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Not long ago I read Deuteronomy, looking for something that wasn't there. What was there were many bloody incitements against those who were not God's people and various ferocious reminders that Jehovah is a jealous God. And much about enemies being laid waste utterly until third or fourth generations and being blasted off the face of the earth, &c, and how the Lord will brook no disobedience nor deviation from his Laws. Nothing along the lines of "suffer the little children to come unto me" or "turn the other cheek" there. The Old Testament is full of such things, and it is worth remembering that too. Alison Candice wrote: > Lawrence: You've been making some excellent points in your series of >posts, I think, and I very much appreciate your insistence on the need for >attention to language--rhetoric, political or otherwise, and the rhetorical >moves made here on this list, in Washington, and elsewhere--as very much at >issue in discussions of/debates over our actions, personal or political. >What struck me about your words here is their chiming with a pair of >passages from the Koran--which I'm reading (in translation, of course) for >the first time (if anyone else is seeking an online translation, here's a >link to one site: http://www.islam.tc/quran/)-- > >008.025 And guard yourselves against a chastisement which cannot fall >exclusively on those of you who are wrong-doers, and know that Allah is >severe in punishment. > >008.057 If thou comest on them in the war, deal with them so as to strike >fear in those who are behind them, that haply they may remember. > > >I offer these words in no spirit of acrimony or provocation, nor as a >challenge to Lawrence or anyone else, but simply because they chilled me and >made me weep. > >Candice Alison Croggon Home page http://users.bigpond.com/acroggon/ Masthead http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/