"You have heard that it was said..."

It looks like Stevie Lamar Fields may me executed after all.

In the trial, the foreman read aloud a list of reasons to impose the death penalty, including isolated quotes from Hebrew Bible punishment codes. While I don't know what faith tradition (if any) the foreman is part of, this sort of prooftexting and by-the-letter-ism sounds an awful lot like a certain brand of biblicist evangelicalism I know all too well.

Speaking of the evangel, I wonder if anyone read the story of Jesus and the adulterous woman, or the crucifixion, or any of the other gospel references to...oh wait. I can't think of any other references to capital punishment in the gospels--just the time Jesus prevents a culturally sanctioned execution and the time when he's the victim of one.

Also: the time that Jesus explicitly rejects the eye-for-an-eye justice referenced in this trial.