From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!orion!lime!houti!hogpc!hogpd!avi
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: Re: biblical laws - (nf)
Article-I.D.: hogpd.26
Posted: Sat Mar 26 10:23:29 1983
Received: Sun Mar 27 05:07:05 1983
References: mhb5b.236

I was about to post an article that contained approximately the same
information as Steve Bellovin's (mhb5b!smb) comments. The question I am
responding to is: "When was the law changed about stoning adulterers".

Steve has already made some of the major points. I would like to add
some comments about how difficult it was to successfully prosecute
anyone (adulterers, violators of the Sabbath laws, etc.) in those days.
The Bible, when read verbatim, does seem a bit strange and capricious.
The Rabbis were constantly interpreting it and codified their discussions
(and this included the views of ALL sides when there was disagreement)
in the books of the Mishnah (I have no idea how to spell these things in
'English') and then in the Gemarrah. This is collectively known as the
Talmud. There were, of course, many thousands of other books written
since then.

Anyone who thinks they can understand Judaism just from the "Bible" is
asking for trouble. We are not just the "people of the Book". We have
many others. Christianity only borrowed our draft copy of the Bible and chose
to re-interpret it on the basis of their own views - and early pagan
influences. This explains why such staples of the Bible like the some of
the dietary laws (for example pigs and shellfish) and laws of the
Sabbath were totally ignored by Christians because it was hard enough to
evangelize without adding all these restrictions.

Christ may have said that he did not come to change the "laws of God", but his
followers had no compunctions in throwing away (selectively) anything they
wanted. When did God suddenly decide that the Sabbath should move to Sunday?
The Moslems, wanting some product differentiation, took Friday because the
other two days were taken. As an amusing aside, I notice that some countries,
like Spain, start the days of the week with Lunes (Monday) and end it with
Domingo (Sunday notice the "Latin" meaning of Domingo?). Does this little
trick actually fool anybody into thinking that Sunday is the seventh day?

Getting back to the point, let me detail some of the problems in prosecuting
people under the Jewish law of the times. You needed two witnesses for most
things. How many people do you know who will commit adultery in front of
an audience? In the case of violating a law of the Sabbath (how do you
spell this pesky word, anyway - it is easy to spell in Hebrew because it
is only three characters long) you really had to bring evidence. It was
childishly easy to violate the Sabbath. There were so many rules.
However, you had to prove that the perpetrator had been warned about the
'crime' and had shown that he was AWARE that it was not allowed and that he
then went and did it on purpose.

On a related topic, the issue of what to do when a husband thought his
wife had committed adultery. If the husband challenged his wife, and got her
to drink the potion that would prove whether or not she was innocent,
then her guilt was shown if her belly swelled up and she died.

>From my not particularly religious point of view, the woman would usually be
drinking something relatively harmless (although it probably tasted
terrible) and would probably only suffer psychosomatic effects. If she was
guilty, she might develop symptoms of acute illness. If innocent, she would
KNOW that nothing would happen to her and, of course, nothing would.
This is a crude, but probably effective, early form of lie detector.

It is interesting to compare this to a similar form of 'sin detection'
practiced in the Middle Ages by Christian societies. This tended to be somewhat
perverse. They would place you under water to see if you were a witch (wizard).
If you drowned, then you must have been innocent because a true witch
could have saved themselves. If you somehow survived, they had to kill you
because you were obviously a witch. There were many other variations on
this theme. A trial, of course, was not necessary.

The way I view many of the "punishments" in early Judaism is that they
were officially there as a deterrent but were rarely enforced. Loopholes
were found everywhere. It reminds me somewhat of the way we Americans
are always looking at the constitution and interpreting it in ways that
the original writers would not even have dreamed of. Some people think that
those people (several hundred years ago) were so wise .... that their words
must serve as the basis for modern law. I often find that amusing. There
are still many laws on the books which make little sense and are
absolutely ignored.

One example is the difficulty in passing something like the Equal Rights
Amendment to the constitution. Why do we try to justify giving women some of
those rights based on interpreting ancient law. Most of those people would
not have dreamed of such a thing. Many were pro-slavery. Most religions
are guily of doing the same thing. It is interesting to watch the
justifications involved in 'suddenly' abolishing meatless Fridays. What
was the "official reason" for the change in attitude?

My letter has gotten out of hand, like usual. I would like to comment that
my comments about Judaism referred to ancient forms. The various versions
of Orthodoxy, as well as Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist, are
all quite different from this and each other. Even the rigidly Orthodox
forms have continued to evolve.

		Writing this on the Sabbath,
			Avi E. Gross