Muslims and Chrs./Jews swapped role in stoning to death.

[Saint Frankenstein]

That place is His place

I thought "his place" was everywhere and that our bodies are his new temples?

 

[sun rise]

I'd like to know how. I'm not sure what requirements they have, not being familiar with that.

I once asked an Islamist about some parts of the Quran and he said that those could not be enforced now because there was no Caliphate so they could not be practiced now.

 

[Tumah]

As far as Christians go, Jesus stops the stoning of the "woman taken in adultery", in what I find a rather moving story ( one of my favourites). The people bring her to him, saying according to the Law of Moses they should stone her. So he says to them, "Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone." They look sheepishly at one another and gradually they all slink away. Jesus is writing on the ground while this is happening. Then he looks up and says to the woman, "Where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one", she replies. He says to her, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more."

Can you imagine if you were arrested for stealing and in court you tried to have your case dismissed on the grounds that the judge got a speeding ticket?

 

[Tumah]

What you wrote might then question the veracity of the account in John then, where it appears that 'stoning' seems to be central to what they wanted to do. Also if it was as complicated as you wrote, and they were about to carry it out on the women in John, why would they then stop the process by listening to one statement from a random traveler?

I propose two possibilities:
1.
The Sanhedrin had actually stopped all forms of capital punishment 40 years before the Temple was destroyed. So around 30CE. The book of John was written around 80-100 CE. There had past at least 50 years since the last time a capital case was judged, and perhaps even longer for the particular case of an adulterer. John either didn't know the process or the process wasn't relevant, as his main concern was appealing to the masses who probably didn't know either.
2.
In actuality, in a regular case of adultery, the man and woman are choked to death, not stoned. In terms of adultery, stoning is only for a betrothed virgin who had an affair with another man. Sound familiar? Perhaps this narrative was fabricated to convey a different message...

 

[Tumah]

I don't get how ? Qur'an does not mention stoning to death as any capital punishment for any offense , while Bible implied it for a dozen of times . Sectarian Muslims endorse it in case of adultery/fornication while Christians/Jews do not do that . Muslims follow Bible and Christians/Jews follow Qur'an . What a flip-flop !


1. For touching Mount Sinai Exodus 19:13
2. For taking "accursed things" Joshua 7:1-26
3. For cursing or blaspheming Leviticus 24:16
4. For adultery (including urban rape victims who fail to scream loud enough) Deuteronomy 22:23-24
5. For animals (like an ox that gores a human) Exodus 21:28
6. For a woman who is not a virgin on her wedding night Deuteronomy 22:13-21
7. For worshiping other gods Deuteronomy 17:2-5
8. For preaching the wrong religion Deuteronomy 13:5-10
9. For disobeying parents Deuteronomy 21:18-21
10. For witches and wizards Leviticus 20:27
11. For giving your children to Molech Leviticus 20:2
12. For breaking the Sabbath Numbers 15:32-56
13. For cursing the king 1 Kings 21:10

It looks like you maybe got this list from a post on Tasbeha?
It's actually only a partial listing (and some of the items are wrong). Along with stoning (the guilty is pushed off a high platform and if they're not dead yet, people throw stones at them) we also have three other forms of capital punishment: burning (a stick of heated iron is pushed into the mouth), beheading and choking (a rope is wrapped in cloth, wrapped around the neck and pulled from both sides). There are actually 26 different cases where one of these forms of punishment are enacted.

 

[Good-Ole-Rebel]

Perhaps someone could interpret that differently such as by translating Jerusalem to 'City of Peace' rather than transliterating it as Jerusalem? I can't claim to have an opinion on it, because I don't know much about translation. I don't see anything wrong with questioning assumptions as long as its polite.

Well, yes some could say a 'city of peace' is Tokyo, or London, or whatever and build a temple. But as far as God would be concerned it would be just a building.

Concerning the Bible, the place is all important to God.

Good-Ole-Rebel

 

[exchemist]

Can you imagine if you were arrested for stealing and in court you tried to have your case dismissed on the grounds that the judge got a speeding ticket?

I can imagine a judge telling a vigilante mob to grow up and go home.

 

[Good-Ole-Rebel]

I thought "his place" was everywhere and that our bodies are his new temples?

He is God over all and is everywhere. But, He has set His eye, His affection, upon that area in Palestine known as Israel and upon the people known as the Jews.

As a Christian, my understanding of the Bible is this, only the bodies of those in whom the Spirit of God dwells make up the existing Temple on earth today. (1 Peter 2:5-8) Those who have been born-again. The Church. But this Temple will be removed one day, the Rapture, and once again God will pick up with the Jews where He left off.

Thus the need for the Temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem at the spot so designated by Him.

Good-Ole-Rebel

 

[Agnostisch]

Jewish law, far from being a dead hand, is an ongoing process of negotiation between the needs of the present and the authority of the past. And of course, this negotiation continued long after the Talmud was completed.

 

[Vouthon]

Because Jesus has made it unnecessary, as he is the new temple and the high priest. From what I recall, Christians tended to view the destruction of the temple as a judgement of God.

They did, to an extent (and good points btw).

The destruction of the Temple came as an existential blow to the early Christians and Jews, given that it had been the centre of both of their respective cultic lives and worship.

It's toppling led to a great deal of theological reflection on the part of Christians, that culminated in the Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament which described Jesus as the eternal high priest according to the order of Melchizedek, whose sacrifice for the sins of humanity had rendered the physical Temple blood sacrifices unefficacious and whose body had been revealed as the new eternal Temple of God (because He was the incarnation of the eternal Word of God and thus the presence of God on earth or to quote the author: "the radiance of God's glory, the express image of his being", doing pretty much what the Holy of Holies had done only now spiritually and without fear of it being destroyed by human hands).

The Rabbis took a very different understanding from the destruction of the Temple, which has been outlined by our Jewish friends in this thread.

Hebrews did not aver, however, that grain offerings had necessarily been annulled - only the blood animal sacrifices.

So, Christians would not have been averse so to speak to a re-built Temple in which grain offerings according to Leviticus were once more offered up (theologically speaking). Only the blood sacrifices don't fit this theology.

 

[Ehav4Ever]

I don't get how ? Qur'an does not mention stoning to death as any capital punishment for any offense , while Bible implied it for a dozen of times . Sectarian Muslims endorse it in case of adultery/fornication while Christians/Jews do not do that . Muslims follow Bible and Christians/Jews follow Qur'an . What a flip-flop !

If you look in Jewish history you don't find a lot of accounts of people being stoned. The reason is because in the Torah and Jewish law the burdon of proof to execute someone is very high. For example, in order for someone to even to receive capital punishment a long list of criteria must be met. For example,

1. The person woudl have to have been seen by two witnesses.
2. The witnesses would have had to have warned the person about the act and the punishment for the act several times. I.e. attempts made to try and covince the person not the do the act.
3. The person and the witnesses would have to appear before the Sanhedrin/Supreme Court in Jerusalem. Capital punishment can only be done by the court in Jerusalem.
4. The proceedings of the Supreme Court in Jerusalem would have to start with proving that the person was innocent before trying to prove them guilty.
5. The witnesses would have to questioned and attempts made to refute them.
6. At the end of the person did the act would have to agree that they definately did the act and that they understand the punishment and that they accept the punishment for the act.

As you can see, this is why it was very rare for people to be stoned in Jewish history. In fact, their was a saying in the Mishnah that states that a Jewish supreme court that executed someone once in 70 years was considered destructive.

 

[Vouthon]

I'm also not sure it's as straightforward as 'Christians don't do this' when they have been well-known to...

-Burn heretics.
-Hang/burn witches.
-Burn Catholics/Protestants/Whatever-they're-not.
-Enforce strict codes of conduct on Jews.
-Hang adulterers and murderers.
-Publicly humiliate thieves and liars.
-Punish people for working on sundays or not going to church on sundays.
-Ban Christmas/theatre/gambling/drinking/dancing/sports/anything fun.

Oh, indeed Christian societies have implemented all of that nasty and repressive stuff.

But what I think the other poster was explaining - and it is a valid theological point - is that there are no 'laws' in the New Testament which mandate the burning of heretics, hanging of adulterers and murderers, public humiliation of thieves and liars, or the proscription of festivals.

The New Testament is devoid of a divinely ordained legal code like Shariah or Torah that God has purportedly revealed for society, so the Church had nothing to point to other than secular law or Mosaic law (which was abrogated criminally, civilly and ceremonially for Gentile Christians) for civil, criminal etc.

It had no divine laws for the state "revealed" from God in the New Testament or Sacred Tradition to source from but rather had to appeal to natural law mediated through reason and conscience for lawmaking, illuminated by revelation ethically.

So there is no 'Christian societal law' that is set in stone. St. Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic scholastic theologian, thus explained in 13th century:

"The judicial precepts [of the Old Testament] did not bind for ever, but were annulled by the coming of Christ [...] In the ministry of the New Law, no punishment of death or of bodily maiming is appointed...As regards Peter, he did not put Ananias and Saphira to death...The Priests or Levites of the Old Testament were the ministers of the Old Law, which appointed corporal penalties." (St. Thomas Aquinas, SUMMA THEOLOGIAE: The judicial precepts (Prima Secundae Partis, Q. 104), 1265–1274)​

Long before him, in 866 A.D., the pagan Khan Boris of the Bulgars wanted to convert to Christianity and sent a letter to Pope Nicholas asking him to explain the "law of the Christians" so that he could live by it.

The pope replied as follows:


The Responses of Pope Nicholas I to the Questions of the Bulgars A.D. 866

Now then, at the very beginning of your questions, you properly and laudably state that your king seeks the Christian law...One should know that the law of the Christians consists in faith and good works. For faith is the first of all virtues in the lives of believers. Whence, even on the first day there is said to be light, since God is portrayed as having said: Let there be light,[Gen.1:3] that is, "let the illumination of belief appear." Indeed, it is also because of this illumination that Christ came down to earth. Good work is no less demanded from a Christian; for just as it is written in our law: Without faith it is impossible to please God,[Heb. 11:6] so it is also written: Just as a body without a spirit is dead, so, too, faith without works is dead.[James 2:20] This is the Christian law, and whoever keeps this law properly, shall be saved.​

He proceeds to explain in subsequent that Christians have no laws covering dress, diet or in terms of legal punishments. Indeed he invites the Khan to have a read of Justinian's Institutes of Roman Law as a model.

Christians just make this up as we go along, depending on the socio-legal-cultural environment we find ourselves in - which, to be honest, is pretty useful because its highly adaptable and might explain a few things about how Christianity has managed to penetrate a multiplicity of cultures.

Likewise, when Jesus was asked by someone to act as arbiter in a family property dispute, he completely disowned even a modicum of interest in telling people how to run their own lives in that way:

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?”

And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” 16 Then he told them a parable... (Luke 12:13-14)​

In other words, whereas Numbers 27:7-11 (which says a man's sons inherit first, daughters if no sons, brothers if he has no children, and so on) in the Torah and Sura 4 of the Qur'an have extensive details about inheritance law, Jesus prioritizes ethical living over the legal details and this has ultimately rendered the development of law a human responsibility in Christianity, not a religious one.

 

[Tumah]

I can imagine a judge telling a vigilante mob to grow up and go home.

Are you still talking about the earlier narrative or is this a reference to some other one?

 

[exchemist]

Are you still talking about the earlier narrative or is this a reference to some other one?

The same. Anyway, it is just a story in St John's Gospel which illustrates the change in the teaching of Jesus from the Mosaic law. So for Christians it has significance. Naturally though, I would not expect someone such as yourself to go along with this. I would not be that impertinent.