Sunday, October 3, 2010

Capital Punishment in the Mosiac Law

The Bible speaks out against violence and places great emphasis on human life. This is not surprising as Genesis 1:26 say that humanity was made in His image. Humans are the special creation of the Almighty God. However, the issue arises that capital punishment is prescribed for various offenses in the Mosaic Law. Certainly some of the offense one could be put to death for under the Mosaic Law seem somewhat trivial these days, Exodus 21:15 prescribes capital punishment to children who strike their parents. Other offenses which might seem trivial to modern thought are breaking the Sabbath (Exodus 31:14) or being stoned to death for being rebellious towards your parents (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). How then does the Christian deal with this, especially in the modern day when capital punishment comes under such scrutiny? The first thing that must be considered is by whose authority capital punishment was administered by in the Mosaic Law and that is God's. The Laws of the ancient Israelites were unlike any other laws at the time because they were not authored by men but rather by God. The fact that the Law was authored by God holds some particular implications. The first of these implications is that breaking one of these laws is not merely breaking a civil code but rather sinning against the Lord. Second is what crimes consituted in capital punishment was not determined by men but rather by men. For instance unlike many law codes of the time the Mosaic Law did not prescribe capital punishment for any type of property theft. In fact all offences where capital punishment is prescribed in the Mosaic Law are crimes against people or God. Just to put out some examples of this are kidnapping (Exodus 21:16) is a crime against men and blasphemy (Leviticus 24:10-16) is an offense against God. Though not always written out it appears at least that there was a procedure to capital punishment cases in the Mosaic Law. To illustrate some of my points I'm going to use Deuteronomy 21:18-21 describing the prescribed stoning of the rebellious son. The text reads "If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid." (NIV) The first thing that should be noted is that this offense is both against man (the son's parents) and God in the fact that the son was in continual defiance of God's fifth commandment. Also it should be noted that the parents did not simply kill their son themselves but rather had to take him before the elders showing that there was a process to capital punishment procedure. It also appears that capital punishment was used as an example to others. As the last verse of the Deuteronomy 21:18-21 states all Israel will hear of the stoning and be afraid. In fact Deuteronomy 21:22-23 discusses what to do with the corpse of an individual put on display having been executed for a capital offense. His body was not allowed to be displayed overnight but rather buried in the same day. Prolonged exposure would give undue attention to the crime and criminal. Also burying the individual was also most likely done out of respect for him as a human. This is different from other cultures that would leave the corpse to rot.

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