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I'll go ahead and respect your advice to defer the "thou shalt not kill" debate to the authority of the Hebrew experts, but I am going to reserve in advance that any "expert" who imagines "kill" is used in a universal sense here is obviously wrong -- no matter how many linguistic PhDs on his wall.

If the thief is caught while breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there will be no bloodguiltiness on his account.

The same would apply to thieves (plural), including entire National Armies of marauding thieves. It is Moral for a defender to smite them.

Please don't insult post readers' intelligences, by claiming Korea, Vietam, the Gulf War, Kosovo, etc., were wars involving "defense of family"...

I wouldn't dream of it. On what conceivable theonomic basis do you imagine I could possibly see those Wars as being Biblically justified?

"I'll go ahead and respect your advice to defer the 'thou shalt not kill' debate to the authority of the Hebrew experts, but I am going to reserve in advance that any "expert" who imagines "kill" is used in a universal sense here is obviously wrong -- no matter how many linguistic PhDs on his wall."

Looks like you're basically not deferring anything, then. :-) But not being a Christian myself, I personally don't care what y'all (Southern expression ;-)) decide.

My basic point was to take the edge off of your criticism. "Thou shalt not kill," as opposed to, "Thou shalt not murder," is apparently a matter worthy of scholarly debate. I don't think it's appropriate for you to ridicule the Quakers if they agree with other scholars. (You can, obviously, disagree. But I don't think you should ridicule.) But then again, I'm not obviously not a Quaker, so...make all the fun you want. ;-)

"I wouldn't dream of it. On what conceivable theonomic basis do you imagine I could possibly see those Wars as being Biblically justified?"

Again, not being a Christian, I have no idea how y'all justify things. But I'm sure there are plenty of Christians who could come up with *some* explanation why those wars were Biblically justified. Heck of a lot of Christians fought in them. (Not many Quakers, though. ;-))

Gotta go. Nice chatting with you. (But lay off the Quakers. ;-))