Statement
Why do Jews not apply the Bible's death penalty today, say for collecting sticks on the Sabbath? The authors reply that rabbinic thinking shaped what biblical law means in Jewish culture; the rabbis arose in the centuries after the Second Temple fell. They regarded their contemporaries as inheritors of the Sinai covenant, so biblical law, capital cases included, still bound them. But in their view Sinai had also given an Oral Torah, absent from the Five Books and handed down by word of mouth from Moses to Joshua, then to the prophets and finally to the rabbis.
References
p. 61
supports · boxed feature · ch. 2
Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman. The Jews: A History. 3rd edition. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.
Section: Five Questions About the Jewish Bible
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p. 61
supports · boxed feature · ch. 2
Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman. The Jews: A History. 3rd edition. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.
Section: Five Questions About the Jewish Bible
Verification anchor recorded · checked against the page text
Scholarly debate
How did the rabbis understand biblical law and its death penalty?
2 positions · no single answer · take a seat →
- A
Binding law, elaborated by the Oral Torah
The rabbis
The Sinai revelation included an Oral Torah, not recorded in the Five Books and passed from Moses to Joshua, the prophets and the rabbis, which details biblical law, adds qualifications and makes exceptions.
- B
Death penalty emptied in practice
The rabbis, according to the authors
By demanding a very high standard of proof (a specific warning to the accused) or limiting the penalty to the days in the wilderness, the rabbis made it inapplicable; today no religious court would have authority to impose it.