Reply #33: A Public Stoning is just that, a Stoning by the Public [View All]

[happyslug]

Thus the Taliban called the people of the Village together, so ALL of them can participate in the Stoning. Anyone can say no and just NOT pick up a stone, but apparently everyone picked up a stone....

The question is WHY did her family let this happen? And by Family I mean her Father, uncles, Grandfathers, Brothers etc (I concentrate on Male relatives for this is a paternalistic society we are discussing). It is a common practice to just divorce such women, unless something else is going in.

Stoning had long been the punishment for adultery, for example, in the story of Jesus, Joseph was going to just divorce Mary when he found that she was pregnant with Jesus, as opposed to having her stoned for adultery. That changed when an Angel appeared to him and told Joseph that was God's plan.

Such private divorces seems to be the norm at that time period as opposed to any Stoning, which did occur but almost always for some other reason then the sex act. The classic example of that is when Jesus was faced with the situation with the woman accused of Adultery. Jesus only comment was he who is without sin cast the first stone. That was to get out of the trap set for him and the woman was only a pawn in that trap. The trap was simple, agents of the Temple Priests wanted Jesus to condemn the woman, as required by the "Law". This would make the townspeople mad at Jesus for forcing them to do what the law required, even when they did NOT want to do it. On the other hand, if Jesus told the Village people NOT to kill her, Jesus would have fallen into the trap of NOT requiring people to follow Jewish Law. By NOT saying anything except to call for the first stone to be thrown by a person without sin, he avoided the trap. The townspeople were NOT mad at Jesus for forcing them to kill one of their own, but the agents of the Priests could NOT say he told the Village people NOT to follow the law. At the end just Jesus and the woman (Who is unnamed in the bible) were left alone, and he told her to leave and sin no more.

My point is, stoning is ancient, but so are situations of people NOT being stoned (David and Bathsheba is another example). Generally stonings only occurred when something else was up, as in case of Jesus and the adulteress. The sex crime was minor, and can be covered up by the people of the village (And has been done in the past as seen with the example of Joseph and Mary), what else is going on? Murder of the infant sounds like a more likely cause, but I can also NOT rule out she was having sex with the wrong man i.e. someone her family oppose her to marry more then anything else. Marriage in most cultures, is MORE then one person agreeing to marry another, it is two FAMILIES agreeing to act as one in regards to a Couple. Somehow both families (The woman's and her husband') did NOT want to support her in this situation. Something else is up, probably having to do with village politics. What I can not say, nor can anyone else who has no contact with the Village.