samet@sfmag.UUCP (A.I.Samet) (06/27/85)
> Anyway, this incident depicts a woman guilty only of adultery being > subject to stoning, supposedly in a typical 1st-century Jewish > community. Would it be that the distinction between the different death > sentences was not made until later, or only by an official court, like > the Sanhedrin (if they would get involved in such), and not in an > ordinary village? The gradation of death penalties is biblical rather than rabbinic. It would apply in any generation, and to any court. As for the "Gospel truth", no comment. Y. Samet