders, it sounds like a scriptural mandate ("command’) for
capital punishment. Is it?
There are distinctly different Greek words that translate into English as sword.
RHOMPHAIA means a saber, a long and broad cutlass, a broadsword. This is the
instrument used for decapitation, capital punishment by sword. As a Roman citizen,
Paul had the right to be executed by broadsword and not by crucifixion. My bet is that
Paul knew the Greek word for the sword used for capital punishment. This is not the
word used in the Greek in Romans 13:4,
MACHAIRA, the Greek word used in Romans 13:4, means a short sword wom on the
belt, a dagger. This is not the instrument used for decapitation, but was used as a
metaphor for the authority of the courts to inflict punishment in general.
Also, the word execute is not in the original Greek scriptures of this verse. The word
execute has been inserted by the translator into the Authorized King J ames Version to
provide a verb so the sentence makes sense in English. The Greek original does not
have this verb. The English translation uses it as a synonym for bring or inflict. Because
the word "execute" is not in the original Greek but is inserted by the English translators,
it appears in italics in most editions of the Authorized King J ames Version.
Given these two facts of the original Greek of the Scripture verses, the verse in
Romans 13:4 makes complete sense in English without the death penalty.
But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for government beareth not the
power of judicial punishment in vain: for itis the minister of God, a revenger to
carry out wrath upon him that doeth evil
The verse is a mandate for retributive punishment on evildoers; but it contains no
mandate for the death penalty. Rather, it supports the power of legitimate government
by judicial authority to impose punishment for crimes.
You also quote Genesis 9, the so-called Rule of Blood as God's mandate for capital
punishment. That verse reads:
"Whoever shed the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the
image of God has God made man." New International Version This verse is
included in God's blessing of Noah and his family. Genesis 9:1-7
A quick reading of this verse without study could create the impression that the Rule of
Blood is God's command that the entire world must use the death penalty; however,
there are some major problems with that conclusion.
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First, the text is in poetic form which was never used for biblical law.
Second, American Christians only intend to treat this as God's command for capital
punishment in the case of first-degree murder. But if these verses are actually God's
command to execute those who take human life, there is no basis for any limitation in
the text itself. If God is commanding the use of executions in these verses, then their
plain reading seems to cover all taking of human life: accidents, negligent homicide,
even self-defense. To my knowledge, no Christians in America support such broad
mandate for the application of the death penalty under the Rule of Blood. Yet, there is
no Scriptural basis for applying it at all unless it is unlimited. There is no intellectual
integrity in claiming itis God's mandate and then rewriting it to our liking.
Third, there is no rational basis to explain why the words in the Rule of Blood are God's
explicit command to be followed literally, but the other portions of this set of verses,
called the Noahic blessing, are not to be taken literally or treated as binding law: e.g.,
the prohibition on consumption of rare meat, or the statement that any animal which kills
a human must be executed.
Finally, if the Rule of Blood is indeed God's command, God's perfect will, that anyone
who kills another human being must be executed, God would surely apply this uniformly
because God is infinitely just. Consequently, a prominent first-degree, premeditated
murderer after the blessing of Noah's family but before the handing down of the Mosaic
Law would have to be executed.
What does the Bible report as God's punishment for the most significant and prominent
first degree murderer during that period, under the Rule of Blood?
That person in the Bible is none other than Moses. And God deals with Moses the same
way God dealt with Cain: banishment from society. Our modem term for such
banishmentis prison,
God seems quite consistent in the biblical record of His dealings with Cain and Moses.
And He did not execute either one.
You also have used the Crucifixion of J esus Christ as biblical support for the American
death penalty. You are not alone. Many pro-death penalty people of biblical faith like to
quote the following passage from the Gospel of J ohn as biblical proof that J esus
supports the death penalty. | used to quote it for that reason as well. The scene is the
trial of J esus before Pilate:
So Pilate said to him, "Do you not speak to me? Do you not know that
have power to release you and | have power to crucify you?"
J esus answered [him], "You would have no power over me if it had
not been given to you from above."
The pro-death penalty biblical argument stops right there and fails to quote the rest of
what esus said. The entire exchange reads as follows:
So Pilate said to him, "Do you not speak to me? Do you not know that
Ihave power to release you and | have power to crucify you?"
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Jesus answered [him], "You would have no power over me if it had
not been given to you from above. For this reason the one who
handed me over to you has the greater sin." J ohn 19:10-11
This full text can hardly be claimed as J esus' support for capital punishment. Sin is not
the word used in Scripture to describe an act thats virtuous. In fact, the Scriptures tell
us that P ilate's reaction was based upon what J esus said:
Consequently, Pilate tried to release him." J ohn 19:12
The execution of the innocent is no small issue for biblical Christians. Exodus 23:7
warns us not to be involved with the execution of the innocent. J esus Christ warns us in
the verses quoted above not to be involved in the execution of the innocent.
Yet, as noted in the U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion in Marsh v. Kansas, authored
by pro-death penalty J ustice Clarence Thomas, abolition of the death penalty in the U.S.
is the only way to avoid the execution of the innocent. (Slip opinion at p. 17) In a
concurring opinion, J ustice Scalia attacks any concern about execution of the innocent.
First, he implies that such a concern would in fact end the death penalty in the U.S.
Then he says: "Like other human institutions, courts and juries are not perfect. One
cannot have a system of criminal punishment without accepting the possibility that
someone will be punished mistakenly. That is a truism, not a revelation." (Concurring
opinion, at p. 19)
Such a truism when the penalty is years in prison may not rise to the level of biblical
condemnation. But as shown above, that truism is soundly condemned by Scripture
when the penalty is death.
Those pro-death penalty positions of J ustices Thomas and Scalia cannot be supported
as biblical positions. Those are mere political positions. The Bible rails against the
execution of the innocent.
True scholars of the Bible know this. On May 22, 2008, | appeared on a radio show on
Inter-Faith Voices opposite Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., President of the Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. The moderator addressed him with the first
question
Moderator: "J ust to clarify your position, do you argue that a state or a nation
must have the death penalty or that itis morally permissible if it so chooses?"
Dr. Mohler responded correctly:
. | would not say that it is absolutely mandated that a society must do this. But
certainly itis permissible....
In his next answer, Dr, Mohler, went on to qualify that permissibility:
Moderator: "So, you would see it [the death penalty] as preferable, perhaps?"
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Dr. Mohler: "Yes. With all the conditions being met for the penalty to be just in
its application. With all the right kind of structures for the right conducting of
trial and the establishment of guilt and all the rest."
Dr. Mohler's answer was exactly correct. The problem is that with respect to the U.S.
death penalty those conditions are not met, the right kind of structures do not exist, and
the biblical standard of absolute certainty of guilt is not the standard for execution in any
U.S. system: federal, military or state.
Mr. Michaels, my biblical studies in this area led me to actually reconstruct the death
penalty in the Bible the way a lawyer would-procedural and substantive law. | identified
44 absolute legal requirements of the biblical death penalty in order to comply with the
dictates of Scripture. Then, | took the American death penalty and compared it to the
list. We are zero for 44!
The only possible conclusion based upon what is actually in the Bible and the Scriptural
requirements for permissible use of the death penalty is that we cannot support the U.S.
death penalty with the Bible. There is a death penalty in the Bible-but it has nothing to
do with what we are doing in America. And we cannot use the Bible to support the
American death penalty.
| would not expect you or anyone else just to take my word for it. That is why | wrote the
scholarly book: The Biblical Truth about America's Death Penalty. It is available on
Amazon, Please read it and then | look forward to your questions and your comments.
My dear Christian friend, God bless you, protect you and keep you strong.
Yours faithfully,
Dale S. Recinella, J .D., MTS
Catholic Lay Chaplain
Florida Death Row
Posted in Blog, Religion
COMMENTS.
Comments are now closed for this item
1. Comment by Robert Baldwin,MD, Mar 29th, 2011 11:54am
Amen, and | heartily recommend his book to all interested in the truth regarding
Biblical sanction for the death penalty.
Robert Baldwin, MD, MA
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