In this video, I argue that the mandate to punish people by pelting them to death with rocks is always immoral and I seek to appeal to the moral intuitions of others in support of this claim by way of an actual modern instance of stoning. If we agree that stoning is always wrong, we […]
torah
Should Christians defend parental honor killing? Many already do.
Christians today react with horror and revulsion when they read of parents who kill their children in the name of parental honor. But the Law in the Old Testament also presents cases where parents kill their children in the name of parental honor. So should Christians revisit their principled moral rejection of honor killing or […]
Jesus, execution and divorce
In “Does Jesus commend the killing of children in Mark 7:10?” I argued that this verse (and the surrounding passage, Mark 7:9-13) does not provide warrant to think Jesus would commend (let alone participate in) the stoning of a child, even if the conditions for such a stoning as outlined in the Torah were met. […]
Does Jesus commend the killing of children in Mark 7:10?
In “Would Jesus stone a misbehaving child?” I argued that he wouldn’t. One of my readers, Jeff, responded as follows: “Jesus affirms in Mark 7:10 the practice of stoning rebellious children, and we don’t have any manuscript evidence (that I’m aware of, at least) that this is an inauthentic addition to Mark.” Jeff clearly believes […]
Why it is wrong to execute minors
In the this and a following post I’m going to provide answers to some of the questions/comments in “Would Jesus stone a misbehaving child?” I will start here with a response to MaxVel. Let’s begin by quoting MaxVel’s comments in full: I think your attempted parallel here doesn’t work well because the original is in […]
Filicide in “biblical” perspective. But which biblical perspective?
Now I’m slowly getting caught up on some of last week’s comments. In this article I address a comment in response to my essay “Should lazy teenagers be stoned?” I will then address the comments in “Would Jesus stone a misbehaving child?” Finally, I will address comments on morality and naturalism in “Can objective moral […]
Should lazy teenagers be stoned?
“All your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal.” (Psalm 119:160) Imagine that you open up the newspaper one day and read the following article: Child publicly stoned to death (Kabul, Afghanistan) Yesterday reports surfaced of a public stoning in the city of Saidu Sharif in the Swat Valley of eastern Afghanistan. […]