From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ucbcad:tektronix!tekmdp!dadla!dadla-b!hutch
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: Re: biblical laws
Article-I.D.: dadla-b.393
Posted: Wed Mar 23 10:53:16 1983
Received: Tue Mar 29 02:20:41 1983

In reply to Steve Nelson's questions about the punishments for violation
of the Law with regards to adultery.

His questions went like this:

	Could one of the resident biblical apologists tell me what
	year God decided that stoning adulturers to death was no 
	longer necessary?  Whom did he inform as to the change in the law?
	In the "divinely inspired" books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy the law
	of the Lord meted out such horrible death sentences for offenses
	such as adultery and the pretense of virginity.

First thing to remember is that the Law applies specifically to the Hebrews
(Jews, in modern terminology) who have a special contract with God.
There was never any attempt to make them apply to other nations (The word
"nations" has a slightly different meaning now, with less of a racial
connotation) except for certain limitations that were applied to those members
of other nations who found themselves living in Israel.

I don't know for sure when the Hebrews stopped applying the law against
adulterers and failed virgins, but I suspect that it was largely stopped
at the time of the destruction of Rome and the dispersal of the Hebrews.
It clearly was still applied in Jesus' time.  The incident in the Gospels
describes His reaction to the folk who tried to apply that law:  He asked
them which of them was totally without sin.  Since none of them could say
that they were, none of them could throw the first stone.  Jesus is believed
to have been without sin, and He did not throw the stone, either.  That is
the origin of the Christian reluctance to apply those laws.  I found it
interesting that the usual response to such a question is a belligerent
claim on the part of the challenged.  Jesus' presence and possibly the
force of His personality was enough to prevent this sort of reaction.

	I suppose there are many laws in the Bible which don't make much
	sense in modern society, and which are awfully inconvenient to follow.
	But if not God himself, who is telling you which divinely revealed laws
	you can ignore and which you must follow?

Christians normally believe that we are free of the laws regarding ritual
cleanliness, since Jesus said that such cleanliness was based on the spirit
more than the observance of the ritual (the implication is that the ritual
is a useful discipline for maintaining a spiritually clean attitude.)  The
claim is that the Law is written in our hearts by the Holy Spirit indwelling
us, and that we will, if we obey the promptings of that Spirit, be compliant
to that Law.  This is not to claim that we are all always obedient.

There are some interesting ramifications to this topic when you look at the
history and development of Jewish culture.  Since I know more about the
situation in New Testament times than about the present, I will restrict my
commentary to those times.

One of the ritual cleanliness laws had to do with the time that a woman was
held to be ritually unclean (as opposed to spiritually unclean).  On her
period, a woman had to retire to a private place and not come into contact
with men until about a week (I think) after her period ended.  This was
originally written in language which specified a separate tent, but this
was clearly not the practice in cities, where separate houses would be
used instead.  There was no punishment for a woman who violated this law,
but the men who contacted her were ritually unclean until they completed a
purification period.  With the rise of the Pharisaic movement, the dread
of ritual uncleanness became so neurotically pervasive that some people
actually ignored the parts of the Law that expected them to aid persons in
distress.  (Side note:  The period of ritual purification after a woman's
period was just about right to ensure that the woman would be entering the
normal fertile period at the time that she became ritually clean.  This
interval is just variable enough that it didn't always hit, but it is an
interesting correlation.)   Similar laws applied to anyone who had some
mysterious flow of blood.  Corpses were ritually unclean, and so on.  I am
not sure how much of this oral and written tradition was actually the
amplifications on the Law introduced over the years by the Pharisaic
Rabbis.


Steve Hutchison
...tektronix!tekmdp!dadla!hutch

Tektronix
Logic Analyzers
Design Automation Division