stephan huller

When I 'recover' I presume I will see you as an 'honest pursuer of the truth' who will one day become knowledgeable and enlightened. I think you are better advised to hold your tongue until you have something substantive to say.

Duvduv

I take it back. It's not obsessiveness, it's a FIXATION.
Double refuah shelema.

Montgomery Scott

Am I correct with this? If a Jewish person kills (or stones) a formally Jewish convert to Christianity, he will be burned to death? That does not seem like a bad law. Someone who murders someone else for a bullshit thing like what someone's beliefs should be executed.

The second part is pretty straight forward, no one is allowed to become a convert of Judiasm. Simply, they did not want outsiders to join and dilute their religion. There were enough Jews so there would not be a problem of inbreeding.

I don't think a lot of Pagan Gentiles has the want or desire to become Jewish. Jewish people themselves believed themselves to be special and their ancestory goes back in the same religion for thousands of years (Judiasm in Classic Roman times was over 2000 years old). Non Jews obviously fell through the cracks because there are Jews all over the World from just about all the races.

Jews started Christianity and after a short period opened their churches and memberships to anyone who wanted to be a member of the cult.

mountainman

Is there any other source aside from Origen?

mountainman

This is possible. There are other references to the Jews in the early 4th century as follows. The format is DATE CE, Codex Theodosius ref, English translation of law text

mountainman

That's debateable.

Duvduv

Is there room to question the authenticity of these strange-sounding laws?
Perhaps stoning was really just throwing rocks or eggs? Besides if Jews were stoning someone to death, would they do it publicly? Surely there were laws against murder regardless of the circumstances ....

Toto

Stoning was a theoretical punishment in the Torah, but I am unaware of any historically validated reports of stoning in Jewish history.

You need to be careful in reading any ancient legislation. It might or might not bear any relation to the facts on the ground - legislation sometimes only represented wishful thinking or moral exhortation.

Duvduv

Toto, then what is source or veracity of such "laws"?? Where do they originate, and if they are untrue why didn't anyone notice? And what about the issue of circumcised slaves? According to Jewish law, if a person converts to Judaism he cannot remain a slave at all. Or harassment? How does one know what harassing a convert means?
Without being an expert on these matters I would say that this "Code" is nonsense.

Toto

I'm not sure what your question is. Laws are promulgated by rulers, or those who think they are rulers, and are written down and preserved for the ages. But enforcing the laws is a completely different question.

Before the modern era, governments had limited abilities to control some aspects of life, and the central government had limited abilities to control what went on in distant provinces, even when the king had proclaimed himself the ruler of that province.
.
Even today, you have politicians who support laws that are unenforceable, just in order to make a moral statement. Smoking marijuana is still illegal in most of the country, but you would not be able to understand a lot of our culture if you thought that reflected reality. Adultery is still classified as illegal in some jurisdictions, but even when it was a universal law, you would be naive to think that no one ever committed adultery.

So a Roman law might refer to Jews stoning converts, but that is not evidence that it ever happened. It might just reflect the story in Acts of the Jews stoning Stephen, which probably never happened.