This chapter examines the history of scholarship on the ancient Jewish death penalty, focusing in particular on the last century of scholarship in the United States and Israel. It includes within its survey a variety of approaches and disciplines: jurisprudence, responsa, New Testament historiography, religious denominational writing, Jewish intellectual history, philosophy, Zionist reformism. It give this scholarship “thick description,” contextualizing it within the social forces that shaped it. It also offers some concluding reflections on what aspects of the scholarship might be most...

This chapter examines the history of scholarship on the ancient Jewish death penalty, focusing in particular on the last century of scholarship in the United States and Israel. It includes within its survey a variety of approaches and disciplines: jurisprudence, responsa, New Testament historiography, religious denominational writing, Jewish intellectual history, philosophy, Zionist reformism. It give this scholarship “thick description,” contextualizing it within the social forces that shaped it. It also offers some concluding reflections on what aspects of the scholarship might be most productive for further study.