What's your favorite Bible death penalty crime? A few suggestions:

[dimbear]

Copying God's perfume recipe?

Keeping the Ark of the Covenant from falling off its stand?

Taking a census?

(That last one started a plague. 70,000 dead.)

Robert Ingersoll loved these gems

[JNelson6563]

1. In light of the current reproduction debate

I'm going to go with Onan getting whacked for wasting his seed. So often it's women who get the short end of the stick, as it were.

A close second is the massacre of small children by a bear of god for teasing an old man.

Julie

[HopeHoops]

2. Being gay while eating pork and shellfish and coveting thine neighbor's ass.

[awoke_in_2003]

13. "coveting thine neighbor's ass"...

which one?

[HopeHoops]

14. I think technically they were referring to the work beast, not the bed beast.

[awoke_in_2003]

16. yeah, probably right...

it was the old testament, after all

[yellerpup]

3. Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt

for looking over her shoulder. That's a pretty extreme reaction to not doing "what I told you."

[WhollyHeretic]

4. Being related to or working for Job

That or children teasing a bald priest.

[BiggJawn]

5. Eating Lobster.

It is an abomination, yet so many Red Lobster "restaurants" get in the weeds for Sunday brunch when church lets out...

[Son of Gob]

7. Jesus loved their Cheddar Bay Biscuits

I don't blame him, they're delish.

[provis99]

6. Pissing against a wall

Mentioned twice in the bible, so you know it's important

[Son of Gob]

8. Marrying your wife's mother.

[Lucy Goosey]

9. Wearing a linen-cotton blend.

Also, copying God's perfume recipe - is that real or are you kidding? I've never heard that one before, but I certainly don't put it past the writers of the bible.

[dimbear]

11. That story is in the 30th chapter of Exodus, around verse 30 and the following.

Admittedly it depends on which translation you read, and the meaning of the phrase "cut off from the congregation." Could mean banishment, could mean death.

Anyway, more than fair. Perfume sneaks.

[Lucy Goosey]

12. I did not know this, but now it is my new favourite thing in the world.

I'm sort of a fragrance junkie*, and the notes listed in Exodus 30:34 (fragrant spices, resin, galbanum, frankincense) are among my favourites. I must recreate that perfume! I'll get to smell great and taunt biblical literalists.


*Not the annoying, wears-too-much-perfume-in-public type; I just appreciate perfumery as an art, and I have a larger than average perfume wardrobe.

[BlueJazz]

10. Getting stoned for getting stoned.

[onager]

15. The Levite's concubine.

Since I'm hearing so much in this campaign season about Ebil Wimmen. I'm not sure this is about a "death sentence," strictly speaking. But it's a great example of that Biblical morality we're also hearing so much about.

The story of the Levite's concubine is in Judges 19-20. A Levite and his concubine are offered hospitality in the home of an old man.

In a plot point obviously stolen from that yarn about Lot and his daughters, a mob comes to the house and loudly covets the Levite's ass. (Not his four-legged ass, either.)

The two men throw the concubine outside instead. She is raped all night, returns to the house the next morning and collapses on the threshold.

The Levite orders her to get up, but being otherwise occupied with dying in horrible pain, she doesn't respond. The Levite straps her to his...donkey, takes her back home to Ephraim...

...and cuts her body into 12 pieces, which he sends to the 12 tribes of Israel.

This kicks off a bloody civil war: A cycle of violence ensues, resulting in the slaughter of many Benjaminite men, women, and children (20:35–48), the slaughter of most of the inhabitants of the city of Jabesh-gilead (21:8–12), and the kidnapping of young women at Shiloh (21:15–24).

This article calls the story "one of the most disturbing texts in the Hebrew Bible." No kidding: http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/concubine-of-levite-bible