CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AMONG THE JEWS A PAPER READ BEFORE THE NEW YORK BOARD OF JEWISH MINISTERS BY REV. D. DE SOLA POOL, PH. D. [Illustration] NEW YORK BLOCH PUBLISHING COMPANY 1916 Copyright, 1916, by BLOCH PUBLISHING COMPANY CONTENTS THE FOUR METHODS OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 1 (a) _Stoning_ 2 (b) _Burning_ 6 (c) _Beheading_ 9 (d) _Strangulation_ 12 JEWISH ATTITUDE TOWARDS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 15 RABBINICAL MODIFICATIONS 21 LEGAL RESTRICTIONS 25 PRACTISE AND THEORY 35 POST-TALMUDIC DEVELOPMENT 46 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT In the following essay, an attempt is made at tracing the history of capital punishment among the Jews. From the Biblical period onwards, there took place a long and complex development of the principles, the methods and the application of capital punishment. The story of this development is contained chiefly in the Old and the New Testaments, Josephus, the Rabbinic writings and the Responsa of the Middle Ages. The following study, which is based on these sources, attempts to make clear what was the nature of this development. The Four Methods of Capital Punishment According to a saying of the Rabbis, nine hundred and three different methods of death have been created for man.[1] But Rabbinic jurisprudence recognised only four legal methods of inflicting death as the penalty for a capital crime, namely: stoning, burning, decapitation and strangulation.[2] One man, Yakim (or Yakom), a nephew of Jose ben Joezer (2nd cent. B. C. E.), is said to have killed himself by all four methods at once. He first set up a beam from which he hung a noose. Then he arranged faggots at the foot of the gibbet, surrounded them with stones and set a sword with its blade pointing upwards in the stones. He then kindled the faggots and hanged himself in the noose, the flames burned away the rope so that his body fell into the fire, and at the same time on to the stones and on the sword-blade.[3] (a) _Stoning_ In appraising the Jewish attitude towards capital punishment in general, it is necessary first to examine the history of these four methods of capital punishment among the Jews.[4] The first to engage our attention is STONING (_Sekilah_). In Biblical and Rabbinic legislation, stoning is the punishment decreed for a number of transgressions, such as idolatry, Moloch worship, magic, necromancy, false prophesying, Sabbath desecration, blasphemy of God’s Name, cursing of parent, and other crimes, seventeen in all, listed in the Mishna.[5]