Article November 27, 2006 Issue

REVENGE OR RESURRECTION?

The Bible illustrates that Jesus' example is the best one to follow.

BY ELAINE FOLLIS

SOME PEOPLE WOULD SAY the impulse for revenge is instinctive. Accounts of the earliest cultures describe families and often entire nations setting out to avenge wrongs through violent means. Today, even preschoolers on the playground sometimes express a desire to "get even" when wronged or harmed.

"Revenge is inadmissible," wrote Mary Baker Eddy. And practical experience over many generations shows the merit of this statement from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 22). Revenge is never truly just. It is never truly comforting. But divine Love, the Love that is God—as well as the love that we as His children can claim as our own by reflection—is both just and comforting. That is what the life of Christ Jesus proved beyond any doubt.

One of the first Biblical examples of revenge comes in Genesis, when Jacob's sons avenge the rape of their sister Dinah (see Gen. 34). Vengeance was so common and devastating that Hebrew law addressed it specifically, including this point: "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" (Ex. 21:24). While the idea of taking "an eye for an eye" is sometimes regarded as very benighted morality, in its time this law reflected a significant and enlightened advance; it called for only limited retribution, so that the wronged party, no matter how powerful, could exact a penalty as severe as—but not severer than—the loss suffered. Even more light began to shine in Hebrew law when it came to the consideration of accidental offenses. Cities of refuge were established, where those who had injured someone accidentally could seek protection from the victim's vengeful family (see Num. 35).