In episode 128 of the Enter the Bible podcast, co-hosts Kathryn Schifferdecker and Katie Langston discuss the question of capital punishment in the time of the Old Testament with guest, Professor Jonathan Paradise.
Dr. Jonathan Paradise received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania where he specialized in Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Biblical Studies. His doctoral research dealt with family law documents, written on clay tablets in the cuneiform script.
Jonathan established the program in Hebrew studies at the University of Minnesota where he taught courses on the Bible in the context of the Ancient Near East, Hebrew language and literature, and occasionally courses on Judaism. He retired from the University of Minnesota in 2003.
From 1989 to 2014 Jonathan travelled once a week to the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire to serve as the L.E. Phillips visiting professor of Jewish Studies in the Philosophy & Religion Department, teaching courses on the Holocaust, the Bible, and Judaism.
During his retirement he spends his time doing voluntary teaching, translating Hebrew poetry, and writing software to support his Hebrew textbook, The Key to Modern Hebrew.
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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Enter the Bible podcast, where you can get answers, or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible but were afraid to ask. I'm Katie Langston.
And I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker, and we have as our very special guest today, Professor Jonathan Paradise, who is a professor emeritus of Hebrew Studies at the University of Minnesota and a long time friend of mine. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jonathan.
And thank you for inviting me, Katie and Kathryn, it's a pleasure to be here.
Thank you so much for being here.
Well, we had, uh, we have a question, that I think Jonathan is the right person to to help us answer, uh, and this question comes from a listener, uh, from Enter the Bible org, it says: What does the Old Testament say about capital punishment? Uh, here, uh, Jonathan is, uh, is Jewish. So we might say, what does the Tanakh say about capital punishment? That's the, um, the Jewish name for that collection of books. But what how would you how would you? It's a big question, obviously, Jonathan, how would you begin to answer that?
Thank you. Let's begin by talking about, uh, how many places the death penalty is commanded in the Bible. There are 20 different offenses that command the the death penalty. Many of the crimes, uh, deal with sexual matters, for example, adultery for a married woman and her lover in Deuteronomy. I don't know, Kathryn, if you want me to quote the passage or if I should just tell you what they are. Another one is, uh, male homosexuality. Another one is murder. Uh, another one which I'm guilty of many times: violation of the Sabbath. All of these. And as I say, there are 20 of these different, uh, sins or or crimes that for which the Bible prescribes, prescribes the death penalty. Uh, so, uh, in addition to prescribing, uh, death penalty, they also specify four different ways of carrying out the death penalty: stoning, burning, strangling, and beheading, each one of them, uh, for a specific offense.
Sounds very pleasant.
Uh, indeed. If I were to tell you if. Katie. If I were to tell you how they actually carried them out, if they were to carry them out, you would find them even more challenging, because, for example, burning, if you would imagine that they tied a person to the stake and lit them on fire, you would be wrong.
Oh no.
They. What they do is pour hot molten lead down their throat.
Holy smokes.
When I mentioned this to a relative of mine who was from France, she said that was the regular way of execution in France.
Really?
Yes.
Wow.
I thought it was just the guillotine.
Oh my gosh.
Uh, but when you read the Bible, uh, that is that will not tell you what the actual practices of the ancient Israelites were. I want to mention just quickly that we don't have any historical evidence that would indicate if any of the laws in the Pentateuch or the what we call in Hebrew, the Torah, were ever carried out. We have to we have to contrast this with, for example, the situation in Mesopotamia where we have thousands and thousands of clay tablets written in the cuneiform writing, which actually reflect what people were actually doing. In other words, they're not abstract laws like the laws of Hammurabi, but actual cases that were brought before judges and how they and with the names of the accused and the names of the judges and the names of the witnesses, even and even the date of the of the tablet. We don't have anything like that for for the Hebrew Bible. What we can say is that, uh, what Judaism did with the Bible laws, the written Torah, uh, is completely different from what the Jews actually did. To put it in a, in one sentence, if you were to ask, do the Jews follow the laws of the Torah? The answer is no. And let me explain. The Jews have a doctrine called the Oral Torah. And according to that teaching, when Moses went up the mountain, he did not come down with the Torah. He came down with two torahs one was the written Torah that you have in the Bible. The second one, God just spoke to him. And what's in the Oral Torah? Have you got your seatbelt on, Katie?
Yes. Bucklin up right now.
The Oral Torah consists of everything that rabbis have taught and will teach for all time.
Whoa.
So God knew that, uh, according to the custom. Uh, what? What, Rabbi? Uh, well, I shouldn't say God knew that, but that, uh, it covers everything: past, present, future teachings.
And why did they do that? Because there are too many things in the Bible that the rabbis didn't like. And there were also.
I can relate to them sometimes.
And. Right. And there are a lot of things I mean, if I ask you, what do you don't like in the Hebrew Bible? Well, you could say, well, I don't like capital punishment, right? Or I don't like the position of woman of women, right. Or I don't like the idea that slavery is okay, right? Or I don't like the idea that my husband can have several wives.
Yeah, I don't like that.
You don't like that either.
Don't like those
Well, it would help with the housework, but but.
Well, that's that's an excellent point. As a, as a former Mormon, I've considered what it would be like. But anyway, go ahead.
So for that reason, uh, the Judaism of the, of the Second Temple period, uh, created this notion of the Oral Torah. And the Oral Torah is based on the written Torah, but it's the interpretation of those of those biblical texts that they actually follow. So, for example, you have, just to give you a very quick example, the phrase "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."
Yeah.
And you might think that that means that if I poke out your eye, you get to poke out my eye. And what the Oral Torah teaches is that if I poke out your eye, you sue me, and I am liable for five different forms of damages, and I won't go through them all right now. But you could imagine it would be through the loss of the eye and the pain and suffering and the disfigurement and the unemployment that you had to suffer and so on. So, in other words, eye for an eye does not mean an eye for an eye at all. It means, uh, monetary damages are paid. So the same thing I can say about, uh, the commandment to kill, uh, a person who has commit any of these 20 different, uh, crimes that I referred to earlier. What the rabbis did was to stipulate so many requirements that were necessary in order to get a conviction and carry out the sentence that in practice, it was impossible to execute a person. Mm.
What are some of the stipulations or requirements in order to, uh.
Right. So here here's some examples of the, of the standards that had to be met in order to get a conviction. There had to be two witnesses. The witnesses had to be persons who were known to keep the commandments, and who knew the written and the Oral Torah, and also had legitimate professions. I'm not sure that being a professor is legitimate.
I highly doubt it. I'm just kidding.
The witnesses had to see each other at the time of the crime. They had to be able to speak clearly. In other words, they couldn't have any speech impediment or they couldn't have a hearing deficiency. That would disqualify me because I normally wear hearing aids. But they had to. That was the reason that that was was stipulated is that they had to be able to ensure that the the warning that they were going to give the criminal and the response that the criminal gave were properly heard.
They had to warn the criminal before he committed the crime.
It's even more stringent than that. Uh, don't do that. Do you know, if you do that, what's going to happen? You know, uh, not only that, but they couldn't be related to each other. So if two brothers were the witnesses, then that that would disqualify them. And the prisoner goes free. The itnesses had to be able to see each other. They both had to give a warning to the person that the sin they were about to commit was a capital offense. The warning had to be delivered within seconds of the performance of the sin. And in fact, they had to. And how much in advance of the commission of the crime, the guys got the gun out. Right? And they had to say, uh, peace unto you, my rabbi and my master. In other words, as long as it takes to say that says phrase rather, uh, that's how they had to do it in the same amount of time. And the person who who was committing the crime or about to commit it had to respond that he was familiar with the punishment and he was going to do the crime anyway, and then to begin to to commit the crime. And if the accused had already committed the crime, the accused would have been given the chance to repent. And if they repented, they weren't killed. If they if they committed it a second time, well, that's it. Or if they were caught lying, then they were executed. The rabbinical court had to examine each witness separately, and if even one minor point in their testimony was wrong, like did they did the criminal have a blue eye or a brown eye? And if they just then if that if they got that wrong, then that contradictory evidence was enough to free the accused. Huh? The court was, uh, run by 23 judges, and that's the minimum 23, uh, judges. And the majority, uh, ruling could not be a simple majority. They would have to have at least at least 10 to 13 in favor of conviction. And if all of the judges were unanimous. I think you're going to like this one, then. Yeah. Then, uh, the accused was let go because. Because there's something fishy if 23 Jewish judges agree on everything.
That's amazing.
Uh, you see, you see where I'm heading with this? Uh, uh, the, um, those conditions are so stringent and so difficult to to to uphold that the accused is let go. Um, there's even more. Uh, the judges were required when they opened their deliberations to point out all of the good qualities of the accused, to bring up arguments why he should be acquitted. And then only after they do that are they able to hear the incriminating evidence. In other words, the attitude of the rabbinic tradition is strongly opposed to the death penalty.
So can I ask this, Jonathan? So if the the strongly opposed to the death penalty, was there a lesser punishment like, I mean, if someone committed murder? Uh, and was convicted. Was there some way of punishing aside from the death penalty, or was he just let go or or is it not clear from the evidence?
It's not clear. Uh, it seems that the reluctance to take a human life is so strong that they really are faced with a dilemma. I did find that that Maimonides did suggest a solution, and that was to feed them on bread and water for a long period of time until they starved. Oh, but so that they did die from they did die. Uh, yeah. Uh, but but they were not willing to carry out these four different forms of execution.
Yeah. Uh, yeah.
Let me. So this I feel like this raises a couple of questions that, you know, like our listeners might have slash I also have. So one is okay, so are we saying that the rabbis are more merciful than God since God commands the the executions and the rabbis are like, let's not do that. Let's figure out all the loopholes. So that would be one. Um, and then the the second question would be, I think, um, you know, kind of a broader question about, um, does that mean, you know, if there's if there's stuff in the text that we don't like, does that mean we just get to sort of be like ummm throw it out. So those are my questions.
But in fact, that's what Judaism does.
Yeah.
Answering your last question, if there's stuff in the text that they feel that they really, uh, can't uphold or don't like the values that it represents, then in fact, they do change it. They don't rewrite the text, but they interpret the text in such a way that it comes to mean something that is the opposite of what it might say, literally. Because after all, it literally does say in Hebrew, mote ya mute he shall surely die. We have a limitation of time, I know, Katie, because I have a wonderful joke which would take too long to tell.
I love jokes
But the answer to your question about whose Torah is it? Is it God's Torah? Or is it the Rabbis' Torah or the Jewish People's Torah? In Judaism, the answer really is the latter. Uh, God gave it to the Jews. And now it's theirs.
I think I know the joke or the story you were going to tell, Jonathan. It ends with God, uh, basically congratulating the rabbis on, uh, arguing. Well, right against God.
Right, right. The punchline is my sons have defeated me. Yeah. Uh, God says it's a very nice midrash, but the joke that I was going to tell is about these four rabbis, uh, and the one guy they never agree with, they never agree with that rabbi at all. And he prays to God and asks that at least one time God will let him win the argument. And God performs a whole bunch of they're out on the golf course, and God performs a whole bunch of miracles. And each time the miracle is supposed to show that this fourth rabbi is right and and, uh, finally, uh, the fourth rabbi is so frustrated and he cries out to God in heaven and says, please give them a sign. And God speaks out from the heavens and says "he is right". And one of the other three says, so, three against two.
That's amazing.
And that and that, that golf course joke, Kathryn, is really the equivalent of that rabbinic story that you're talking about.
That's great.
I mean, that is really foreign to Christian interpretation of the Bible, especially, I would say, in sort of like a post sort of fundamentalism, you know, fundamentalist, modernist kind of world where, you know, um, people pride themselves on, you know, at least thinking that they're upholding every word from the scripture.
And I want to, uh. Take exception to what you said. Sure. Here about about Christians, not about Jews. Yeah, yeah. Because I want to introduce the notion of primary scripture and secondary scripture. Okay. So so primary scripture is the actual Bible, which we which we give honor and glory and respect to. And secondary Scripture is our interpretation of, of the Bible. Uh, and that's what we really follow. It's our in the case of the church, it's the church's traditions. So, so the Bible says that you can't have a ham sandwich, but you can go to a restaurant and you can have a ham sandwich, and that's okay. Right. Well, that's that's an interpretation, uh, of, of the text. So in each case in, in the Jewish tradition, I think, and also the Christian tradition, even the more extreme ones, uh, we, we choose which of those biblical, uh, commandments we're going to take literally. And which ones we're not.
I think you could also talk about, uh, oral Torah and Talmud as equivalent or at least similar in usage to the New Testament. So we don't, Christians eat ham sandwiches, or at least many Christians do, including me. I just had a ham sandwich.
I also eat ham sandwiches, though I don't prefer them, go on.
Because in Acts chapter ten, right? Uh, there's this vision that appears to Peter of of unclean animals. And Peter, being a good Jew isn't going to eat the unclean animals. And God says, take and eat. You know what I have declared clean, don't declare unclean. And so, you know, so we eat ham sandwiches. Uh, so the, the Talmud. Right. And, uh, just briefly, can you say, can you say in two sentences, Jonathan, what the Talmud is.
The Talmud, uh, is a two part, uh, text that has the Mishnah, the first Jewish code that dates to the second century of the Common era, and the Gemarah, which is the commentary on that Mishnah, which is many, many volumes. I mean, I'm sitting here at a table that is about, uh, maybe six feet long. The volumes of the Talmud probably takes up six feet. And that's the that's the fifth century compilation. And it has continued to be the subject of rabbinic interpretation ever since the fifth century.
And so it's this it's this text that interprets the laws in the Torah or in the Tanakh. Uh, and a lot of other stuff, too, right, in the Talmud. But it's it's really those together, right? The Torah or the, the Tanakh and the Talmud that constitutes in large part Jewish interpretation, plus the continuing interpretation of the rabbis through the centuries. So I think it's not, uh, there is there are some, some guardrails or I don't know what I want to call it, but there are some guidelines maybe is a better way to to think about it in terms of how we interpret Scripture, I think, for both Jews and Christians. But, Jonathan, you were before we started recording, you were saying that, uh, in the modern state of Israel, right, the Jewish state of Israel, what is the attitude towards capital punishment there?
Uh, yeah. Uh, they don't uh, they, they do not have capital punishment. Uh, they made a they passed a special law, uh, for Eichmann, uh, because because of his role in the Holocaust. And he was convicted and executed. There was another case in 1948 of a Jewish soldier who was accused of treason. And he was, uh, tried and convicted and executed. Uh, subsequently, it turned out that he was totally innocent. Oh, no. Yes. He was. He was then given the honors and a material military burial and so on. But of course, it was too late. Um, um, uh, terrorists have never been executed under the law of of capital punishment. Even though there are people who want to do that. They there is no there is no execution of terrorists.
So, so the laws, the the laws in the Torah, the laws in the, in the what we call the Old Testament. Uh, they are not taken out of the text, but they are interpreted in such a way or or there there are, uh, guidelines put around them so that in fact, uh, for instance, the, the laws about capital punishment are really not carried out.
They made it impossible to, uh, to carry them out. Uh, I, uh, there is a saying which I know that you're familiar with Kathryn, uh, in the Mishnah, that if a Sanhedrin, uh, uh, condemned a person to death once in seven years, it was called a bloody Sanhedrin. And another rabbi says, uh, I would say once in 70 years it would be called a bloody Sanhedrin. And the punchline of two other rabbis who say, well, if we had been members of the Sanhedrin, we never would have executed, uh, a a criminal. The attitude, the attitude is, uh, hostile to capital punishment. I will say that there does seem to be some evidence in Jewish history that there were places and times where Jews did carry out capital punishment. I learned of a case like this in Spain, and I believe there were, uh, it was a case like that in Poland. Uh, but but for the most part, the Jewish courts, that's an important qualification. The Jewish courts, uh, refrained from using capital punishment. Uh, I say it's an important qualification, because what if the person was turned over to the non-Jewish courts?
Mhm mhm mhm. Well, which is, which is an important point to make as well I think um, there are certainly strains of Christianity that would uh be opposed to capital punishment, but there are also, of course historically, uh, Christian, uh.
We don't have the best record .
Don't have the best record. I mean, I, I actually just heard a speaker yesterday about, you know, uh, John Calvin, uh, condemning a heretic and saying, well, let's be merciful on him. Let's just behead him instead of burning him at the stake.
Sure. John Calvin.
There are, uh, yeah. We don't have the best record.
Yeah.
So these two Jews are on the scaffold about to be hanged. This is a joke.
Yes.
You knew that. Uh, and the the one of them starts to pull out, pull the noose away from his neck, and the other one says, don't make trouble. It just makes matters worse.
Oh, my goodness.
That feels like a really good note to end on, actually. Oh, Jonathan, thank you so much for being here. That I mean that. Yeah, lots and lots and lots of food for thought there. Um, and appreciate your, your, your breadth and depth of knowledge on this. Um, and thank you to the listener who submitted that question, especially thank you to you listeners and wonderful viewers. If you're catching us on YouTube for joining us, uh, on this episode of the Enter the Bible podcast, and you can get more awesome resources, commentaries, podcasts, conversations, all kinds of stuff on enter the Bible. Org. And as always, if you enjoyed this podcast, please review us on Apple especially. Five stars are awesome. They really help us. Uh, and be sure to share the podcast with a friend. Until next time.