What was the Torah's punishment for adultery?
In the Christian bible, it says it was stoning to death, and Jesus put an end to that in one sentence: "let he who is without sin cast the first stone"
But a Jewish book I read says if the woman admitted to adultery, she only need admit it and a divorce will be granted. If she didn’t admit it and the husband was suspicious, God’s name would be written on a cup and the cup would be immersed in water at the temple. The truth would be revealed whether God’s name on the cup stayed or vanished. A rabbi jokingly wrote that people said God would rather save a marriage than destroy it by revealing the truth.
I don’t know if death was a part of adultery or not and how it was applied.
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You’re confusing a few things here.
A) If the woman was caught in an adulterous act with a man- then the punishment for BOTH would have been death, but this was very seldom applied since the giving of a death sentence was extremely rare since:
Due to the extreme difficulty in getting a verdict in a capital offense, the Talmud in masechta Sanhedrim remarks that a Sanhedrin that coinvicted more than two people to death in seven years was bloodthirsty and not allowed to judge in trials for capital offenses (there is a minority opinion there that two deaths in SEVENTY years invalidated a sanhedrin from hearing capital offenses).
1) There have to be two kosher witnesses- in other words two people that nobody could accuse of having publicly sinned
2) They had to warn the people that the act they were about to engage in was acapital offense.
3) The people had to ACKNOWLEDGE the warning and then, in front of the witnesses, engage in the act.
4) The offense would be taken before a Sanhedrin (court) with at least 21 judges.
5) The witnesses would be cross examined seperately and neither was allowed to hear the other’s testimony.
6) ANY discrepancy, no matter how small, was grounds for dismissal
7) Witnesses were reluctant to come forward since if the charges were dropped, you were tried for bearing false witness- and the penalty would be the one that would have been carried out on the people against whom you had testified (so in this case- death, in many other cases a monetary fine)
B) The Sotah- this was a woman that the husband had warned against sequestering herself with a man, and then she did. He thus supected her of adultery. The man and the woman would go to the Kohen and the name of God would be inscribed on paper, and then dissolved in water. (remember that most paper back then was based on papyrus that disintegrates in water). The woman’s hair was unbound and she drank the water- dying if she was guilty, being fine otherwise. If she refused to drink- then the husband had to divorce her, regardles sof if she was innocent or guilty.
death by stoning
death.
There was a test somewhat like you describe only if she drank from the cup her belly would swell and that would prove she committed the act
God hates divorce
The early Christians only took the portion of the Original Testament that had been written (the Torah). They totally ignored the Oral Torah that explained in detail about how a woman accused of adultry had a right to a trial, and proof by witnesses.
Being stoned to death was the worst punishment that could be metered out, and it was only for the most brazen house wreckers; it was almost never actually carried out.
ADD: Jesus knew this and knew that they were trying to brand him as a law breaker and ignorant of due process. When they approached him as a mob telling him that they were going to stone the woman to death he reminded them of this.
He-Who-Is-Without-Sin is the Jewish term for a court appointed executioner. He was calling them a violent mob.
No no no, you got it all wrong. Well, it was right up to the part with the name vanishing. The women had to drink the water; if she was guilty, she would die right there and then.
There’s a story about a women who commited adultery, and her husband was suspicious. So he took her to the temple to drink the water. On the way there, she asked if she could visit her twin sister, before they got there. He agreed, and she told her sister what was going on, and agreed to trade places with her so that she wouldn’t get killed by the water. So her sister and husband both went, she drank from the water and nothing happened, and then she asked him if she could go see her sister again before they got home. He allowed it, and when they saw each other they greeted with a quick lip-to-lip kiss. But the sister’s lips were still wet with the water, and upon meeting the other’s lips, she fell dead on the spot.
We do not have the right to punish anyone for adultery except the law.If you do it your way,hell is your final destination.Killing is unacceptable in heaven.If law do not allow then it is also against the local law.
In Torah punishment for adultery is stoning to death. God didn’t write this punishment in Quran. Since Torah, Bible and Quran are continuation of guidance from God to mankind
Prophet of Islam understood that God didn’t want to change the law of Torah in Quran, so he used the same law and punished an adulteress with stoning to death who herself
came and asked for punishment of her sin so her soul get purified from her sin and she wouldn’t get burned in hell fire for her major sin of adultery on the day of Judgment. After she died, Prophet Mohammad said, repentence of this woman was so great that such repentence could get sins of entire city forgiven. He was expressing how good woman did for herself and died as a new born baby with no sin on her record at all. She will go to heaven for accepting her sin and giving her life. He didn’t really mean that people of entire city are forgiven because she gave her life on her own choice.
In one of the statements of Jesus in Bible, he said I did not come to change the law nor to start a new Religion. He always said I worship father and instructed his followers to wroship father. He was a Jew. And every Jew referred God as Father because they called themselves Children of God in spiritual sense as God creates all humans. He never meant that God is his biological father.
In the statement of Jesus,
"let he who is without sin cast the first stone"
he didn’t mean to abolish the law of Torah. He didn’t have the authority from God to abolish a law of Torah. God also didn’t give Jesus any law. He only received WISDOM FROM
GOD HOW TO IMPLEMENT THE LAW OF TROAH.
When he said the above sentence, he meant that first society
must provide every member of society to eat, cloth and place to live. Also it must teach every human in society that
adultery is wrong and none should be prcticing adultery. Then if one comits this sin, others who never did adultry can punish an adulterous.
If society doesn’t feed a poor man, then it has no right to punish this man for stealing a loaf of bread. This is what Jesus meant to say. Adultery was common in Jews and rich always got away unpunished because Religious Judges took money and issued decree calling them innocent by not approving the witnesses who saw the adultery happening. They punished only poor people who couldn’t pay to religious judges. Because of the sinful lives of people Jesus said
only those who are free from sins can only punish her.
Either Chistian Churches have misunderstood statement of Jesus or they interpret deliberately that Jesus abolished the law because they just don’t want to punish the adulterers. They have accepted the fact that all their sons are daughters
are fornicators. Many parents of boys buy and give their sons condoms so they do not make girls pregnant calling it Safe Sex. When God calls an act sinful and society accepts it and ignores it, then it gets God’s curse on entire society and all people keep getting in sinful life deeper and deeper as it is happening in western countries. Now families are falling apart because husbands and wife are involved in adultery. Children are practicing sex in school age with knowledge of all adults. When they become unwed parents, then they drop out of school and start working on minimum wage and suffer all their lives for comitting one sin. It doesn’t bother parents which means they have been doing the same themselves before or may be doing now. Society allow nude clubs where women dance on stage buck naked and they call freedom of women to do what ever they want to so they (men) can enjoy lustful and adulterous life.
Millions of people are dying from AID by involving in free sex. If it is not curse of God then what is it? When Christian
Church deliberately misterpret statement of Jesus and calls it an abolishment of Torah’s law on adultery, then society is bound to doom and suffer with lack of peace of mind.
American Medical Association announced last year that America needs 100,000 specialists in Psychiatric Medicine
because of growing mental diseases in adults and children caused by divorces and broken homes.
My son-in-law is completeing his Fellowship in Psychiatric Medicine in June 2008 specializing in children and adolescent Psychiatric Medicine because lots of children are suffering mental problems caused by the state of
affairs of society. I believe This is curse of God.
I know this society will reject what I have written and will continue doing what they love to do and continue suffering
instead of changing their ways of life and following God’s way of life that God and His Prophets and Messenges have been teaching in the light of God’s all His Divine Revelations.
The Christian Bible says stoning was the punishment? Sorry, that’s the Hebrew Bible. The Christian Bible is the "New" Testament.
Stoning in the Hebrew Bible is the result of a trial by jury, including two eye witnesses who also warned the woman in advance of the crime. It is not a random stoning as everyone assumes since that’s what happens in other cultures. A stoning would take place in a designated area by dropping a very large stone on the guilty party.
BTW, the punishments designated in the Hebrew Bible are MAXIMUM penalties. The maximum penalties were seldom, if ever, used. Just as today, some US States have the death penalty on the books, it is seldom used.
If you’ll read more about the water the woman drank, you’ll discover that it was simply a mixture of soil with the water and would never have shown the woman to be guilty. The only way a woman could have been "proven" guilty is if she panicked and confessed.
You are more than welcome to attend Torah Study to learn the Jewish version of Judaism. It is much different from what you’ve learned as a Christian.
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The only country which applying this law is Saudi Arabia
Lev 20:10 ‘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.
Deu 17:6 "On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness.
In the book of John account where is the man who was with her? It takes two people to commit adultery, their case has already fallen apart. And were the two or three eye witnesses given a chance to testify against them? If so, how could they when only the woman was present.
In any case the Messiah told the woman to sin no more. That is to repent and no longer break the Torah Commandments of YHVH.
1 John 3:4 Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. (Torah-lessness)
My husband committed adultery with a woman who was married…she has had a number of affairs! We cannot stone…I want justice..how can it be obtained..my former husband now is with her…where is the justice…when is it coming