The Madness of the Stoning: Past and Present

After being witness to several injustices in the justice system and seeing the courts blatantly disregard civil rights and federal law, I thought of how it must be to live in a society where stoning is a common punishment. Stoning is an execution method that is carried out by a group of people who throw stones or rocks at the "criminal".

This punishment has been used throughout history. Several Islamic countries still use stoning. Where religion is the law, even the smallest infraction can be punishable by death by stoning. Crimes punished by stoning include murder, prostitution, blasphemy, and adultery. Courts are often run by corrupt people. It should be noted that in Islam, adultery includes both pre-marital and extra-marital sex.

There are instances in these countries when women will be victims of honor killings. Falling in love with a man from a different faith or apparently dishonoring the family can result in stoning. I have to inject here that in our society, if we were to stone people for every thing that some hypocrite, that is likely guilty of one thing or another themselves, deems fit to stone, there would be no people left. Every time someone feels dishonored or someone feels we have dishonored them, a stoning would leave the world population at a big fat zero.

Stoning seems to be a cowardly thing to do to someone. No one wants to be responsible for the death so they all throw stones and rocks, and there is no way of knowing which stone killed the "criminal". In actuality, they are all responsible.

The traditional Muslim view is that punishment for adultery is stoning. There is no verse in the Quran to support this punishment. When there is debate on these types of issues, it is most commonly due to those who wish to change the religious writings or ideas to suit their own desires or purposes.

What does the Bible say about stoning? It doesn't give specifics on how we're supposed to stone people, who can participate, or what size rocks to use. There are supposed to be two or three witnesses, with or without sin, and the witnesses must throw the first stones. (Deuteronomy 17:6)

It also says that if your wife, friend, or family member is believing in the wrong god, you have to throw the first stone and not feel bad for the intended target. (Deuteronomy 13:6-9) The Bible sometimes says that only men should do the stoning (Deuteronomy 13:9, 22:21) and sometimes anyone can do it. (Leviticus 24:23, Numbers 15:32, 17:7, 21:21, Joshua 7:25)

There are several crimes committed in the Bible that resulted in stoning as punishment. Touching Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:13), cursing or blaspheming (Joshua 7:1-26), animals that hurt a human (Exodus 21:28), for worshiping other gods (Deuteronomy 17:2-5), for taking accursed things (Joshua 7:1-26), for adultery (Deuteronomy 22:23-24), for a woman who is not a virgin on her wedding night (Deuteronomy 22:13-21), for preaching the wrong religion (Deuteronomy 13:5-10), for witches and wizards (Leviticus 20:27), for breaking the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-56), for disobeying parents (Deuteronomy 21:18-21), and for cursing the king (1 Kings 21:10).

Interestingly enough, the Quran never mentions stoning as punishment for anything. I'm curious at to why then, this punishment is commonly carried out in Islamic countries. Biblically, since the law was fulfilled through the death of Christ, the old law no longer stands, and therefore, stoning a criminal is no longer common or scripturally supported. According to the Bible, the theme is love and forgiveness, the part that modern day religion rarely knows anything about. Although all of this is sheer madness to me, it doesn't surprising me in the least.