Naphtali Jones

I don't really think the death penalty is a good thing, but I can understand why some people support its use for particularily terrible crimes. However, the way the death penalty was applied under the Old Testament law just seems ridiculous.

First, Cain brutally murders 25% of the world's population and God only decides to banish him. (This happens before God decides to personally wipe out most of humanity in a flood).

Then along comes "THE LAW".
The first person recorded to suffer the death penalty under Moses was a teenage boy who talked back to his parents. How many of us would be alive today if this were still the case?
The second person put to death was an old man who was caught gathering up an armload of firewood on the Sabbath. That guy was obviously a menace to society.
The third person was Achan; finally someone who has actually committed a real crime. The trouble is they don't just kill Achan. No, they decide to kill "his sons, his daughters, his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent, and all that he had" (Joshua 7:24). Yes, that's right, they even kill his tent!

Do proponents of the death penalty really stoop to using the bible and "god's will" as a legitimate line of reasoning?

xMinionX

http://www.religioustolerance.org/reconstr.htm

Toto

To be fair, most proponents of the death penalty are not reconstructionists.

And reconstructionists are not only in favor of the death penalty, but they expect it to be applied in a Biblical manner - by the community stoning the miscreant.

The more mainstream Southern Baptist Convention did issue this: Another Christian pro-capital punishment piece is here:

So, yes, there are proponents of the death penalty who "stoop" to using the Bible as authority.

Wallener

Correct. Not much firewood in the desert: that guy was literally stealing heat from the rest of the tribe. In that place, at that time, that was tantamount to murder. So yes, that guy very obviously was a menace to society.

Naphtali Jones

Actually, the crime for which the man was put to death was for breaking the newly instituted Sabbath, not for stealing firewood. Saying that gathering up an armload of kindling is tantamount to murder would be stretching it a bit.

The point I was trying to make was that the death penalty seemed to be used for extremely trivial cases rather than for serious crimes.

~Nap

Crucifiction

Yikes. Now that's just scary.

Wallener

Not if you think about what it means to be stuck in a barren wasteland with bronze-age know-how. Life becomes a binary proposition in a hurry...

Naphtali Jones

Was the sinai a barren desert back then or was it more of a scrubby wilderness? Remember they are claiming that a million people and all their livestock and herds of cattle and sheep spent fourty years wandering around the place. I don't think the sheep were eating manna all that time.

Anyways, are you trying to say that you think they were entirely justified, under the circumstances, in executing the old man for his heinous crimes?

~Nap

Wallener

I'm not making an argument either for or against capital punishment in this or any other case. Merely pointing out that taken in context, the story is not about some harmless guy. Since Exodus never happened and the entire story is mythology, it doesn't really matter much whether Sinai was or wasn't completely barren - it only matters that the story says it was.

Naphtali Jones

Very true! :wave:

~Nap