Letter to the Editor – Avery Chenoweth, Sr.

Dear Editor,

I would have thought here in the middle Bible Belt, the Fundamentalists, and even the Catholics, would have foregone the knee-jerk Sixth Commandment’s wrong translation of “Thou shall not kill,” as Billy Powell wrongly wrote in a recent column.

Correctly, it is: “Thou shall do no murder.” As rightly quoted, Jesus uses the word murder citing the commandment in Matthew 5:21-23.

There is—and always will be—a difference between murder and killing; Murder is evil, whereas killing can be justified, necessary, and life-saving.

God was wise enough to make that distinction (in the Hebraic inscription on the two tablets Moses reportedly brought down from Mt. Sinai along with 633 other ceremonial and dietary laws), contrary to later mortals (Catholic and Protestant), who either deliberately or ignorantly mistranslated it. God certainly told the wandering Hebrew-Israelites to kill all the Canaanites to take the “Promised Land,” (present-day Israel), and to protect themselves by killing, if necessary.

Herein, too, lies a dichotomy: Is abortion simply justified killing or is it murder?

To be honest—and against God’s commandment—it must be judged “Murder.” To label it simple “Killing,” would mean it is just riddance of a passionate mistake or nuisance.

Pertinent also to this commandment, as it alluded to sex, is the following Seventh

Commandment, “Thou shall not commit adultery.”

While the basic admonition refers to sex, it’s overarching intent was legal: the preservation of the family Birthright heritage through the ages always went to the first-born male to perpetuate the family heritage and property. Termed “Primogeniture,” it was accompanied by the father’s blessing and was a legal bond. Read Genesis 16-21 to see how Abraham’s son Isaac’s twin sons, Esau and Jacob switched that birthright, and the consequences.

Severe consequences also attended old Abraham’s adultery with his wife, Sarai’s slave girl, Hagar, that begat an illegitimate son, Ismael. When Sarai later (nearing 100 years old) bore Abraham a son, Isaac, he was bestowed the birthright and the legitimate legacy from Abraham down through millennia to the surviving tribe of Judah at the time of Jesus.

God also promised Abraham’s illegitimate offspring, Ishmael, a distinguished line that resulted in the Arab ethnic lineage, that was in A.D. 632 usurped by Islam into an anti-Jewish, anti-Christian menace that exists to this day.

Is it any wonder that the present so-called Israeli-Arab conflict cannot be ended?

The Jewish line is legitimate and re-possessed its anciently-given land in 1948, whereas the illegitimate Arab claim is bogus and unsustainable, as their anointed lands, in fact, are Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, and The Arab Emirates. Are not these enough without driving Israel into the sea—which is simply pure hatred?

POSTSCRIPT: If you’re going to quote the Bible, Billy, best you get it right. You write:

“…the first things (Moses) did was to assemble them (the Hebrew slaves) at Mount Sinai to issue the Ten Commandments.”! Whoa! Moses headed the estimated two million but were led at the front of the column by the Divine “Shekina Glory” (in the form of a small cloud by day and a fiery pillar by night), wandering for forty years (a generation) in the wilderness, during which they stopped at Mt. Sinai where Moses ascended its peak to receive the commandments from God— not issue them himself! At the end of their journey, Moses committed an infraction of faith, and God did not allow him to go down into the Promised Land after all. (A lesson here).

Avery Chenoweth, Sr.

Perry

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