>>>>I saw a copy of the old testament recently that had the commandment as 'Thou shalt not murder'; which of course makes self-defense and war ok, while 'Thou shalt not kill' seems a bit more stringent. But 'Thou shalt not murder' seems to me to be one of those 'interpretation' things. I don't read Aramaic, so I can't know, but I still like 'kill' better than 'murder' in that context.
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>>>This would be a case where you need to take the Bible as a whole. In many places the Israelites were commanded to sacrifice animals. In Genesis, man is given dominion over the animals. Man is allowed to eat animals - so - in the context of the Bible as a whole, killing of animals is allowed.
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>>>One of the reasons (I think) that the killing of man is such a big deal is that man was made in the image of God - animals were not.
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>>>As for the original language (I don't know it either), my source says that word is "ratsach." It further states that that word is normally used to indicate murder or assassinate.
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>>So we are in agreement on the concept of killing critters just for the sake of having them dead? Fly swatting, trophy hunting etc. All bad?
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>No, we're not in agreement. Man has dominion over the animals to do as he wishes - as far as I know the Bible does not really address this issue except that it does say that man will have dominion over the animals.

And yet, his wish to do harm to them for no good reason is somehow seen as acceptable? I take it then that as long as man has dominion over something there is no requirement for him to act in a decent way toward whatever it is? Kill animals for no reason, torture them if you like, rape the earth? It's all ok, because I have dominion over them? The more you tell me about how one is supposed to behave as a true believer, the more the concepts fly in the face of my own sense of decency, and the more I want to stay far away from them.