steve (03/22/83)
#N:zinfandel:17500003:000:1066 zinfandel!steve Mar 18 22:08:00 1983 Could one of the resident biblical apologists tell me what year God decided that stoning adulturers to death was no longer necessary? Whom did he inform as to the change in the law? In the "divinely inspired" books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy the law of the Lord meted out such horrible death sentences for offenses such as adultery and the pretense of virginity. Am I taking these "laws" out of context? Is there a stock answer to my question? If the answer is that the laws are interpreted according to the times, then, again, what year did God finally decide that the times had changed, and tell someone that we don't have to stone adulterers to death? Or is such punishment still God's law but his followers are a little too squeamish to carry out the law? I suppose there are many laws in the Bible which don't make much sense in modern society, and which are awfully inconvenient to follow. But if not God himself, who is telling you which divinely revealed laws you can ignore and which you must follow? decvax!sytek!zehntel!zinfandel!steve nelson
hutch (03/23/83)
In reply to Steve Nelson's questions about the punishments for violation of the Law with regards to adultery. His questions went like this: Could one of the resident biblical apologists tell me what year God decided that stoning adulturers to death was no longer necessary? Whom did he inform as to the change in the law? In the "divinely inspired" books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy the law of the Lord meted out such horrible death sentences for offenses such as adultery and the pretense of virginity. First thing to remember is that the Law applies specifically to the Hebrews (Jews, in modern terminology) who have a special contract with God. There was never any attempt to make them apply to other nations (The word "nations" has a slightly different meaning now, with less of a racial connotation) except for certain limitations that were applied to those members of other nations who found themselves living in Israel. I don't know for sure when the Hebrews stopped applying the law against adulterers and failed virgins, but I suspect that it was largely stopped at the time of the destruction of Rome and the dispersal of the Hebrews. It clearly was still applied in Jesus' time. The incident in the Gospels describes His reaction to the folk who tried to apply that law: He asked them which of them was totally without sin. Since none of them could say that they were, none of them could throw the first stone. Jesus is believed to have been without sin, and He did not throw the stone, either. That is the origin of the Christian reluctance to apply those laws. I found it interesting that the usual response to such a question is a belligerent claim on the part of the challenged. Jesus' presence and possibly the force of His personality was enough to prevent this sort of reaction. I suppose there are many laws in the Bible which don't make much sense in modern society, and which are awfully inconvenient to follow. But if not God himself, who is telling you which divinely revealed laws you can ignore and which you must follow? Christians normally believe that we are free of the laws regarding ritual cleanliness, since Jesus said that such cleanliness was based on the spirit more than the observance of the ritual (the implication is that the ritual is a useful discipline for maintaining a spiritually clean attitude.) The claim is that the Law is written in our hearts by the Holy Spirit indwelling us, and that we will, if we obey the promptings of that Spirit, be compliant to that Law. This is not to claim that we are all always obedient. There are some interesting ramifications to this topic when you look at the history and development of Jewish culture. Since I know more about the situation in New Testament times than about the present, I will restrict my commentary to those times. One of the ritual cleanliness laws had to do with the time that a woman was held to be ritually unclean (as opposed to spiritually unclean). On her period, a woman had to retire to a private place and not come into contact with men until about a week (I think) after her period ended. This was originally written in language which specified a separate tent, but this was clearly not the practice in cities, where separate houses would be used instead. There was no punishment for a woman who violated this law, but the men who contacted her were ritually unclean until they completed a purification period. With the rise of the Pharisaic movement, the dread of ritual uncleanness became so neurotically pervasive that some people actually ignored the parts of the Law that expected them to aid persons in distress. (Side note: The period of ritual purification after a woman's period was just about right to ensure that the woman would be entering the normal fertile period at the time that she became ritually clean. This interval is just variable enough that it didn't always hit, but it is an interesting correlation.) Similar laws applied to anyone who had some mysterious flow of blood. Corpses were ritually unclean, and so on. I am not sure how much of this oral and written tradition was actually the amplifications on the Law introduced over the years by the Pharisaic Rabbis. Steve Hutchison ...tektronix!tekmdp!dadla!hutch Tektronix Logic Analyzers Design Automation Division
smb (03/26/83)
Dunno when there was any divine revelations on stoning adulterers; it is, however, instructive to read the portions of the Talmud and Mishnah (rabbinic commentaries, explanations, and interpretations of the Bible) about capital punishment in general. Basically, the rabbis didn't like it, and did their best to bypass the overly strict rules while still staying within the letter of the law. For example: if a member of a Bet Din (literally "house of judgement", i.e., a rabbinic court) once expressed a belief that the defendant was innocent, he was not allowed to switch to guilty; one who had said "guilty" could switch to "innocent". One rabbi was quoted as saying that a Bet Din that executed one man in seven years was blood-thirsty; another contradicted him, saying "nay, one in 70". (References available on request.) --Steve P.S. This is just one aspect of what I meant when I said that in Western religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc., in most of their different flavors), one must look at the history of interpretation of the assorted Scriptures to truly understand them, and not just at the text. To those who wish to quote Scripture back at me (to the effect that anyone who looks at any more is sinning, that is), let me respond in advance with one quote: "upon this rock I build my church". If you can convince all Christians of *one* meaning for that phrase, you're eligible for at least the Nobel Peace Prize, and probably for canonization -- by *all* sects.
avi (03/26/83)
I was about to post an article that contained approximately the same
information as Steve Bellovin's (mhb5b!smb) comments. The question I am
responding to is: "When was the law changed about stoning adulterers".
Steve has already made some of the major points. I would like to add
some comments about how difficult it was to successfully prosecute
anyone (adulterers, violators of the Sabbath laws, etc.) in those days.
The Bible, when read verbatim, does seem a bit strange and capricious.
The Rabbis were constantly interpreting it and codified their discussions
(and this included the views of ALL sides when there was disagreement)
in the books of the Mishnah (I have no idea how to spell these things in
'English') and then in the Gemarrah. This is collectively known as the
Talmud. There were, of course, many thousands of other books written
since then.
Anyone who thinks they can understand Judaism just from the "Bible" is
asking for trouble. We are not just the "people of the Book". We have
many others. Christianity only borrowed our draft copy of the Bible and chose
to re-interpret it on the basis of their own views - and early pagan
influences. This explains why such staples of the Bible like the some of
the dietary laws (for example pigs and shellfish) and laws of the
Sabbath were totally ignored by Christians because it was hard enough to
evangelize without adding all these restrictions.
Christ may have said that he did not come to change the "laws of God", but his
followers had no compunctions in throwing away (selectively) anything they
wanted. When did God suddenly decide that the Sabbath should move to Sunday?
The Moslems, wanting some product differentiation, took Friday because the
other two days were taken. As an amusing aside, I notice that some countries,
like Spain, start the days of the week with Lunes (Monday) and end it with
Domingo (Sunday notice the "Latin" meaning of Domingo?). Does this little
trick actually fool anybody into thinking that Sunday is the seventh day?
Getting back to the point, let me detail some of the problems in prosecuting
people under the Jewish law of the times. You needed two witnesses for most
things. How many people do you know who will commit adultery in front of
an audience? In the case of violating a law of the Sabbath (how do you
spell this pesky word, anyway - it is easy to spell in Hebrew because it
is only three characters long) you really had to bring evidence. It was
childishly easy to violate the Sabbath. There were so many rules.
However, you had to prove that the perpetrator had been warned about the
'crime' and had shown that he was AWARE that it was not allowed and that he
then went and did it on purpose.
On a related topic, the issue of what to do when a husband thought his
wife had committed adultery. If the husband challenged his wife, and got her
to drink the potion that would prove whether or not she was innocent,
then her guilt was shown if her belly swelled up and she died.
>From my not particularly religious point of view, the woman would usually be
drinking something relatively harmless (although it probably tasted
terrible) and would probably only suffer psychosomatic effects. If she was
guilty, she might develop symptoms of acute illness. If innocent, she would
KNOW that nothing would happen to her and, of course, nothing would.
This is a crude, but probably effective, early form of lie detector.
It is interesting to compare this to a similar form of 'sin detection'
practiced in the Middle Ages by Christian societies. This tended to be somewhat
perverse. They would place you under water to see if you were a witch (wizard).
If you drowned, then you must have been innocent because a true witch
could have saved themselves. If you somehow survived, they had to kill you
because you were obviously a witch. There were many other variations on
this theme. A trial, of course, was not necessary.
The way I view many of the "punishments" in early Judaism is that they
were officially there as a deterrent but were rarely enforced. Loopholes
were found everywhere. It reminds me somewhat of the way we Americans
are always looking at the constitution and interpreting it in ways that
the original writers would not even have dreamed of. Some people think that
those people (several hundred years ago) were so wise .... that their words
must serve as the basis for modern law. I often find that amusing. There
are still many laws on the books which make little sense and are
absolutely ignored.
One example is the difficulty in passing something like the Equal Rights
Amendment to the constitution. Why do we try to justify giving women some of
those rights based on interpreting ancient law. Most of those people would
not have dreamed of such a thing. Many were pro-slavery. Most religions
are guily of doing the same thing. It is interesting to watch the
justifications involved in 'suddenly' abolishing meatless Fridays. What
was the "official reason" for the change in attitude?
My letter has gotten out of hand, like usual. I would like to comment that
my comments about Judaism referred to ancient forms. The various versions
of Orthodoxy, as well as Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist, are
all quite different from this and each other. Even the rigidly Orthodox
forms have continued to evolve.
Writing this on the Sabbath,
Avi E. Grossdjhawley (03/27/83)
Yes, there is a stock answer. Israel was a 'national believer' versus
an 'individual believer', ie God chose Israel as a nation to follow Him,
hence the form of government was THEOCRACY ( supposed to mean
rule by God ). Israel was to be held up as God's people, a revelation
if you will of God's character to other nations.
What was law for this unique case, while illustrating what God desires
( ie sexual fidelity, to answer your example ), does not necessarily
work out to the same sanctions in our society.
This is clearly pointed out in the New Testament by :
1) Christ's prerogative over the Sabbath laws
2) St. Paul's statements on Christian liberty
( christians are free to observe the spirit of the law,
not necessarily the letter. This is *not* a weasel !
Just consider the Sermon on the Mount, which shows the
spirit of the law to be multi-mega-stronger than the letter )
3) The early churches recognition that christians were not bound
by Jewish ceremonial law
Hope this was helpful.
David ( all-niter ) Hawleyleichter (03/27/83)
Avi Gross's comments about the middle-age method of determining truth (hold a witch under water; if she drowns, she was innocent...etc.) are an interesting example of two things: How simple, right-sounding ideas can lead you down some very odd and cruel paths; and how difficult it can be to understand another culture without knowing the background it arose from. The origin of the "drowning test" is quite simple. The early Christian church forbade the use of circumstancial evidence to prove a crime. I don't know exactly when, how, or why this position came to be taken, but I gather it was a reaction to exces- ses, probably of the Roman courts. This left prosecuters in a rather difficult position. Many crimes - and I'm not interested here in whether WE would con- sider them crimes; I'm talking about things that social convention said had to be punished - are difficult to get direct evidence for. Adultery is one; you'd actually have to catch the adulterers at just the right (wrong?) moment. Witchcraft is certainly another; essentially ALL evidence for witchcraft has to be circumstancial. Over a period of time, prosecuters drew the obvious conclusion: If you can't get direct evidence, get a confession! Since crimi- nals are not likely to confess, you need to apply "persuasions". Thus, the evolution of torture as the legal "lie detector" began. Dunking witches was just a simpler route to the same end - no need for pain in the hope the witch will confess; if she doesn't do so (by saving herself) it's all over with quickly - and the now-known-innocent person is guaranteed a good after- life anyway. (I wonder, as I write this, whether the 4th Amendment's prohi- bition against self-incrimination is ultimately explainable as a reaction to just this legal theory. Somewhere in this period - the whole period from, say, 1600-1750 is remarkably short and uniform when we look at it from a vantage of 200-odd years, isn't it? - circumstancial evidence came to be accepted, as did all sorts of "new-fangled" ideas about "cruel and unusual punishment". -- Jerry decvax!yale-comix!leichter leichter@yale