Leviticus 20:14 is not the Word of God

[ZackMartin]

I think the biggest problem you're having in dealing with this passage is that you're anachronizing. You cannot judge the measures necessary for keeping law and order in the ancient near east, in an entirely different cultural, economic and political situation by what we'd think and do today. This isn't moral relativism, this is just understanding the scripture in context.

I guess Mullah Omar might say "You cannot judge the measures necessary for keeping law and order in Afghanistan, in an entirely different cultural, economic and political situation by what you think and do where you live. This isn't moral relativism, this is just understanding things in context." I'm happy to accept that different responses might be morally required in different circumstances (temporal, geographical, cultural, economic, etc.); but I'm going to assume a uniform response everywhere until it is demonstrated to the contrary - to not make such an assumption is just to provide carte blanche to special pleading. So those who argue that things immoral in the herenow were nonetheless moral in temporally or spatially distant settings - the onus of proof is on them.

Yes I agree, though "people getting hurt" is putting it mildly.

It certainly causes a lot of emotional and psychological hurt. But it certainly doesn't kill people, at least not directly (although sometimes emotional and psychological hurt ends in suicide, or accidental drug overdoses, or homicide, or similar things.) If we look at things historically - this, and a few related verses in Leviticus 18 and 20, represent affine marriage prohibitions, or affine incest taboos - i.e. a prohibition on sex or marriage with someone who is not a blood relative (consanguineous), but a relative by marriage (an affine relative, a step-relative or in-law). We can trace these biblical taboos into mediaeval Christian canon law of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. In England, the Catholic canon law on this issue survived the Reformation and became part of the law of the Church of England; in time, the law of marriage was transferred from the ecclesiastical to the civil court system, but the civil law continued the rules of canon law in this area. Many of England's colonies (e.g. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United States) inherited these rules, although most I believe have abolished them. The UK however clung on to them until 2005, although with the odd exception that some people were exempted from these laws by special legislation of parliament applying to them only (private legislation) - the last such case was the George Donald Evans and Deborah Jane Evans (Marriage Enabling) Act 1987. But in 2005, the European Court of Human Rights overturned these laws in the B and L v UK case. I'm not approving of what B and L did, but I'm not aware that it resulted in anyone dying. But Leviticus seems to be suggesting they should have been executed. By contrast, I think that the ECHR reached the right decision - even though I can't say I approve of these sorts of marriages, I don't think it is the business of the government to make them illegal.

You object to the capital punishment because "[Your] entire life, ever since [you were] a child, [you] have always believed that capital punishment was gravely wrong". I would like counter that for my whole life I've always felt that capital punishment was a just reward for those who unlawfully take life or get people killed through egregious negligence.

You have your conscience and I have mine. In any event, the OT is full of prohibitions bearing the death penalty that don't involve taking anyone's life or endangering anyone's life in any obvious way. Look at Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22 - executing adulterers, just like under the most extreme interpretations of Shariah law (the Taliban, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.) When I was a teenager, my mother cheated on my father. I don't approve of what she did, I never will, and I feel sorry for my father. But if someone was to suggest that she should have been executed - they better not say it to my face or they might end up with a broken nose, or worse. If your mother or father, husband or wife, son or daughter, brother or sister, committed adultery, would you support executing them? What does your conscience have to say about that?

What I think the gist of your argument is:
1. That we all have deeply held moral beliefs
2. That presumably we'd side with our deeply held belief over a new revelation that contradicted that belief.

Well, I'd say we ought to do (2), unless we were given some strong reason (independently of the mere claim of the revelation itself) to counteract (1). I might be convinced that (1) was wrong, by reasons that don't depend on revelation, and then I might be able to accept revelation (2). But I can't see how revelation all by itself can justify a change in our consciences.

First, as was pointed out earlier, what we normally think of as a "conscience" is a product of our individualist guilt-oriented culture, people in the ancient near east were honor/shame oriented and likely didn't have a conscience as we know it.

Interesting speculation you have here, but I don't agree with it. Many cultures today are far more collectivist, and far more honour/shame-oriented, than contemporary Western culture - does that mean they have no concept of conscience? I don't think so; I don't see any inherent incompatibility between conscience and collectivism, or conscience and honour/shame, or between shame and guilt. Shame and guilt are closely related, and while certainly some cultures put more emphasis on one than the other, there is no evidence that either is absent from any culture contemporary or historical.

Universalizing based on some perceived shared value among most humans (at least in this case) is not justified - the ancients wouldn't have agreed and neither do I.

I think a core principle of morality, which most people agree on, is it contains an element of universality - we see this idea occur again and again, in the Golden Rule, in Kant's categorical imperative, in Bentham's pleasure principle, in Hare's universalisability principle. I don't rule out a role for particular obligations in morality (e.g. I owe my children a special moral obligation beyond the moral obligations I owe to the children of other people), but a morality devoid of universalisability is no morality at all. We should try to look for what we agree on, and then look at ways we might grow our agreements.

I would suspect today that one's opinion on the death penalty might well correlate to whether one's country employs the death penalty - though that's just speculation.

And I'd agree there is likely some truth in that statement. Opinion polling indicates that abolition of the death penalty is often followed by a long-term decline in its popularity (albeit one that takes several decades to take effect.) I know here in Australia, today a majority are opposed to the death penalty, back when it was first effectively prohibited in the 1960s/1970s a majority supported it (although full legal prohibition didn't come until the mid-1980s.) But, at the same time, I'd think you'd also find that prohibiting slavery tends to increase opposition to it in the long-run too - if you did an opinion poll in Alamaba in 1865 "Is slavery wrong?", and then repeated the same opinion poll in 2005, I'd bet you'd see quite a change in opinions. That one's opinions to the death penalty can be predicted by one's surrounding culture is no evidence against those opinions - to think otherwise would be to commit the genetic fallacy.

Second, the idea of new revelation from a new prophet isn't a particularly useful hypothetical, because a Christian would reject any new revelation that doesn't square with the bible (and its questionable whether there could be any more revelation at all).

But put yourself back in time to before the Bible was finished, and the hypothetical makes sense. Or consider someone today, who is open to Christian claims of revelation but has not accepted them; they need criteria to judge whether to accept claimed revelations (Christian or otherwise), and would it be wrong for them to use their conscience in doing so? I think it is right for people to follow their consciences; their conscience might not always be right, but on the whole it is better that people do what they honestly believe is right, than that they do what they believe to be wrong.

But more importantly, the issue isn't the use of the death penalty today, the issue is the use of the death penalty about 3000 years ago in the Near East.

As a non-relativist, I start from the assumption that the fundamental ethical rules are the same for all people's in all times, so if something is wrong today, prima facie it was wrong 3000 years ago too. I don't deny that circumstances might make a difference, but I think the burden of proof is on those claiming the exceptional case.

You make the mistake of assuming that because the prohibited action wouldn't have life threatening consequences in modern times, that it would be immoral to use capital punishment for the crime back when such behavior was in fact life-threatening. I don't think you're understanding the severity of this crime - this isn't just about people's feelings getting hurt.

No actual evidence it was life-threatening back then. Just a bunch of speculation.

Correct my if I'm wrong, but it seems like you're imagining that this was a summary execution via lynch mob. These cases were tried before an elder, judge or ruling authority and they had wide latitude on how to apply a sentence. This wasn't some automatic killing by some frenzied mob.

What lynch mob? I never mentioned a lynch mob. But judgement by tribal elders can be exceedingly barbaric - try contemporary Pakistan, where some elders think that raping a woman is an appropriate punishment for the alleged wrongdoing of her male relatives. If the ancient Israel was an honour/shame society, should we not look to contemporary honour/shame societies for information on how it might have functioned? - the phrase "honour killing" comes to mind.

As was pointed out by another poster, it is unlikely that a daughter could've been coerced into a sexual relationship without the mother's knowledge and consent.

There are numerous cases of mothers' sexually abusing their children, watching or assisting their partners in doing the same, prostituting their own children; here are just two random examples plucked from the Internet - Mother aided child's prostitution, Police: Mother prostitutes daughter to elderly man. So, maybe he wouldn't have done it without her knowledge and consent, maybe he would have done it with her knowledge and consent. So then, execute the daughter?

Even in ancient societies, would a stepfather never have a moment alone with his stepdaughter? If you said there would be less opportunities than in our contemporary society, I wouldn't disagree; but to say none there would be none at all is a leap too far.

In the case of marriage, all three would be fully consenting to the crime and it would be done in public before many witnesses.

How many witnesses did ancient Israelite marriage require? Where does the Bible say that marriages have to be published - publishing of the banns, marriage licenses, registrations of marriages - these are not to my knowledge biblical requirements. If we go back to the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church believed that marriage was brought about by the consent of the parties, so no priest or minister, no witnesses, were required - marriages not publicly witnessed were known as "secret marriages". The Catholic Church later banned marriages without a priest, due to the potential abuses they entailed - but this was a "law of the Church" rather than a "law of God" - and much later, still permitted secret marriages with the permission of a bishop, in which the marriage was celebrated by a priest, but otherwise kept from public knowledge. And many jurisdictions have acknowledged - less so today - the notion of "common law marriage" or "marriage by habit and repute", whereby all a couple had to do to become married was live together. Even today, if I wanted I could get married and hide that from my friends and family - there would have to be a legal record of it, but I could get married in such a way that they could not find it unless they went looking - for example, I live in Australia, and under Australian law foreign marriages are generally recognised without further formality, provided they would be legal had they been celebrated here. So I could go to any country on the planet that would marry me, and I then would be married under Australian law, but under no obligation to inform the Australian authorities of that fact. So I could fly to Hawaii, get a marriage license (no residency requirements), get married, come back with my new wife - and if we wanted, never tell anyone here, and no one (not even the government) would know unless we told them - they could look it up on Haiwaii's public records, but they'd probably never think of doing that. But, so long as there is no bigamy, no same-sex marriage (not legal in Australia for now), no prohibited blood relationship (incest), we are both of marriageable age, sound mind and freely consenting, then the marriage is legally valid under Australian law - even if the Australian authorities are never informed of it. Marriage is not inherently public.

The Bible contains a lack of information on what the minimal requirements to contract a valid marriage are - even if you could demonstrate a certain pattern of marriage was the norm, that is not enough to prove that less than the norm could not contract a valid marriage. Were Adam and Eve married? But who witnessed their marriage? So, even if the norm was for marriages to be public, there seems to be no reason why a private marriage could not be a valid marriage.

Does it really matter how the capital punishment is administered? Wouldn't a gruesome and painful death have more of a deterrent effect than something relatively painless like beheading?

OK, so imagine there is a referendum to introduce execution by acid bath - the condemned is slowly lowered, while fully conscious, into a vat of concentrated acid, until dead - do you vote in favour of it or against it? And why do you vote the way you do? What about a referendum to reintroduce the Brazen bull?

Nevertheless, others in this thread have pointed out that this need not be burning them alive, but burning of the corpses afterward which would have brought great shame on the criminals and their family. Considering that the rest of the passage lists capital offenses, I'm disinclined to follow the branding interpretation - but that reading is certainly possible. The fact that you are unwilling to consider these other options tells me that you're looking to read this in the worst light possible (what others here have described as reading it uncharitably).

No one really knows what it means for sure. As I've mentioned, the Talmudic interpretation is pouring molten lead down their throats; given that the Rabbis who wrote the Talmud were the successors, at least in part, of the Rabbis who used to enforce these laws (from the time of Ezra onwards), I'm inclined to give their view some credence. However, whether it involves burning to death, drinking molten lead, stoning then burning to death, or branding - all are barbaric, cruel, gruesome and evil - so I don't think it makes much difference.

Heard about the women the Islamists in Iran and Nigeria and other places want to stone to death for adultery? Aren't they are following the Bible?

All Christians will agree with #2, but you haven't demonstrated #1 aside from your own subjective feelings about the subject. Anyway, I hope my perspective adds to this discussion.

You have not demonstrated it is right.

I think the general rule is that it is wrong to kill another. The death penalty violates this general rule. However, it is not an absolute rule, it has exceptions. The question is, whether the death penalty constitutes a valid exception? I think, when it comes to considering exceptions to a general rule, the onus is on those who propose the exception to demonstrate it, not on those who defend the general rule being applied in that case. Therefore, it is not up to death penalty opponents to prove the death penalty wrong; rather, it is up to death penalty supporters to prove the death penalty right.

[shunyadragon]

You have not demonstrated it is right.

I think the general rule is that it is wrong to kill another. The death penalty violates this general rule. However, it is not an absolute rule, it has exceptions. The question is, whether the death penalty constitutes a valid exception? I think, when it comes to considering exceptions to a general rule, the onus is on those who propose the exception to demonstrate it, not on those who defend the general rule being applied in that case. Therefore, it is not up to death penalty opponents to prove the death penalty wrong; rather, it is up to death penalty supporters to prove the death penalty right.

I think you have the meaning wrong concerning the commandment as a 'general rule.' The commandment is not 'Thou shalt not kill', it is 'Thou shalt not murder,' which would be more correct saying 'the deliberate act of causing the wrongful death of another person, or comitting wrongful suicide if in the culture suicide is considered wrongful death.'

[kraftlos]

I guess Mullah Omar might say "You cannot judge the measures necessary for keeping law and order in Afghanistan, in an entirely different cultural, economic and political situation by what you think and do where you live.

Without specifics to what actions were being justified here I can't comment. I would caution against using modern Islam as an 1-to-1 analogue to ancient Israel. The situation with Shuria law is complicated and outside the scope of this topic.

This isn't moral relativism, this is just understanding things in context." I'm happy to accept that different responses might be morally required in different circumstances (temporal, geographical, cultural, economic, etc.); but I'm going to assume a uniform response everywhere until it is demonstrated to the contrary - to not make such an assumption is just to provide carte blanche to special pleading. So those who argue that things immoral in the herenow were nonetheless moral in temporally or spatially distant settings - the onus of proof is on them.

There may be universal principals behind all law and morality, but assuming that everything should be done the way we do it today isn't justifiable. We're neither the norm in the world today nor in history.

It certainly causes a lot of emotional and psychological hurt. But it certainly doesn't kill people, at least not directly (although sometimes emotional and psychological hurt ends in suicide, or accidental drug overdoses, or homicide, or similar things.) If we look at things historically - this, and a few related verses in Leviticus 18 and 20, represent affine marriage prohibitions, or affine incest taboos - i.e. a prohibition on sex or marriage with someone who is not a blood relative (consanguineous), but a relative by marriage (an affine relative, a step-relative or in-law).

Actually, such behavior was life threatening as, unlike today, survival depended on the stability of the family unit. Also in the case of adopting pagan marriage practices, this would have also been treason.

We can trace these biblical taboos into mediaeval Christian canon law of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. In England, the Catholic canon law on this issue survived the Reformation and became part of the law of the Church of England; in time, the law of marriage was transferred from the ecclesiastical to the civil court system, but the civil law continued the rules of canon law in this area. Many of England's colonies (e.g. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United States) inherited these rules, although most I believe have abolished them. The UK however clung on to them until 2005, although with the odd exception that some people were exempted from these laws by special legislation of parliament applying to them only (private legislation) - the last such case was the George Donald Evans and Deborah Jane Evans (Marriage Enabling) Act 1987. But in 2005, the European Court of Human Rights overturned these laws in the B and L v UK case. I'm not approving of what B and L did, but I'm not aware that it resulted in anyone dying. But Leviticus seems to be suggesting they should have been executed. By contrast, I think that the ECHR reached the right decision - even though I can't say I approve of these sorts of marriages, I don't think it is the business of the government to make them illegal.

I'm not sure how this is relevant to Ancient Israel and their application of the law.

You have your conscience and I have mine. In any event, the OT is full of prohibitions bearing the death penalty that don't involve taking anyone's life or endangering anyone's life in any obvious way. Look at Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22 - executing adulterers, just like under the most extreme interpretations of Shariah law (the Taliban, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.)

Again, don't automatically equate modern Islam with laws for a nation that were in use 3000 years ago. I don't intend to reply to comments regarding modern Islam unless an obvious reason is given for the comparison and why these cases are similar. I would also avoid putting things on a linear scale as you've just done here with referring to certain Muslim societies as "most extreme interpretations" - it's rather subjective and the topic is more complex than varying degrees of extremity.

When I was a teenager, my mother cheated on my father. I don't approve of what she did, I never will, and I feel sorry for my father. But if someone was to suggest that she should have been executed - they better not say it to my face or they might end up with a broken nose, or worse. If your mother or father, husband or wife, son or daughter, brother or sister, committed adultery, would you support executing them? What does your conscience have to say about that?

First of all, the law in Israel concerns a people group who were subsistence farmers and as such depended on the entire family to work the land as well as trade amongst their neighbors. Adultery not only disrupted the adulterer's family unit upon which their survival was dependent, but also disrupted relations with the family of the adulteress and the society at large. Left unchecked, it could lead to armed conflict or crop failure leading to starvation.

In your case, you live in a modern industrialized society. It' is unlikely that you worked a subsistence living. In the case of divorce there are are clearly defined rules today and law enforcement to prevent armed feuding - while the whole situation might be horrible, no one is likely to starve to death or get killed in a battle. Thus execution is not justified in such a context.

Well, I'd say we ought to do (2), unless we were given some strong reason (independently of the mere claim of the revelation itself) to counteract (1). I might be convinced that (1) was wrong, by reasons that don't depend on revelation, and then I might be able to accept revelation (2). But I can't see how revelation all by itself can justify a change in our consciences.

You sure put a lot of trust in that conscience of yours. I personally believe mankind is corrupt by nature and our consciences can't always be trusted.

Interesting speculation you have here, but I don't agree with it. Many cultures today are far more collectivist, and far more honour/shame-oriented, than contemporary Western culture - does that mean they have no concept of conscience? I don't think so; I don't see any inherent incompatibility between conscience and collectivism, or conscience and honour/shame, or between shame and guilt. Shame and guilt are closely related, and while certainly some cultures put more emphasis on one than the other, there is no evidence that either is absent from any culture contemporary or historical.

I think you missed the operative phrase here people in collectivist honor-shame cultures do not have a conscience as we know it. That is, their moral compass, so to speak, is based societally not individually. Faced with sin, a person from such a culture will feel shame, whereas we would feel guilt. So to even talk about their laws being in conflict with the individual's conscience is to impose our individualist mindset into their culture - that wouldn't have been an issue in that day. This is well-attested to in anthropological literature - it's not speculation.

As for a society being "far more collectivist", I'm not sure how you would quantify that. A society is either collectivist or not.

I think a core principle of morality, which most people agree on, is it contains an element of universality - we see this idea occur again and again, in the Golden Rule, in Kant's categorical imperative, in Bentham's pleasure principle, in Hare's universalisability principle. I don't rule out a role for particular obligations in morality (e.g. I owe my children a special moral obligation beyond the moral obligations I owe to the children of other people), but a morality devoid of universalisability is no morality at all. We should try to look for what we agree on, and then look at ways we might grow our agreements.

I think you've just lumped Bentham in with Kant which is equating consequentialist morality with deontological morality. I don't think there's a whole lot of agreement between those two camps, at least in theory. I'm not exactly sure how this connects to the main point. Are you claiming that capital punishment violates a core principle of morality? That's kinda begging the question.

And I'd agree there is likely some truth in that statement. Opinion polling indicates that abolition of the death penalty is often followed by a long-term decline in its popularity (albeit one that takes several decades to take effect.) I know here in Australia, today a majority are opposed to the death penalty, back when it was first effectively prohibited in the 1960s/1970s a majority supported it (although full legal prohibition didn't come until the mid-1980s.) But, at the same time, I'd think you'd also find that prohibiting slavery tends to increase opposition to it in the long-run too - if you did an opinion poll in Alamaba in 1865 "Is slavery wrong?", and then repeated the same opinion poll in 2005, I'd bet you'd see quite a change in opinions. That one's opinions to the death penalty can be predicted by one's surrounding culture is no evidence against those opinions - to think otherwise would be to commit the genetic fallacy.

I was explaining the differences in our two consciences. I wasn't using that thought as an argument for the use of capital punishment.

But put yourself back in time to before the Bible was finished, and the hypothetical makes sense. Or consider someone today, who is open to Christian claims of revelation but has not accepted them; they need criteria to judge whether to accept claimed revelations (Christian or otherwise), and would it be wrong for them to use their conscience in doing so? I think it is right for people to follow their consciences; their conscience might not always be right, but on the whole it is better that people do what they honestly believe is right, than that they do what they believe to be wrong.

Christians and Jews have criteria to evaluate potential revelations. We don't need to rely on our feelings.

As a non-relativist, I start from the assumption that the fundamental ethical rules are the same for all people's in all times, so if something is wrong today, prima facie it was wrong 3000 years ago too. I don't deny that circumstances might make a difference, but I think the burden of proof is on those claiming the exceptional case.

And this is probably what drove me to reply here again as that "non-relativist" statement really irks me. I'm about as non-relativist as it comes.

Taking your ideas in the preceding quote into account, I summarize your argument as thus:

1. God is moral and the source of morality
2. Fundamental ethical rules are the same for all people at all time.
3. That it's wrong to kill another person is one such rule.
4. Therefore, capital punishment is wrong because it kills another person. (3)
5. Ancient Israel practiced capital punishment per their law.
6. Therefore, the law commanded immorality. (2, 4)
7. Therefore, the law was not created by God (1, 5)

I agree with points one and two. I disagree with point three. It's not that I am a relativist, it's that I don't agree with the imperative you've put forth here.

No actual evidence it was life-threatening back then. Just a bunch of speculation.

Cop out.

What lynch mob? I never mentioned a lynch mob. But judgement by tribal elders can be exceedingly barbaric - try contemporary Pakistan, where some elders think that raping a woman is an appropriate punishment for the alleged wrongdoing of her male relatives. If the ancient Israel was an honour/shame society, should we not look to contemporary honour/shame societies for information on how it might have functioned? - the phrase "honour killing" comes to mind.

Honor killings of that particular to Islam - they're not a necessary feature of honor/shame societies per se. Tribal elders in modern Islamic countries functioning under Sharia law would not be a good analog to how things functioned 3000 years ago. Unless you can explain why this is a meaningful comparison, I wont entertain such arguments.

There are numerous cases of mothers' sexually abusing their children, watching or assisting their partners in doing the same, prostituting their own children; here are just two random examples plucked from the Internet - Mother aided child's prostitution, Police: Mother prostitutes daughter to elderly man. So, maybe he wouldn't have done it without her knowledge and consent, maybe he would have done it with her knowledge and consent. So then, execute the daughter?

Even in ancient societies, would a stepfather never have a moment alone with his stepdaughter? If you said there would be less opportunities than in our contemporary society, I wouldn't disagree; but to say none there would be none at all is a leap too far.

So you just once again extrapolated a feature of modern society and applied to to a society 3000 years ago. That's not how it's done. You need to talk about how the structure of the ANE family unit would reasonably permit such an occurrence considering the limits in place as I and another post have described in earlier posts.

How many witnesses did ancient Israelite marriage require? Where does the Bible say that marriages have to be published - publishing of the banns, marriage licenses, registrations of marriages - these are not to my knowledge biblical requirements. If we go back to the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church believed that marriage was brought about by the consent of the parties, so no priest or minister, no witnesses, were required - marriages not publicly witnessed were known as "secret marriages". The Catholic Church later banned marriages without a priest, due to the potential abuses they entailed - but this was a "law of the Church" rather than a "law of God" - and much later, still permitted secret marriages with the permission of a bishop, in which the marriage was celebrated by a priest, but otherwise kept from public knowledge. And many jurisdictions have acknowledged - less so today - the notion of "common law marriage" or "marriage by habit and repute", whereby all a couple had to do to become married was live together. Even today, if I wanted I could get married and hide that from my friends and family - there would have to be a legal record of it, but I could get married in such a way that they could not find it unless they went looking - for example, I live in Australia, and under Australian law foreign marriages are generally recognised without further formality, provided they would be legal had they been celebrated here. So I could go to any country on the planet that would marry me, and I then would be married under Australian law, but under no obligation to inform the Australian authorities of that fact. So I could fly to Hawaii, get a marriage license (no residency requirements), get married, come back with my new wife - and if we wanted, never tell anyone here, and no one (not even the government) would know unless we told them - they could look it up on Haiwaii's public records, but they'd probably never think of doing that. But, so long as there is no bigamy, no same-sex marriage (not legal in Australia for now), no prohibited blood relationship (incest), we are both of marriageable age, sound mind and freely consenting, then the marriage is legally valid under Australian law - even if the Australian authorities are never informed of it. Marriage is not inherently public.

Marriage isn't inherently public but marriage in the ANE was a pubic affair and involved years of planning and months of preparation. Marriages were arranged, there was no eloping and people didn't just shack up. You also brought up several legal issues that are not germane to the topic at hand - so I wont comment there unless you can clarify why I should consider those issues.

The Bible contains a lack of information on what the minimal requirements to contract a valid marriage are - even if you could demonstrate a certain pattern of marriage was the norm, that is not enough to prove that less than the norm could not contract a valid marriage. Were Adam and Eve married? But who witnessed their marriage? So, even if the norm was for marriages to be public, there seems to be no reason why a private marriage could not be a valid marriage.

You're anachronizing here. We have marriage laws today to normalize a foundational relationship. Back then it wouldn't have needed to be spelled out how it happened and what was expected - except in the cases discussed here where common immoral practices were being forbidden. I'm not sure how witnesses and Adam and Eve are relevant here; but as for witnesses, two or three adult male witnesses were usually required for legal testimony.

OK, so imagine there is a referendum to introduce execution by acid bath - the condemned is slowly lowered, while fully conscious, into a vat of concentrated acid, until dead - do you vote in favour of it or against it? And why do you vote the way you do? What about a referendum to reintroduce the Brazen bull?

Honestly, it would depend on what crime it was being introduced for. I don't see it as inherently wrong - though perhaps severe.

No one really knows what it means for sure. As I've mentioned, the Talmudic interpretation is pouring molten lead down their throats; given that the Rabbis who wrote the Talmud were the successors, at least in part, of the Rabbis who used to enforce these laws (from the time of Ezra onwards), I'm inclined to give their view some credence. However, whether it involves burning to death, drinking molten lead, stoning then burning to death, or branding - all are barbaric, cruel, gruesome and evil - so I don't think it makes much difference.

I take what the Talmud says with a grain of salt - though I would be interested in reading that.

Heard about the women the Islamists in Iran and Nigeria and other places want to stone to death for adultery? Aren't they are following the Bible?

No they aren't, they're following Sharia law or other local traditions.

You have not demonstrated it is right.

You're argument is that Leviticus 20:14 isn't God's word because it commands capital punishment. Your argument hinges on the idea that capital punishment is wrong - thus to show your argument is valid, you have to demonstrate that capital punishment is wrong.

I think the general rule is that it is wrong to kill another. The death penalty violates this general rule. However, it is not an absolute rule, it has exceptions. The question is, whether the death penalty constitutes a valid exception? I think, when it comes to considering exceptions to a general rule, the onus is on those who propose the exception to demonstrate it, not on those who defend the general rule being applied in that case. Therefore, it is not up to death penalty opponents to prove the death penalty wrong; rather, it is up to death penalty supporters to prove the death penalty right.

I disagree that that is a general rule. I agree that it's wrong to murder someone, but that's not the same as a general ban on killing people.

[Rushing Jaws]

Conservative Christians generally subscribe to what I might call "full inspiration" - the whole of the Bible is inspired by God.

I believe in God, so I have no inherent objection to the idea of revelation or inspired scripture. And it is certainly possible to me that parts of the Bible are revelation or inspired scripture. So I can endorse the "partial inspiration" view - parts of the Bible, but not the whole of it, is inspired by God. But the remainder, is not divinely inspired, and is not the Word of God.

Let me give an example of this, with reference to a specific passage - Lev 20:14 (KJV) "And if a man take a wife and her mother, it is wickedness: they shall be burnt with fire, both he and they; that there be no wickedness among you."

1] As I interpret it, this is essentially a prohibition on a man marrying his mother-in-law or stepdaughter, and/or sleeping with them. As a moral prohibition, it is fair enough - I'm sure both scenarios most commonly just result in people getting hurt. So I can't really object to the prohibition itself. I can see why God might want to discourage or prohibit such behaviour.

2] The penalty is a different story though. My entire life, ever since I was a child, I have always believed that capital punishment was gravely wrong. As such, I cannot accept the idea that God would endorse it. Now, some people reading this will agree with me on capital punishment, and others will disagree with me. But if you don't agree with me, let me put it this way: Surely there is something (or probably several things) you are convinced in the bottom of your heart is wrong, and always have been. Like human sacrifice, child sacrifice, widow burning, whatever it is for you. Someone comes to you and says "God has revealed a new scripture to me". You read this new scripture, and find it endorses that thing you are convinced in the bottom of your heart to be wrong. Might you not reject the claim that this scripture was from God on that basis? Would that not be a good reason to do so?

3] But even among those who support the death penalty, most would agree that capital punishment should only be reserved for the most serious crimes. Is sleeping consensually with your mother-in-law or stepdaughter wrong enough to deserve the death penalty? Very few today would say yes.

## That they might not think it is, is no evidence of whether it is, or is not.

So this is another reason to believe this verse is not the Word of God.

## Only if their belief is correct.

4] Executing all three people involved also seems very questionable. The verse never says that the two woman must be aware of and consent to what is going on. So if your husband sleeps with your mother-in-law, without your knowledge and consent, you are to be executed? If a man sleeps with his step-daughter, the step-daughter is to be executed? Even if she is an adult, the ability of a stepdaughter to freely consent to sexual relations with her stepfather must be questioned; it is likely she is under his long-established influence in choosing to do so. So we should execute her? This seems utterly barbaric, and clearly not the Word of God.

5] Finally, even those who accept the death penalty, who would endorse capital punishment by burning? A painful and gruesome death. This is clearly not the Word of God.

So if it is not the Word of God, what is it? I can think of only two other possibilities: the Word of Man, or the Word of Satan.

## I believe in plenary inspiration, and in verbal inspiration - all of the text of all of the Bible is inspired, and so were the words. I don't believe in total inerrancy, & I wouldn't limit inspiration to the Bible alone.

The Bible is "the Word of God - in the words of men", & in the concepts of men. That does not mean they are not God-given, God-guided, God-led concepts. It does mean they are totally God's work, & totally man's. This does not imply Divine dictation. It just means that the people who were inspired, were influenced by their culture, & within it, so that the working of God in their work is not always as evident as it is at other times. But that is true of all human history anyway. FWIW, AFAICS, one can hold to plenary inspiration without believing that the content of the inspired text is morally good. So the fact that parts of the OT are deeply unChristian, does not prevent their being inspired by God. The evil that they relate or even approve, is not in God, & not in the inspiration. but in the things said. AFAICS.

The fact that incident X may be found distasteful, tells one nothing about the author of the account of it - to write about something, does not in itself always reveal the author's view of it. An account may even be fiction, & be intended as such; it would then have the form of an account of a reality, without being an account of some real thing.

"My entire life, ever since I was a child, I have always believed that capital punishment was gravely wrong. As such, I cannot accept the idea that God would endorse it."

## Is there a reason the author of an OT passage has to agree, though ? Personally, I have no objection at all to capital punishment; I think that if it were ever restored, here in the UK (which will never happen, unfortunately), its use could usefully be extended: I would quite happily support the DP for the most serious rapes, frauds, perjuries, & similar crimes. But that is just my POV. I see nothing unjust in executing those guilty of the worst crimes - it seems far more humane to put them to death as quickly & painlessly as humanly possible, than to have them rot in prison for no good purpose; or worse still, be realeased after a few years, and re-offend. And if they are innocent, that's a good reason to execute the real perp.

One of us must be wrong. And it may well be that God's "POV" is not like either view, mine - or yours. We can't take for granted that our own convictions, however strong or sincere, square with God's "POV". Again & again in the Bible, people have to change their minds - that is what "meta-noia", repentance, represents.

As for a new scripture - that won't happen, for Christ is the Word of God, & the decisive & eternally valid self-revelation of God.