demoninho

On which part(s) of the OT do jews base the acceptance of secular laws?

Tubby Lardmore

I too have wondered about that. Are modern Jewish men still obligated to have sexual relations with their sister-in-law after their brother has died?

Toto

This may be of interest: Death Penalty: The Torah and Today.

Jewish thought evolved. Fundamentalists of various religions who want to go back to the original text and throw away centuries of interpretation and modification are a modern phenomenon.

Tubby Lardmore

The link says of stoning: "This ancient biblical rule was, curiously, probably a protective development."

I am reminded of something I heard on Dennis Prager's call-in radio talk show a couple of years ago. A caller asked Prager about the scripture that called for slave owners to do something to their slaves [punch holes in their ears with an awl?]. Prager's answer was about like this: "I think that's the best thing in the Bible! You've got to understand that at that time slaves were treated miserably, and the Bible was calling for treatment of them that was substantially better."

Toto

I am a bit suspicious of Dennis Prager's credentials, or the idea that the Biblical laws represented a vast improvement in human concern. (If they were divinely inspired, why be incremental? Why not go for perfection?)

But the point is that Jewish thinking evolved. If you want to see Biblical stoning, you need to go to a fundamentalist Sharia-based Isalmic republic.

Tubby Lardmore

Well now, he does have his own radio show, doesn't he?