Wednesday, December 15, 2004

POOR HERMENEUTICAL APPROACH

A woman who killed her baby by cutting off its arms was, ahem, 'guided' by the Bible:
A mother who admitted killing her baby daughter by severing the girl's arms was guided by a Bible passage, the woman's attorney said Tuesday.

In the passage, Jesus refers to cutting off body parts to cast away sin, said the lawyer, David Haynes.

Dena Schlosser, a 35-year-old housewife with a history of mental illness, has referred to the New Testament passage since the killing of her 10-month-old daughter, Haynes told The Associated Press.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus says: “If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”

Schlosser has been charged with capital murder.

Haynes said that Schlosser was mentally ill at the time of the slaying. Schlosser is still disoriented, he said, but is improving under medication.

Now, it's well to note that Jesus said "if thy hand offend thee, cut it off". He failed to mention that if your hand offends me I can cut it off. (Biblical interpretation hint: Jesus was not advocating self-mutilation.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

WHAT?! That wasn't literal??

- Stumpy the Righteous

Hatless in Hattiesburg said...

If these confused people feel that they *must* take violent actions based on Bible verses taken entirely out of context, they should at least restrain themselves from hurting others - for example, combining "Judas went and hanged himself" with "Go thou and do likewise"...

Or even better, they should read the rest of it IN context, starting with the Ten Commandments.

Susan Kaye said...

Since Christianity and the Bible are under attack, I wonder if her attorney might not have nudged her in that direction. The Bible makes an excellent scapegoat because we all know people who read it, and believe it, have to be insane!