A Torah scroll. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

“An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” is one of the best-known rules not only in the Torah, but universally. It was recorded in the Hammurabi code of Mesopotamia more than 4,000 years ago. This rule still applies in many legal systems, and is sometimes taken literally. It is clear, however, that this statement in the Torah cannot be taken literally at all.

The Talmud (Bava Kama 83b to 84a) raises an obvious question: Perhaps one thinks it means literally an eye; in that case, if a blind man blinded another or if a cripple maimed another, how would he be able to give an eye for an eye literally?

There are even greater challenges. What if a person who has no teeth puts out the tooth of somebody who has a full set? How are you going to take a tooth for a tooth? Did they have some sort of mechanism for judging a bruise for a bruise? There was indeed a judging system:

If two men are involved in a fight when a pregnant woman comes in between them and as a result there is a miscarriage but there’s no other physical damage [this must have been a pretty common occurrence to be specified], the punishment should be in accordance with what the husband places the value of his lost child and that should be assessed by the judges.

This is then followed immediately by, life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, a burn for a burn, a bruise for a bruise, a wound for a wound.

But then in the next verse, the Torah says that if a person has a slave and he damages him, puts out his eye or knocks out his teeth, the slave should go free. On both sides of this law, you have laws that deal with financial compensation assessed by the judges in relation to the injury or the loss — as indeed would happen in most legal systems today.

The second time this law is repeated, slightly changed, is in this week’s reading (Vayikra (Leviticus) Chapter 24:). The context is a sad incident in which the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian father was involved in a fight and cursed God. Through his mother, he was part of the Israelite people. But because of his father, no tribe would accept him — an interesting example of how they defined Israelites then. He felt rejected and alienated. In a way I can feel sorry for him.

The law of cursing is phrased differently in verses  24:15 & 16, and expanded by adding different words for the crime of blasphemy, before reiterating the law.

Cursing God was not the way people nowadays curse or insult each other verbally. Curses were taken very seriously. It was the equivalent of rejecting not only God, but also the people. Laws of blasphemy are not only still very strongly adhered to in many countries today, but actually there is pressure now, thanks partly to the Islamic vote, to bring blasphemy back as a serious offense in Britain and elsewhere

There are people who like to make fun of the ancient Biblical laws and say how out of date they are. Yet in many ways, they are far more advanced and humanitarian than many laws that apply in different countries and under different religions around the world today.

The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York