Subj : Re: Extent of the Torah
To   : Todd Henson
From : Joshua Lee
Date : Mon Oct 30 2000 12:19 am

-=> TODD HENSON wrote to JOSHUA LEE <=-

 >  FM>         Well, Joshua, keep the guillotine or the hangman's noose
 >  FM> stored as far as I'm concerned.  I doubt seriously that I've EVER
 >  FM> committed your chayiv misa.
 >
 > I agree; and if you did you wouldn't have to worry. The death penalty
 > in Jewish law is effectively a dead letter, so to speak. It's been
 > that way for thousands of years. (Which is why the story of the Sanhedrin's
 > secret execution of god in the NT rubs us the wrong way; it, like much of
 > the stories of Pharasees there, is completely the opposite of how
 > we understand them to have been.)

 TH> You've also had 2000 years

The rules concerning capital punishment are not recent; they date
to the Tannaic era in late antiquity.

 TH> to build up all kinds of cultural attitudes
 TH> in opposition to Christianity

These judicial rules were not built up in opposition to xtianity,
which didn't even exist at the time.

 TH> to the point of denying that such corruption is even
 TH> possible by Jews.

I don't believe that a Jewish court would pass a death sentence, any
more than I believe that a British court, where there is no death
penalty, would pass a death sentence. That is a reasonable assumption.
Credible evidence would have to exist. The NT's list of made-up
names and confusion of Saaducean institutions with Pharasiac (the
High Priest was not part of the Sanhedrin) by the Greco-Roman authors
of the NT does not qualify as credible evidence in the one gospel
IIRC where this story appears.

                       JBL

.... What is mind? No matter! What is matter? Never mind! - Homer S.
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