Sanhedrin 083

1:
This mishnah is very long, so I shall artificially divide it up for the sake of convenience. This division is not to be found in our sources.

2:
In the shiur of January 11th last I wrote:

One of the most striking "proofs" that the procedure of killing a person by stoning as described here is not historical, but the result of academic extrapolation, is the fact that it is so different from all other more historical descriptions. Furthermore, the procedure described by our present mishnah is not clear in all its details. There is no doubt that when stoning is mentioned in an historical setting that it indicates that the prisoner was done to death by being pelted with stones. Our mishnah sees the matter in an entirely different light.

3:
The procedure described by our mishnah seems to be as follows (though we must admit that at certain critical points it is ambiguous).

1. The condemned person was taken to a platform that was the height of two men. There is much archeological evidence that people were generally shorter in earlier times than they are now, so let us assume that the platform was about eleven feet high – just under 3.5 metres; however, obviously in today's terms it would be about 4 metres high. As we shall see, the prisoner was pushed off this platform. In his commentary to the Gemara [Sanhedrin 45a] Rashi [Rabbi Shelomo ben-Yitzĥak, Western Europe, 11th century CE] says that the platform was not higher than this so that the prisoner's body would not be mutilated by the fall: if the platform was too high the fall would cause the dismemberment of the body, the extremities could become detached and the stomach could burst. However, it is obvious that it was also hoped that a fall from this height would in itself cause a swift death. (I do not have the necessary expertise to determine whether it is reasonable to assume that a fall from a height of 3.5 or 4 metres onto hard ground could be expected to cause a person's death or whether a fall from a greater height would cause dismemberment.)
2. There are so many examples in the issue of capital punishment of the rabbinic genius for interpreting something that is quite explicit in the Bible into something different. However, it is clear that the purpose of these re-interpretations was to eliminate the death penalty from a practical point of view, and if that could not be achieved in its entirety than at least to ensure that death was as humane as possible. Perhaps the greatest stroke of genius in this regard was the stipulation that the actual execution of the condemned person was to be carried out, not by some professional, but by the two witnesses on whose evidence the charge was founded. Obviously, the sages hoped that even the most vindictive of witnesses would be deterred by the thought that if they succeeded in securing the conviction of the accused it was they themselves who would have to kill him! Rabbi YomTov Lippmann Heller [Central Europe, 17th century CE] in his commentary Tosafot YomTov, offers a further rationale for the execution being performed by the witnesses themselves:

3. The prisoner was stood at the very edge of the platform. Rambam [Moses Maimonides, North Africa, 12th century CE], in his great codex, Mishnah Torah [Sanhedrin 15:1] says that his hands were tied as well. Remember that the prisoner's awareness had already been numbed by the administration of a drug. One of the witnesses would now topple him over the edge of the platform by pushing him at his waist. This innovation is derived from the exposition of a Biblical verse. In the description of the preparations for the giving of the Ten Commandments (which is the Torah portion for this Shabbat) Moses is told to deny the people access to the mountain: "No hand shall touch it; they shall be either stoned or thrown" [Exodus 19:13]. Rambam, in his Mishnah Commentary, says that it really makes no difference whether the prisoner has stones thrown at him ["stoned"] or he is thrown at the stones ["thrown"]; and in Mishnah Torah [Sanhedrin 15:1], he suggests that the Torah itself makes no such distinction.

   We must point out that this interpretation of the Biblical text is problematic. It is true that the Hebrew verb being interpreted bears more than one meaning: it can mean "to throw" or it can mean "to shoot". Standard English translations of Exodus 19:13 – including the Jewish ones – are unanimous that in this context it means that anyone touching the mountain shall either be stoned or shot [with an arrow].

4. For all its seeming detail our mishnah is unclear. According to the interpretation of Rambam [Mishneh Torah, Sanhedrin 15:1] the prisoner was stood on the very edge of the platform facing the abyss and was pushed from behind, so that he landed face down. If this fall caused the prisoner's death the execution was over (although not a single stone had been thrown.) It is possible that this stage of the rabbinic interpretation was greatly influenced by Roman law, or by Syrian or Greek law, or perhaps by a single biblical precedent with prisoners of war [II Chronicles. 25:12]. Well known, for example, is the Roman institution of having certain criminals killed by being hurled from the Tarpeian Rock. (The great Roman lawyer Marcus Tullius Cicero managed to get one of his clients acquitted of the charge of parricide, and thus saved from being hurled to his death in this manner.)
5. If the fall did not kill the prisoner, he was turned over so that he was lying on his back and the second witness would hurl a boulder on top of him. The Gemara [Sanhedrin 45b] fills in the details: the boulder had been prepared beforehand; it was too heavy for one man to lift alone, so the two witnesses lifted it between them and positioned it at the edge of the platform in the hands of the second witness. Then the first witness let go and the second witness let the boulder drop on top of the prisoner below.
6. Only if this also failed to kill the prisoner (and it is hard to see how it could not do so!) were onlookers – presumably officers of the court – permitted to hurl stones at the prisoner until he was dead. This is derived from the Biblical verse quoted directly by our mishnah [Deuteronomy 17:7]: "The hand of the witnesses shall be upon him first to kill him, and the hand of all the people last".

In our next shiur we shall study the next part of this mishnah. Shabbat Shalom to everybody.