They could use some Talmud scholars in Texas

[xpastor]

I'm from Canada, and like most of my fellow citizens I am opposed to the death penalty, which fortunately has not been imposed for over half a century and has been off the books for decades.

I've mentioned before that I belong to another forum, limited to clergy past and present who have shed their supernatural beliefs. One of our members is an orthodox rabbi, and he has graciously responded to my queries a couple of times about later interpretations of Old Testament laws.

As you may know, the OT decreed the death penalty for damn near every infraction. I asked him about the penalty for apostasy as there have surely been Jews down through the ages who abandoned their religion to conform with the majority. In the time of Jesus there must have been Jews who took up the worship of Apollo or Zeus, but I am unaware of any stonings as prescribed in Deuteronomy.

Here is his response:

I think the answer here is the general aversion of the Rabbis to carrying out the death penalty. There is actually a statement in the Talmud that a court that executes more than one person every 70 years is considered a 'killer court'. Even though the death penalty for apostasy is still on the books, like all the other death penalty cases it will seldom if ever be carried out.

How do the Rabbis arrange for so few executions when so many crimes are punishable by death according to the Torah?

The Rabbis require an almost impossible set of conditions to be fulfilled for the punishment to be carried out. For example:

1. The crime has to be witnessed by two kosher eye witnesses, who then give testimony that exactly matches one another. According to the Talmud, if the Rabbis choose they can question the witnesses even about irrelevant details (What was the species of tree under which the crime was committed, were the shoe laces of the accused tied or untied, etc.) If the witnesses contradict each other even about these details their testimony is thrown out.
2. The witnesses have to actually warn the perpetrator that he will be subject to the death penalty if he commits the crime before the crime is carried out, and the perpetrator has to acknowledge the warning and state that he is carrying out the crime intentionally nevertheless.
3. The witnesses have to meet lots of criteria to be considered kosher- not related to one another nor the accused, they have to be observant of all the Jewish rituals and laws, and so forth.

So there are lots of loopholes to let folks off. Remember, stoning is also the punishment for violating the Sabbath and other mundane crimes like that, so if the death penalty was to be carried out strictly stonings would be constant.

It's worth noting, as is so often the case, people responding in a human way are more merciful than people pretending to speak for God.

[Minimalist]

I think the answer here is the general aversion of the Rabbis to carrying out the death penalty.

Yeah...the church pulled the same routine during the inquisition. They would torture some poor bastard into confessing and then turn him over to the civil authorities to actually kill him so the holy joes didn't have to get their pious hands dirty.

Hypocrites.

BTW, no luck with your Friendly Atheist site. I never got a notice after applying. I can see why your membership is dropping.

[Chad32]

It's funny that these conditions were put in place by people with better moral standards than the writers of the bible.

One is that the person must be warned. Well if they've read the bible, they were warned. I'm pretty sure the bible is ok with relative killing each other.

[xpastor]

It's funny that these conditions were put in place by people with better moral standards than the writers of the bible.

One is that the person must be warned. Well if they've read the bible, they were warned. I'm pretty sure the bible is ok with relative killing each other.

That's the way it goes. The moderately religious are more compassionate than the strictly religious, but they have to jump through some hoops to convince themselves that they are religious.

The complexity required to reach a simple conclusion reminds me of a Rube Goldberg machine.

There is an analogy in modern Catholicism. As you may know, catholic theology holds that marriage is a sacrament, and so there can be no divorce, but there can be an annulment if the sacrament was improperly performed.

I spent one year as an unpaid university chaplain, and the catholic chaplain explained to me that many priests, if they are dubious about a marriage lasting, will deliberately mess up the ceremony and leave a sealed record of it, so that if it turns out badly, the couple can get an annulment.

They are very fussy about the form of words. In another area, if a Lutheran or Anglican or some others convert to Catholicism, there is no need to rebaptize the convert, because the proper formula was used—in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—but if the convert was from some pentecostal church which used a phrase like "I baptize you in the mighty name of Jesus" the priest is gonna splash him all over again.

[kaamil20]

They should not used these persons for Texas.

[rightcoaster]

It's funny that these conditions were put in place by people with better moral standards than the writers of the bible.

One is that the person must be warned. Well if they've read the bible, they were warned. I'm pretty sure the bible is ok with relative killing each other.

That's the way it goes. The moderately religious are more compassionate than the strictly religious, but they have to jump through some hoops to convince themselves that they are religious.

...

The Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox, and other variant flavors of Jewish orthodoxy are not what I would call moderately religious. There are many dimensions on which they are far from "liberal" or "moderate". There is no automatic correlation between religiosity and either compassion or its lack. And your "moral standards" would need to be put in a list for better comparison. Here you are speaking of only one thing, death penalty. Of course, the same goes for "eye for an eye", which is also not subject to literal enforcement, rather is a basis for measurement of the value of damages.

Today's rabbinic Judaism is descended from the Pharisees of 2nd Temple times, who accepted the "Oral Torah", which is what leads to all these interpretations and reinterpretations. Sort of like our own judicial system, but starting from a very different Constitution.

The Torah literalists who did not accept the "Oral Torah" , I believe included the Sadducees and the Samaritans and Karaites. Maybe they had a more Texas-sized death row. Or maybe they wasted less time in appeals.

[Chad32]

Eye for an eye is kind of funny too. Jesus seemed to be against it, though even an eye for an eye would be better than the kinds of punishments Yahweh handed out in the bible. Punishing people through the third or fourth generations, and all that. At least eye for an eye was proportional retribution.

[John V]

I think the answer here is the general aversion of the Rabbis to carrying out the death penalty.

Yeah...the church pulled the same routine during the inquisition. They would torture some poor bastard into confessing and then turn him over to the civil authorities to actually kill him so the holy joes didn't have to get their pious hands dirty.

Hypocrites.

BTW, no luck with your Friendly Atheist site. I never got a notice after applying. I can see why your membership is dropping.

Note the name of the site. The friendly filter likely kicked into overdrive when you applied.

[Minimalist]

No wonder the place is dying. They filter out all the interesting people.


But I'm in now, ( said the bishop to the actress.)