Crusader War College

The "cons" of Capital Punishment

Jaakko at Rye Beer invites all to a discussion of Capital Punishment at his website here. However, his comments are turned off, so there's not much of a debate actually possible. Nevertheless, I'll make a contribution of sorts that not only will be pertinent to the subject at hand, but has wider applicability. [He's turned the comments on now.]

I admire Jaakko's Christian committment, but the following comment presenting an argument against Capital punishment makes me question his competence:

As to it not being "kill[ing] anyone," I think the distinction could easily be termed too close for (eternal) comfort. Then there's this:

So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, " He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. " (John 8:7, KJV)

The Old Testament does of course permit, and even require, the death penalty for some offences. But the New Testament doesn't, so far as I can tell. I've never quite understood some Christians' support for the death penalty. Is it merely on the basis of the Old Testament?

Contrary to popular belief, merely quoting a verse from the Bible in the course of a discussion does not make it true within the context of the discussion. Go to a really engaged bible study group, cite a single verse, and see how quickly everyone dives for their Bible to look it up. Why? Do they question the quoter? Do they think he quoted it wrong? Do they doubt his veracity? Not at all. A common proverb cited within Christian circles that those outside those circles never cite is:

A text without a context is a pretext.

Of course those hostile to Christianity rarely cite it: It means that Christians are far more intellectually rigorous than they want to paint them. Some trying to bobble Christians into a certain political position, such as Capital Punishment, don't cite it either: a look at the context blows the scam. I'll be the first to say that I don't think Jaacko is one of the latter, but I'd hazard a guess that he picked the argument up from someone who's guilty of "prooftexting".

So, what IS the context of John 8:7? Here it is, in full:

2 Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them.

3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court,

4 they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act.

5 "Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?"

6 They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground.

7 But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

8 Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court.

10 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, "Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?"

11 She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more."

The context indicates that Jesus was pressed into service as a Judge in the Temple, the proper place for a judicial proceeding. The woman was taken in the act of adultery, a punishable crime not only in Judaea, but also in Rome. Jesus is asked to pass judgment. The ostensible reason is to uphold "Law and Justice", but the real reason is given in verse 6, "They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him.". Verse 7, in its context, is a judicial pronouncement on the case at hand.

In the rush to get to the pseudo-salvation of verse 7, the total squirrliness of this whole affair is missed. When the case is adultery, it takes two to tango, and one partner is missing. The Law of Moses being cited here is Leviticus 20:10, part of a larger set.

10 If {there is} a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

11 If {there is} a man who lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death, their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

12 If {there is} a man who lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed incest, their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

13 If {there is} a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

14 If {there is} a man who marries a woman and her mother, it is immorality; both he and they shall be burned with fire, so that there will be no immorality in your midst.

15 If {there is} a man who lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death; you shall also kill the animal.

16 If {there is} a woman who approaches any animal to mate with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

We focus on the brutality of the punishments outlined in these verses so much, we miss the requirement for equal punishment. Even in its harshness, Moses commanded justice for all concerned, and equal punishment for equal crimes, regardless of sex. This passage from Deuteronomy 22 emphasizes the underlying current of justice :

22 If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel.

23 If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and {another} man finds her in the city and lies with her,

24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor's wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

25 But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die.

26 But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case.

27 When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.

Let's not allow a culturally priggish sense of superiority (usually present in triple measure in those opposing the death penalty) blind us to the fact that the Lord explicity conditioned the punishment of crimes on specific circumstances.

The second questionable aspect of this is the Judge himself. This is not to imply that Jesus is an incompetent judge. Rather, it is to point out the obvious fact that Jesus was a carpenter and a preacher, NOT a duly constituted and appointed as a Judge by the proper authorities. If anyone should know this, it would have to be a person fully qualified to be a judge, and thus be aware of the requirement that he be appointed and given the authority to be a judge. If there was anyone more careful to be the right kind of person doing the right thing at the right time, it was Jesus Christ. He was always on target and on mission, despite the fact that people wanted him to do a job that he didn't want to do. When a man asked Jesus to force the man's brother to divide his inheritance with him (another appeal to Jesus as an authorized judge), Jesus replied "Who made me a judge or divider over you?" (Luke 12:14) He specifically said "...I came not to judge the world, but to save the world." (John 12:47). We know that God will appoint Jesus to judge the world at the end of the age, but we need to emphasize that Jesus was not appointed by God, Temple, or State to judge a woman taken in Adultery in the First century AD. What part of "That's not my job" or "My time has not yet come?" is it that we seem unable to understand?

So picture this: the lawyers and religious leaders of a people possessing the best moral and legal code of the world at that time are conducting, in the middle of the court of a temple that was acknowledged by ancient authorities as the most magnificent building in the world, a kangaroo court. A carpenter has been appointed as the judge, and only HALF the guilty parties of the incident in question. THIS isn't squirrelly? Hell, if *I* was the "judge", I'd hang my head and be quiet too out of shame, for there were more than enough Scribes there, whose job was to know the Torah, to know the passages that I'm quoting here, to DO THEIR JOB, SPEAK UP, and point out the illegality of this entire procedure. (I'm assuming, of course, that those proposing that Jesus's verdict in this case be legally binding on the propriety of Capital Punishment must accept the premise that this was, more or less, a court trying a capital crime. Certainly, many a sermon has been preached assuming that the woman's life was in danger of a literal stoning.)

Nobody speaks up, but instead they keep pressing the issue. Eventually, Jesus sits up and issues, as the judgement of the Kangaroo court, a perfectly appropriate kangaroo verdict: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

On the one hand, this is the most asinine verdict ever handed down. The Law of Moses never put any such restriction on anyone stoning an adulterer or adultress, much less demanding sinlessness. Even before the law was given, the Commandment from God was: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." (Genesis 9:6) Current Jewish thought is that this is a Noachide commandment, binding on all nations and at all times, because it was a command given before Moses and to all the people who existed at the time it was given (All eight of them). If anyone objects, saying that such a restriction was indeed given by God via Moses, then produce the text from the Old Testament, and put it as a comment. Please, enlighten me if I am wrong, but if you're making a religious argument, I won't even consider it unless it is founded upon sure scripture, not your opinions or desires or pleas.

To a screwed up legal process and a screwed up trial, Jesus gave a perfectly screwed up judgement which, if followed, would perfectly screw up the entire legal system for all time and all peoples if perfectly and blindly followed in the way the christian anti-capital punishment people demand.

This so supremely screwed up, it's brilliant.

How so? Here's how. Firstly, Jesus never said that the woman was innocent: he commands her to sin no more, implying that he agreed that she was guilty as hell. In that sense, he COMPLIED with and followed the Law of Moses to the letter. The assembled leaders and pharisees wanted to accuse him of ignoring the Law of Moses, an accusation they'd later make against Paul. Jesus's verdict robbed them of that accusation.

Secondly, Jesus's verdict was also in accordance to the Law of Moses, in that the Law of Moses requires that the witnesses in a death penalty trial be the ones to cast the first stone. From Deuteronomy 17:5-7

5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.

6 At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.

7 The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.

This was the second to last judicial barrier before execution. The condemned was convicted by witnesses who swore to tell the truth. If they were the first to put him to death, and it was later discovered that they had lied and killed an innocent man, then they would be stoned in turn.

Thirdly, the verdict is also deliciously ambiguous. One of the subdefinitions of sin is "missing the mark". If we did a substitution, the verse would come out as:

"He that is without missing the mark among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

or, in other words:

"He that won't miss the mark among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

Fourthly, there's a difference between pronouncing a sentence and carrying it out. Bear with me while I ask this question: what if they DID stone her to death? What would happen?

They'd get in trouble with the ROMANS, that's what would happen! Why else would they take Jesus to the Romans, but to get permission to put him to death? (John 18:31) If they DIDN'T need permission to stone the woman taken in adultery, then they DIDN'T need permission to stone Jesus for blasphemy. In fact, stoning was the standard punishment for blasphemy. The reason they couldn't stone Jesus was not only because the Romans forbade execution, regardless of manner, but also because the people had to participate in finishing the job. What if they held a stoning, and nobody came? Worse yet, what if those who did come started a riot and THEY, the Pharisees, were stoned? This was the last judicial barrier to execution, for the justice of the proceedings and the sentence had to be visible to all, or else the "condemned" would go free for lack of anyone to carry out the sentence. (The stoning of Stephen could have been excused as a "crime of passion", due to the strong emotions that Stepen's speech caused in the hearers.)

On the other hand, merely pronouncing a death sentence was not forbidden by the Romans: The Jewish Sanhedrin, in condemning Jesus to death, did not get in trouble themselves with Pilate when they came to him to ask that Jesus be crucified.

And let's not leave out another involved party if the sentence was carried out, namely the Jewish court system. Y'know, the REAL judges? The ones who SHOULD have been asked to try this case? Last time I looked, every court system in every nation on the planet gets highly annoyed when kangaroo courts enroach on their turf. Seems to me a few of them would certainly have been Sadducees, and would have been utterly delighted to haul some Pharisee ass into court and masticate thereon: "What the HELL were you doing? Capital cases come before ME, not a CARPENTER! And from NAZARETH at that! What the heck were you smoking?"

Given that the probability of getting in trouble with the Romans (and the Sadducee judges) was good if they followed Jesus' verdict, the eldest departed first. They had the most wisdom to see the ambiguity, the most experience to figure out what the consequences would be if word got back to the Romans, and the most to lose when punished. The younger ones were there to back up their elders and earn "brownie points" for participation and loyalty. They retired, because the enlisted men won't stand and fight if their officers turn tail and run.

Fifthly, has anyone really BOTHERED to ask what specific "sin" Jesus was speaking about? In their rush to verse 7, people want it to be ambiguous and general. However, is it not a sin to pervert justice by convening a kangaroo court to try a capital crime in the middle of the capital city, much less carry out the sentence? To knowingly violate strict judicial guidelines laid down in the Torah by God Himself, in the very court of His Temple?

Sixthly, READ THE VERDICT. Even if you grant that the "sin" Jesus was specifying is "sin" in general, he did not forbid capital punishment. He merely laid a condition of sinlessness upon the would-be executioners when only one of the guilty parties was present. Remember, according to the Law of Moses, BOTH man and woman had to be stoned (if she was caught "in the very act", where was the guy?). The Law was totally silent on the issue of what would happen if only one of the two parties was caught. Jesus patched that loophole.

Seventhly, and I say this quite facetiously, are you STILL IN YOUR SINS? Didn't Jesus take them all away when you believed in him and confessed them? I may be a sinner, but after I confess my sins, I am definitely without sin. I may sin again, for I confess also to being a sinner, but I am without sin until then. If that is not true, and Jesus' sacrifice cannot literally take away sins after I confess them upon Him, then I am still in my sins, still in possession of them (or rather, they possess me), and thus am quite doomed. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.

By the way, don't think that the Scribes and Pharisees got clean away perpetrating this near atrocity. By coming to him, en masse, in the Temple Court, acting as if he was a judge, these leaders inadvertently legitimized Jesus as a consultative authority the moment they turned around and walked away, without argument or comment or opposition, after hearing his verdict. In later chapters in John, Jesus teaches in the Temple, as equal a Rabbi and "leader" as anyone else, no longer banished to the court.

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Like I said, I do not dispute Jaakko's Christian dedication, but there's a lot of disagreement out there as to what the Scriptures require, so a careful examination of the texts, their contexts, and what the participants were thinking at that time, is required to understand what is, and isn't, "Gospel Truth". This usually causes rather long and windy posts (like this one) where the record is set straight, the misconceptions are identified and cleared away, and the basis for any replacement conceptions are explained. My biggest beef, in fact, is the sloppiness of the popular interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan, but that's for another post. I will close by recommending a general principle of interpretation that I hope to expand upon in another post.

When attempting to gain instruction and guidance from Scriptures, we must be careful to properly classify verses that imply requirements by context, speaker, and intended audience. "Execute this man" is a statement that only a few individuals are entitled to speak, directed to a specific audience empowered to act, and only within a certain context. I want to point out the obvious: When the New Testament speaks, it speaks only to individuals as believers and to the Church as an institution comprising a collection of believers. In contrast, when God or Moses speaks to the Israelites in the Old Testament, they speak to individuals, leaders, judges, priests, Temple, and Nation. There should be no confusion as to who a specific command is directed. One of Jesus' reforms was to correct this error of taking verses directed at someone else for a specific purpose, and applying it to a different context and purpose.

Take the section in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus said to the people "You have heard that it was said of the men of old, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you..." Look at the context, for pete's sake! It was a judicial formula, to be used by authorized judges in determining the punishment for perjury! For any tom, dick, or harry to take that formula and apply it as a justification for revenge is a perversion of its intended use, plain and simple. Jesus came partly to correct that misconception.

So, did it occur to anyone that it is equally faulty to take a specific response to a specific abuse of the judicial process, directed at individuals at the individual level, and generalize it and direct it to the State? Really now! I invite anyone to cite me a verse where Jesus or any Apostle uttered a specific command to the state, or to any state official to act in a certain way in their position as a state official. You won't find any, for I've looked. Jesus, John the Baptist, Peter, and Paul certainly spoke TO state officials, but any commands they gave (if at all) were directed to the officials as individuals, not officials. John the Baptist did not tell soldiers not to kill anyone, but to be content with their wages and not defraud anyone. He also told Herod to repent concerning Herodias, but uttered not a word as to what the taxation levels should be. Indeed, if taken literally, some verses in the New Testament specifically prohibit rebellion against tyrannies, calling into question the morality of the American Revolution! In contrast, the Torah gives specific directions to Kings, Armies, Businesses, and Judges, and lays down laws that are clearly civil laws. Laws of a type that are no where laid down in the New Testament. The Koran is very much like the Old Testament in that it also lays down laws that are clearly civil in extent and application.

I understand the desire to apply Christianity to a wider context than that applied by Jesus and the New Testament writers. The problem those wanting to do that is to justify, USING SCRIPTURES, the authority and propriety of doing so out of context and apart from the clearly intended audience. The whole problem with the religious arguments for Pacifism is precisely this blind application of guidelines directed at individuals to the State. I think the same questionable premise is at work among those who seek a religious basis for forbidding Capital Punishment in a civil court context.

NOTE: I wrote the above in draft before he made this post. I find it unpersuasive, but the reasons for doing so require another longish topic, in which I will expand on my proposed principle of biblical interpretation.

Posted by ptah at May 28, 2004 01:20 PM