Crimes and Punishments, Part II: Noachide Law, Brother-Sister Intercourse, and the Case of Murder

Abstract

I n Part I of this study, 1 I proposed that the mode of execution that rab- binic sources assign to violations of sinaitic law be seen as a reflection of rabbinic jurisprudence.I analysed the nature of execution by cheneq (strangulation) as described in rabbinic sources, and I argued that this mita (mode of execution), which is designated as the default mita for violations of sinaitic law for which the Torah does not designate the mode of execution, reflects the rabbinic understanding of sinaitic law and its violation.Specifically, I suggested that cheneq is the court's realisation of expiration, the human being's relinquishing of the life-force with which God inspired the human being.This sanction, I argued, matches the rabbinic conception of sinaitic law as based wholly in divine command.Sanctionable violation of sinaitic law is a conscious and wilful violation of God's command, and this results in the necessity of the violator giving up the God-given breath of life.Cheneq is the judicial implementation of the process that is necessitated by the criminal's violation of God's command.In the second part of this study, I will test the core idea presented in Part I-that punishment in rabbinic sources can be seen as a reflection of jurisprudence-by looking at alternative bodies of law envisioned in rabbinic sources (actually, at two versions of a single alternative body of lawnoachide law-described in the Bavli). 2 I will argue that these two bodies of law represent alternative conceptions of law and that these conceptions are reflected in the sanction that is assigned to each of these bodies of law.Both of these conceptions of law, while distinct from each other, are radically different from what I have described as the rabbinic conception of sinaitic law, 1 'Crimes and Punishments, Part I: Mitot Beit Din as a Reflection of Rabbinic Jurisprudence', JJS 55 (2004), pp.81-101.2 It is, of course, debatable how much consistency (and what kinds of consistency) we should expect in rabbinic sources.In this case, one could accept that the punishment of cheneq reflects the rabbinic conception of sinaitic law without necessarily expecting that punishments assigned in rabbinic sources to alternative bodies of law reflect the rabbinic conception of those bodies of law.Nevertheless, the possibility that a jurisprudential analysis of punishment can be extended beyond the case of cheneq bears investigation.And it should be noted that the main rabbinic sources that will be discussed in relation to the three main topics addressed below-noachide law, brother-sister intercourse, and murder-are from bSanhedrin, as are the main sources discussed in 'Crimes and Punishments, Part I' in relation to mitot beit din and the rabbinic conception of sinaitic law.Nevertheless, it could still be argued that one should not expect the kind of consistency even within a single tractate that I am looking for here.For the degree to which my argument is about the Bavli or about rabbinic sources in general, see the introduction to 'Crimes and Punishments, Part I'.

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