Pro-gun Christians and Jews justify self defense with a deadly weapon by claiming that the original Hebrew translation of “Thall Shall Not Kill” is actually “Thall Shall Not Murder.” Being a pro-gun Christian myself, I welcome this, assuming it’s true.
So that’s my question: Is it true? If it is, why/when did it get changed to “Thall Shall Not Kill”?
Note: Please, please, no GD. I’m just seeking an answer to this question.
Well, consider this: a page after the Ten COmmandments supposedly said “THou shalt not kill,” there’s a long list of crimes for which death is the prescribed penalty.
So, whoever did write the Ten Commandments (God, Moses, or a later lawgiver), he obviously didn’t think all killing was equally unacceptable. Executing a criminal was seen as acceptable.
Some may see a contradiction here, but the lawgiver clearly did not.
I just want to know what “thall” means.
It got changed to “Thou shalt not kill” in the year 1611, with the translation, and publication, of the King James Version of the Bible.
In the New International Version, which is the latest and most accurate translation, Exodus 20:13 is given as, “You shall not murder.”
It’s a contraction that means “all of you”, and comes from the dialect of Southern Judea. Specifically, it is a contraction of “Thou all” (to differentiate between “thou” singular, as in “Thou art funny;” and “thou” collective, as in “Thou shallt not kill.”). Sometimes spelled Th’all.
Thanks Johnny. I thought perhaps Thall was a character in the Bible that I’m unfamiliar with. Good old Thall of the Old Testament.
Yes. The word used is “tirtzach” which means murder, or kill unjustly. The word for kill would be “taharog”.
SexyWriter (and she is – I’ve seen her photo; besides, she liked my short stories): If you see “thall”, then that would mean you are probably reading The Good Ol’ Testament.
Oops, my bad. 
Dang, son, it took me two tries through this to realize that y’all are pullin’ our leg, here…
Gotcha! 
OK, so we got parts 1 and 3 of the OP.
Anyone for part 2, to wit, how come the translators went for the generic “kill”? Is it really from the Reformation-era translations or did it start with the Vulgate (Latin) or the Septuagint (Greek, c. 1st Century)?
(BTW, the Spanish equiv. of the KJV, the Valera/De La Reina translation, also went for “matar” instead of “asesinar”)
jrd
[sub]
My WAG: Translators at work:
"Next: ‘Thou shalt not murder’ "
“What about voluntary manslaughter?”
“Smartass, this is the Bible we’re working with. Still, then what about: ‘Thou shalt not kill unjustly’”
“Yeah, right – who kills someone and doesn’t claim to have a ‘just cause’?”
“I can really relate to that right now. What do YOU propose?”
“How about just ‘Thou shalt not kill’?”
“…Hmmm… and people WILL be able to read it in context with all those executions in the next chapter…”
“Exactly!”
“Alright, ‘kill’ it is.”
All I know is, the word is not waste. If He had meant waste, he would have written Thou shalt not waste.
it’s not wank either.
Weren’t thalls the slaves used for competitive gladiator games in the Star Trek episode “The Gamesters of Triskelion”?
Don’t you mean “Gotcha ya!”?
For what it’s worth, the RC Church interpret it thus, in terms of it being a mortal sin. I’m not RC by the way and so might not be best qualified to explain all of their interpretations.
pax
That was Saul, and his lisp wasn’t that bad 
For what it’s worth, it bugs me that the Biblical commandment I learned as “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” comes out in Norwegian as “Du skal ikke lyve”, i.e. “Thou shalt not lie”. Same problem as with murder vs. killing, I think: bearing false witness is a subset of lying. Just as the intent of one commandment wasn’t to say that soldiers can’t kill enemy soldiers attacking their homes, the intent of another was not to say that you can’t tell Aunt Marge that her hair color looks perfectly natural.
That’s really bad. At least kill/murder hinges on the translation of a word. However, the word “aid” in Hebrew means “witness.” As such, the commandment clearly refers to a courtroom setting. Translating it as a generic commandment against lying is really off the mark.
Zev Steinhardt
Just an aside–but, boy, they use each commandment to cover a lot of other sins that, it seems to me, are getting into some pretty gray territory:
OK. So all that I expect from the Catholic church. Then it gets fuzzier:
And stuff that may be irresponsible or taboo, but I sure as hell (no pun intended) don’t see how they equate to breaking the 5th Commandment:
All kinda weird, if you ask me.
But you didn’t.