-Removed-It is no longer acceptable. It was specifically overturned by Christ. Thus, it would probably be true that execution for any kind of personal immorality is now terribly unacceptable. The only grounds for execution that actually remains is premeditated murder.
The pericope of the adulteress indicates that a person that is guilty of some grievous, individual moral sins is not to be held mortally accountable for that, and not only that, but we should ask them to repent.
The reason that this was not the case is because in the Bronze & Iron Age I & II societies marriage represented one of the most important and central themes of anyone's lives, and it represneted an allegiance between two families. It was thus acceptable, in some circumstances, to let there be total justice for one party so as to avoid further conflict and meltdown.
This social structure is no longer pertinent.
Just as such, slavery is no longer pertinent.
Originally posted by @philokaliaYou said this :
Maybe? I am not sure what you are talking about.
Feel free to just jump ahead and provide some material and feedback on what I wrote because I would like this to be done in a shorter amount of posts than a larger amount.
There was always the option to withhold punishment, for instance, which totally changes the nature of the game. It was not necessary. Likewise, men and women could choose whether or not to have their spouse stoned. I believe literally the only provision that always necessitated capital punishment was murder.
Then I quoted an example of a man caught gathering sticks on the Sabbath and God said that the man was to be executed.
Where is this ..always the option to withhold punishment
Did the man commit murder.?
The point is that post of yours is nonsense. Where did you get that foolishness from.
Its not in the Bible.
Originally posted by @rajk999You are talking abotu the specific incident at Numbers 15:32-36, correct?
You said this :
There was always the option to withhold punishment, for instance, which totally changes the nature of the game. It was not necessary. Likewise, men and women could choose whether or not to have their spouse stoned. I believe literally the only provision that always necessitated capital punishment was murder.
Then I quoted an ...[text shortened]... that post of yours is nonsense. Where did you get that foolishness from.
Its not in the Bible.
There's a lot of great commentary on this. Check out this link for a lengthy exposition on it:
http://christianthinktank.com/sticksnstones.html
The basic summary is that it was a flagrant violation of the Sabbath. People had already been punished prior to this. This also occurs right before Numbers 16 which is the story of yet another great rebellion against Moses, and it hammers home how the Hebrews were living on the edge and perhaps about to disintegrate in the wilderness which would cause the death of everybody.
Obedience was not arbitrary.
If you divorce the incident from its context, you will never really understand it. That would be obtuse.
-Removed-(1) The Final Judgment has not yet occurred. The judgment of being an eternity in hell is thus not yet occurring, as far as I know, but I could be wrong. I also do not know what the exact nature of hell is -- I do know that fire is invoked to talk about it, certainly.
People send themselves to hell because they refuse to repent and acknowledge God as God. It is the ultimate act of disobedience and acting in bad faith.
People send themselves to hell.
Who goes to hell? I am not sure. Btu I do know that no one would be sent there without a good reason.
It's entirely morally acceptable.
Do you think someone should not be punished?
(2) In Bronze & Iron Age societies, marriages were contracts between families, and the very economic livelihood of whole parts of the community were dependent on the fulfillment of the marriage and a happy marital life. There were few options when things went wrong, especially for the impoverished, and a broken home would probably scatter entirely to the wind or create situations of insane hunger for vengeance that absolutely had to be addressed.
This isn't the case in the Hellenized Mediterranean world. Society changed fundamentally. Individuals could move about, and the economy had become far less pastoral. Urbanization integration into imperial orders in a dynamic sense of the word was now happening throughout humanity.
The last piece of human social organization that would be relevant to us had been set into place.
Originally posted by @philokaliaThey "send themselves to hell" for not believing the same thing your group happens to believe?
People send themselves to hell because they refuse to repent and acknowledge God as God. It is the ultimate act of disobedience and acting in bad faith.
