The Bible Doesn't Endorse Spanking

Wisdom would say that discipline is important for children. Wisdom would not say how this is accomplished. Many Christians believe that the Bible not only endorses corporal punishment, it mandates it under the clause of not hating our children. While I would never argue that Scripture forbids spanking, I believe that the four proverbs directly involved ( 13:24 , 22:15 , 23:13-14 , 29:15 ) are addressing the principle of discipline, not the method. Because we can't simply read the proverbial rod as a modern switch when we know how the original audience would have understood it. The time in which the Bible was written was a primitive one when justice was nothing more than a cold dish of vengeance served up on a ten-to-one scale. Meaning that even the rape of a rival clan member could earn you not only your own death, but the deaths of your entire extended family ( Genesis 34 ). Slaves were treated as property, not people, and could be tortured or executed for any reason.