bondo

Most Christians will claim that a new covenant makes it such that they don't have to follow a lot of Deuteromic law any more. But practicing Jews can't make this claim. What is the reasoning that Jews use to not follow the laws that require captital punishment. I wanted to ask a Christian if there is anything inherently wrong with a Jew continuing to follow deuteromic law faithfully but didn't want to do so without knowing why the don't appear to follow it now.

Toto

I once heard a liberal rabbi state that when you start to read Genesis, you find a contradiction - two different creation stories. This shows that HaShem does not intend for the text to be read literally, it must be read for its higher truths.

There is actually no historical record that Jews ever followed the Deuteromic Law in all its bloody literalism.

bondo

Do you mean there is no evidence at all that they never followed Deuteromic law or no evidence that they just didn't implement capital punishment for those laws that required it. I ask because even today it appears a lot of orthodox Jews follow Deutoromic law. We also have the story within the bible of the man picking up sticks on the Sabbath and being killed for it but that is probably not as reliable as extra biblical evidence. It seems safe to assume people were punished harshly at some point for something by the Sanhedrin or other authority during the time. Do we have any historical record of any of those cases or trials?

Toto

The law was enforced by stoning.

We don't have any record that would satisfy a critical historian.

We do know that in the time described in the gospels, the Pharisees were actually rather flexible in their interpretation of the law, contrary to the impression that some Christians have from reading the New Testament.

After the Jews lost the first Jewish War and were totally crushed in the Bar Kocha rebellion, some of the rabbis decided that this was punishment from god for not following the law carefully enough, so they became stricter and more compulsive about the rules. The commandment only says to not boil a kid in its mother's milk, which was evidently a pagan custom, but the rabbis extended this to not mixing milk and meat of any sort, not using the same dishs for milk and meat, not even eating milk and meat within 8 hours of each other.

bondo

As far as ancient israel and the jews are concerned do we have any records of the of them stoning people for anything?

Do you have any links to sources of information about this? Do we know anything about the Sadducees or other groups in this regard?

thanks

Toto

Well, that's the point. The law calls for stoning, but we don't have any actual records of people being stoned, outside of the Bible. Ancient laws often called for drastic punishments, which were not actually carried out.

The last time I researched this, I found a reference to an incident where Muslims criticized Jews for not actually stoning adultresses. Modern fundamentalists take the Bible much more literally than the ancients ever did.

Google "Hyam Maccoby" - you will find references to Paul the Mythmaker on google books, with some excerpts on the positiveatheism site.

Atheos

Moving from EoG to BCH

Anat

The traditional reasons given are the following:

a. Jews believe that written Torah is only part of the law given on Sinai. The other part is oral tradition that interprets written Torah. Among other things oral law adds details to the written laws - when they apply, how they should be enforced etc. For example while written Torah says a disobedient son that persists after being warned and rebuked by his parents should be stoned to death oral law explains what counts as being a disobedient son (it only applies to boys between the age of 13 and 13.5 who steal a certain quantity of meat and wine from their fathers and consume them in public and so forth). The oral law was eventually written down as the Mishna around 220 CE and further interpreted in later generations, to this day. Similarly the oral law stipulates the evidence required in order to convict of a capital offense (among other things there is requirement of at least two eyewitnesses of the act itself, and the witnesses must warn the would-be offender that s/he is about to commit a capital offense). With so many stipulations it is almost impossible to be guilty in a way that demands capital punishment (though lesser punishments may sometimes apply).

b. Since the disbandment of the Sanhedrin there is no authority to rule capital punishment.

Sheshbazzar

The Torah gives explicit and detailed laws regarding the practice of circumcision.
Yet after Moses gave all of the written laws regarding circumcision, he prevented a single circumcision from being performed by the Israelites for the next forty years_the rest of his entire earthly life.
Effectively, circumventing the need to be scrupulously obedient to requirements of all of The Laws contained within that Covenant. (Whoso is not circumcised in accordance to the requirements of The Law is not enjoined to The Covenant, nor to the obeying of its requirements.)
The circumcised perished in the wilderness wanderings as ones accursed of The Law, whereas those born in the wilderness being uncircumcised and hence not under The Law's curses, lived to enter into the Promised Land.
Two points I wish to make here.
One.The written Laws were not absolutes.
The unwritten teachings (torah) of Moses could abrogate and/or suspend whatever sections he chose.
Two. After Moses, The Law provided that the Levitical priesthood become the absolute and only interpreters of The Law, it was in their hands to render the Decisions, from which no man was to 'turn either to the right hand or to the left....'
They likewise could, subject to unwritten reasonings, abrogate and/or suspend any requirement of Law deemed to not be in the best interest of society.
Some Laws they even reversed, and in these, Jews to this day are yet forbidden by their leaders to conduct themselves in exacting accordance to that written Law as set down in The written Torah.

show_no_mercy

This is what Josephus says about the Sadducees: