A Defense of OT Death Penalty Laws

[Tolkien R.R.J]

“Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.
-Genesis 9.6

“Early I will destroy all the wicked of the land,
That I may cut off all the evildoers from the city of the Lord.”
-Psalm 101.8


The death penalty had been an accepted practice almost universally through history and cultures. It has been society's most effective preventive to crime. Benjamin Franklin said a public execution once and awhile is good for a society as it would show the community the punishments for the sins they might commit. The death penalty prevents killers from committing the same crimes saving future innocents and family members from the horrors of murder. It gives justice to family members of the victims. And ultimately upholds the biblical view of man being created in the image of God.

“some men ,probable obtain from murder because they fear that they committed murder they would be hanged. Hundreds or thousands abstain from it because they regard it with horror” --James Stevens A General View of the criminal law in England 1863

In today's society we see crime running wild, in part because we have softened on our punishments and we have hidden our capital punishments from the public, instead of the old American, and biblical way, of public displays. When they are done in private, they lose their purpose to prevent further criminals from acting in ways that would receive the punishment.. God does not see the death penalty as a good thing, but as a necessary evil to prevent further evil done to the innocent. It is not vengeance but seeking justice. People should be angry with horrific acts and want to restore justice as does God.

“We execute murders in order to make a communal proclamation that murder is intolerable” --David Gelernter What do Murders Deserve

“we cannot help but regard it as fitting when things go well for good people and badly for bad people, and as unfair when the revers occurs”
-Edward Fesser and Joseph Bessette By Man Shall his Blood be Shed a catholic defense of capital punishment Ignatius press San Francisco 2017

“It is indeed praiseworthy for victims of crime to forgive their debtors, but such personal pardon does not absolve offenders from their obligations to justice...“The relationship of the state to the criminal is not the same as that of a victim to an assailant. Governors and judges are responsible for maintain a just public order.””
-Cardinal Avery Bulls

When criminals go unpunished and the innocent suffer, people complain about god saying

"HYPERLINK "http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Malachi 2.10&version=NIV#en-NIV-23114"were is the god of justice?HYPERLINK "http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Malachi 2.10&version=NIV#en-NIV-23114""
-Malachi 2.17

It also comes from the very nature of a holy and just God.

“Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked?,' says the Lord God, 'And not rather that he should turn from his way and live? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone,' says the Lord God. 'So turn and live! Say to them, "As I live," says the Lord God, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways. For why will you die?"'
-Ezekiel 18.23,32; 33.11

“proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished”
-Exodus 34 6-7

The OT laws are not Gods perfect plan, but for a specific time and people coming from a ancient near eastern culture [Matt 19.8] we cannot apply today's western standards to OT near eastern Jews. Israel joined a covenant and they were free to leave at any time. God never made anyone follow him, they could always leave the camp if they did not want to follow the rules. Courts were to rule rightly with Jew or gentile [Deuteronomy 1 16-17] and the law is full of chances for mercy forgiveness. The bible says that God would prefer the guilty to make restitution outside of court with the victim, and that the victim has the choice of forgiveness or justice. Luke 12 58-59 says it is better to settle out of court than to face penalty in court. In 2 kings 4 1-7 God does a miracle to prevent a person from reviving the death penalty guilty by the law. David, Moses, Cain are examples were the death penalty was not given by God to premeditated murders. When a woman who was caught in adultery was brought to Jesus he said the first with no sin through the first stone, he then forgave her and told her to sin no more. In Nehemiah 13 15-22 the leaders of Jerusalem are in violation of the law with capital punishment as a crime, yet Nehemiah simply threatened to arrest them. In the NT when the disciples are said to be guilty of working on the Sabbath, and the Jews wished to stone them to death, Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. But in the case of unrepentant law breakers punishment would come. If people were to follow the rules of love your god with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself there would be no punishments.

8 Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying, 9 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: Execute true justice,
Show mercy and compassion Everyone to his brother. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, The alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart Against his brother.’
-Zechariah 7 8-10

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly[a] with your God.”
-Micah 6.8

To be found guilty in court of a crime that carries capital punishment, there had to be two or more witnesses to the act. So it had to be more of a public display witch would spread sin to the community and if left unpunished, would encourage other to do the same. Before any punishments the guilty had to be brought to court and convicted by judges and forewarned of the punishment for the crime.

“In rabbinic law, capital punishment may only be inflicted by the verdict of a regularly constituted court of three-and-twenty qualified members. There must be the most trustworthy and convincing testimony of at least two qualified eye-witnesses to the crime, who must also depose that the culprit had been forewarned of the criminality and the consequences of his project”
-Jewish Encyclopedia/ Capital punishment
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT - JewishEncyclopedia.com


“The Talmud limits the use of the death penalty to Jewish criminals who:

(A) while about to do the crime were warned not to commit the crime while in the presence of two witnesses (and only individuals who meet a strict list of standards are considered acceptable witnesses); and
(B) having been warned, committed the crime in front of the same two witnesses
http://judaism.about.com/od/orthodoxfaqenkin/f/adultery_punish.htm


There are 16 crimes that call for death penalty in OT, only in the case of premeditated murder does it say officials in Israel were forbidden to take "ransom" or "substitute" for punishment [numbers 35 30-31 genesis 9.6] The death penalty did not have to be carried out in all cases.

“we should also keep in mind that a common feature of ANE law codes was to describe the maximum possible punishment while allowing for less severe sentences. Notice, for example, that when Joseph discovered that Mary, his betrothed, was pregnant, he was called "just" for planning to "divorce her quietly" rather than "put her to shame" (Matthew 1:9)
-Keaton Halley ‘Awful’ rules in the Bible Is the Good Book really good?


At any time a witness or one of the Sanhedrin could call of the exacusion, even after the trial found them guilty. As a pointer to Jesus covering our death penalty for sin, the sinner could be forgiven by a blood sacrifice by the priests.

“(H)e must bring as his offering for the sin he committed a female goat without defect. He is to lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and slaughter it at the place of the burnt offering. Then the priest is to take some of the blood with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. He shall remove all the fat, just as the fat is removed from the fellowship offering, and the priest shall burn it on the altar as an aroma pleasing to the LORD. In this way the priest will make atonement for him, and he will be forgiven.”
-Leviticus 4:28-31

“For the life of a creature is in the blood , and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life.”
-Leviticus 17:11

The death penalty was also to show the seriousness of crime. I talked with Tovia Singer of outreach Judaism who told me the death penalty was used very rare in ancient Israel. If there were more than 1 in 70 years they were called “a killer court.”

“A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seven years is called destructive. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says that this extends to a Sanhedrin that puts a man to death even once in seventy years.”
-makkot 1:10

Tovia also told me the purpose of death penalty was to atone for the sin of the person and show the gravity of the sin. Many of the capital punishment laws were to stamp out certain sins and to stop them from spreading. The punishments do not effect the individuals salvation. The punishments are to cause the sinner to repent.

“Depend on it sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully”
-Samuel Johnson

Repentance is common in modern death row cases. For example in 2010 Before receiving the death penalty

“this is the only way God could save me, Mom.”
-Kevin Varga 2010

Also it was used to stop sins from happening with other people. God loves his people to much to allow sin to destroy them, so he attempts to prevent sin from destroying us. The laws were there to stop sin in the first place [Numbers 35 33-34].

My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline,
and do not resent his rebuke,
12 because the LORD disciplines those he loves,
as a father the son he delights in.
-proverbs 3. 11-12

While the death of anyone is not a good thing and is certainly not nice. But“ nice” is not always good, being nice with no judgment can have very bad results. For example

“crime was decreasing in the decades to the 1960s, when we punished criminals more. E.g. in America, the absolute number of murders committed in the U.S. in 1960 was less than in 1930, 1940 or 1950, even though the population was larger (murder is a particularly clear indicator of lower crime, since no one can simply dismiss this with “there was just less reported crime back then”). But then evolution-based ideas infected the justice system: this ‘root causes’ nonsense, proclaiming that the criminals were ‘victims of society’ such as poverty and racism. Yet these factors were much higher in the 1950s when there was lower crime. But the results were predictable: lower the ‘cost’ of crime, and there will be more of it. This has been thoroughly documented in Dr Thomas Sowell’s fine book”

Also we need to consider that crimes of that time such as adultery had much bigger impacts and were considered greater crimes than today. Even 50 years ago divorce was very rare and seen as a very bad thing that would have negative effects on the family and culture. So some things such as adultery would be like what we consider maybe child molesters or similar. We as people over time get more sinful and accept certain crimes we originally would not have, or see them as not so bad because we have normalized them and made them common. For example, when I was young I said I would never smoke a cigarette, than I started smoking. I than said well I would never smoke pot, than I started. ill never smoke as much as them, than I did. well ill never do cocaine, then I did. So you can see we all do this in many ways towards things we do wrong. But God does not sin, he does not grow in sinfulness as we do. He is a just judge not a sinful human. if law is rejected than

“lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.”
-Matthew 24:12

Abolishing capital punishment would lead to vigilantly justice. In secular thought death is the ultimate evil rather than a step on the road to eternal life. It would not be moral progress but a evaporation of a sense of sin, guilt and justice.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Stoning children?

“The stoning of rebellious sons is one such Scripture that makes some Christians uncomfortable. Many people imagine this to be too harsh because they have ignored the qualifications that the Bible itself gives. They imagine a little child mouthing off to his parents, and then being killed for it. But this isn’t at all what the Bible teaches. First of all, the law applied to sons, not children. It appears to refer to young adults who were still living with their parents. From context (Deuteronomy 21:18) we can see that this penalty of stoning was not for a single action, but was for someone who had been punished many times (“when they chastise him”) and yet still continued in disobedience (“he will not even listen to them”). It was for someone who was constantly drunk and disobedient (Deuteronomy 21:20), someone who was continually cursing (Exodus 21:17) and even physically attacking (Exodus 21:15) his own parents. For such an evil individual, God instructed him to be delivered to the city authorities for public execution.Such an action is very serious, and it was meant to be. The public execution of such an individual was supposed to act as a deterrent to others (Deuteronomy 21:21—“and all Israel will hear of it and fear.”) How many such executions would people have to see before they got the point? Interestingly, I cannot find any Scriptural references to this punishment ever having been actually implemented. Perhaps it was, but my point is that it seems to have been uncommon. Just the threat of this penalty apparently acted as an effective deterrent. It was an extreme penalty for the most extreme, continuous rebellion of the most evil and violent young men. And it was only to be used as a last resort to protect society from unrestrained violence. Proverbs 19:18 states “Discipline your son while there is hope, And do not desire his death.”
-Jason Lisle Gods was to Harsh? And Answeres in Genesis Killing rebellious son


It also needs to be said that Gods law were meant for prevention, to prevent an evil in the first place and in this case it seemed to have worked for ancient Israel. For example v 21 says

21 Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear.

There is no record in the bible or Israelite history where a child was stoned to death for rebellious behavior. Thus gods sever punishment worked as a prevention. Also if we look at the opposite today's society where youth are allowed and encouraged to rebel towards parents with little punishment. Thousands die from drunk driving, drug use, violence etc.


what was stoning?


The goal was for a quick painless death, they did not have lethal injection in that day.


“the Talmudic method of how stoning is to be carried out differs from mob stoning. According to the Jewish Oral Law, after the Jewish criminal has been determined as guilty before the Great Sanhedrin, the two valid witnesses and the sentenced criminal go to the edge of a two story building. From there the two witnesses are to push the criminal off the roof of a two story building. The two-story height is chosen as this height is estimated by the Talmud to effect a quick and painless demise but is not so high that the body will become dismembered. After the criminal has fallen, the two witnesses are to drop a large boulder onto the criminal – requiring both of the witnesses to lift the boulder together..“Any Biblical death penalty procedure had to be accomplished in one instantaneous stroke,” he explained. “For while the death penalty may have been administered, it was not done in a way to prolong agony or suffering, nor in a manner of public humiliation that degraded the human being created in the image of God.”
-Fact Check: Does the Bible Really Condone Stoning? Rabbi Aryeh Spero, author of “Push Back: Reclaiming Our American Judeo-Christian Spirit,”


Are Gods laws to harsh?

“Yes I understand that law. But it still seems wrong to me. Some Old Testament laws are just too harsh.” For this person, I have only one question: “too harsh by what standard?”

The person who finds God’s law to be off the mark (too harsh or too lenient) must have some way of knowing what the mark is. As one example, what is the right penalty for a given crime? And how do you know? Many people appeal to their own subjective feelings of what they think to be right. But that is completely arbitrary; it’s a mere opinion without any rational foundation. What if two people disagree on what is morally right? How would they decide who is correct? Clearly, they must appeal to some greater standard that ultimately determines what is morally right. What is that standard?.... We need an objective standard if we are to have objective morality and not just conflicting subjective opinions.

Some people believe that morality is determined by majority vote. But that criterion leads to absurd results. After all, if the majority of people could be convinced that it’s okay to murder people, would that really make it morally acceptable? History is full of examples of the majority of people doing what is morally wrong. But that couldn’t be if the majority determined what is right. Appealing to the majority simply shifts an arbitrary opinion from one person to a group of people. It does not make the opinion any less arbitrary. After all, why should I do what the majority says?.....None of the above opinions can make the leap from what is to what should be. Only God’s law can do this. God is our Creator and will hold us accountable for our behavior. Therefore, we all have a very good objective reason to behave as God has commanded in His law. Any standard for morality apart from God’s Word is arbitrary, and therefore irrational.

“Good” is that which corresponds to the will of God (Romans 12:2, Hebrews 13:16, 3 John 1:11). God’s law is good because it corresponds perfectly to His will. When a person thinks that a law of God is not good (e.g. too harsh), this does not indicate a problem with the law of God. Rather, it indicates a problem with the person. It shows that the individual does not truly understand what morality is. Such a person is trying to appeal to his own subjective feelings of right and wrong rather than the supreme and unchanging Word of God....God’s law reveals what is right; it shows us God’s standards. When a person disagrees with God’s standards, He is trying to judge the law by some greater standard. But there is no greater standard.
-Jason Lisle Gods laws to harsh? By what standard

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

God's Law, God's Instruction, IS THE MARK OF GOD.


Take away from God's Law, God's Word, and He takes away the blessing in His Word.

Add to God's Law, God's Word, and HE ADDS THE PLAGUES .... to those who changed His Word.

The person who finds God’s law to be off the mark (too harsh or too lenient) must have some way of knowing what the mark is.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

God's Law, God's Instruction, IS THE MARK OF GOD.


Take away from God's Law, God's Word, and He takes away the blessing in His Word.

Add to God's Law, God's Word, and HE ADDS THE PLAGUES .... to those who changed His Word.

agreed. I think you should keep reading my friend.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

agreed. I think you should keep reading my friend.

Where ?