In the first entry in my series on corporal punishment [1] I proved that the corporal punishment laws in the Bible honored human rights and were nowhere near as severe or brutal as those of Gentile nations like Egypt, Rome, and Assyria. In this post, I will prove that Biblical corporal punishment is superior to the modern American prison system in effectiveness, respect for humanity, and justice.
I want to demonstrate that people who object to the Bible endorsing limited flogging while defending American prisons are guilty of great inconsistency. Anyone who truly believes that a prison system that squanders taxpayer and government funding, steals years and decades from the lives of offenders, separates them from their families for prolonged periods of time, places them in an environment with confirmed systematic acts of assault, murder, and rape, and releases them to face a social stigma is more humane and just than swift and humanitarian physical punishment with a rod or calfskin whip is honestly ignorant, stupid, evil, or all three. American prisons have failed on every level and have done little but produce more depraved crimes and violence even within their walls, while Mosaic corporal punishment quickly punishes certain illicit behaviors with heavy emphasis on the dignity of the offender and then restores the criminal back to liberty in his or her society and to reconnect with his or her family. Yes, instead of being rejected from potential jobs because of a widespread stigma, Jewish criminals simply received their penalty and then readjusted to normal life. Prisons not only endanger the wellbeing and safety of the incarcerated, but they can also offer new opportunities to learn from other criminals how to practice crimes in more professional or sophisticated ways. Numerous flaws with the American punitive system exist and show no indication of abating.
Which do you think prisoners would prefer (not that anyone's preference makes Biblical punishments just or true)? A sentence of 1-40 possible lashes to be administered publicly and swiftly, or one of isolation for up to decades in a location where few, if anyone, will deliver them from abuse and exploitation? It is obvious that God never authorized or condoned prisons and that ours teem with corruption and evil. But Americans are amusing and uneducated people, believing that Biblical laws are outdated and barbaric--with their mild executions and limited physical punishments--while supporting a vicious culture that shrugs at mass prison rapes and abortions. American hypocrisy is pervasive, revolting, and deeply ignorant. This fact only proves that in all the millennia that have elapsed since God revealed Mosaic Law, despite all of humanity's alleged moral "progress", we usually fail to even meet the minimum standards of civil justice and human rights presented in the Old Testament, though it is impossible to improve upon perfect justice to begin with.
I once listened to a sermon recorded online where it was suggested that corporal punishment could have been the solution to punishing attempted murder, attempted kidnapping, attempted rape, and other such crimes not specifically mentioned in Mosaic Law. Though actual murder, kidnapping, and rape received execution, attempts at these evils do not have a specific penalty and likely were punished by proportionate corporal punishment. Surely it could have and likely would have served as the punishment for miscellaneous crimes unregulated by Mosaic Law like rape with objects, severe cases of public slander, and sexual harassment. For more details on the corporal punishment in the Bible, visit my first post in this series on the topic.
Ultimately, there is no valid objection the modern man or woman can erect towards corporal punishment as outlined in Deuteronomy 25:1-3. The prison system largely selected by the modern world either does not punish enough or punishes inhumanely, yet I still encounter people, even Christians, who panic when I suggest replacing our pathetic and unjust laws with something directly from the same Bible many Americans both worship and misrepresent. Opponents to Christian reconstructionism have no theological, moral, rational, or philosophical basis for attacking it, yet they continue to. And I'm tired of this nonsense.
[1]. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/08/corporal-punishment-part-1.html
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