Archaic Old Testament sins and punishments

This is a compilation of sins described in the Old Testament and their recommended punishments. Most contemporary Christian Singaporeans no longer subscribe to them.

=Punishment for adultery=

Leviticus 20:10. If any man commit adultery with the wife of another, and defile his neighbour's wife: let them be put to death, both the adulterer and the adulteress.

Leviticus 20:11. If a man lie with his stepmother, and discover the nakedness of his father, let them both be put to death: their blood be upon them.

Leviticus 20:12. If any man lie with his daughter in law: let both die, because they have done a heinous crime. Their blood be upon them.

Leviticus 20:14. If any man after marrying the daughter, marry her mother, he hath done a heinous crime. He shall be burnt alive with them: neither shall so great an abomination remain in the midst of you.

Leviticus 20:17. If any man take his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother, and see her nakedness, and she behold her brother's shame: they have committed a crime. They shall be slain, in the sight of their people, because they have discovered one another's nakedness. And they shall bear their iniquity.

Deuteronomy 22:22. If a man lie with another man's wife, they shall both die, that is to say, the adulterer and the adulteress: and thou shalt take away the evil out of Israel.

Leviticus 20:19. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy aunt by thy mother, and of thy aunt by thy father. He that doth this, hath uncovered the shame of his own flesh: both shall bear their iniquity.

Leviticus 20:20. If any man lie with the wife of his uncle by the father, or of his uncle by the mother, and uncover the shame of his near akin, both shall bear their sin. They shall die without children.

Leviticus 20:21. He that marrieth his brother's wife, doth an unlawful thing: he hath uncovered his brother's nakedness. They shall be without children.

=Punishment for pre-marital sex=

Deuteronomy 22: 20-21. If no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.

Deuteronomy22: 23-24. If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.

=Punishment for having sex with a menstruating woman=

Leviticus 20:18. If any man lie with a woman in her flowers, and uncover her nakedness, and she open the fountain of her blood: both shall be destroyed out of the midst of their people.

Leviticus 15:19. The woman, who at the return of the month, hath her issue of blood, shall be separated seven days. Leviticus 15:20. Every one that toucheth her, shall be unclean until the evening.

Leviticus 15:21. And every thing that she sleepeth on, or that she sitteth on in the days of her separation, shall be defiled.

Leviticus 15:22. He that toucheth her bed shall wash his clothes: and being himself washed with water, shall be unclean until the evening.

Leviticus 15:23. Whosoever shall touch any vessel on which she sitteth, shall wash his clothes: and himself being washed with water, shall be defiled until the evening.

Leviticus 15:24. If a man copulateth with her in the time of her flowers, he shall be unclean seven days: and every bed on which he shall sleep, shall be defiled.

=Punishment for working on Saturday=

Exodus 31:15. Six days shall you do work: in the seventh day is the sabbath, the rest holy to the Lord. Every one that shall do any work on this day, shall die.

Exodus 35:2. Six days you shall do work; the seventh day shall be holy unto you, the sabbath and the rest of the Lord: he that shall do any work on it, shall be put to death.

=Punishment for disobedient children=

Exodus 21:15. He that striketh his father or mother, shall be put to death.

Exodus 21:17. He that curseth his father or mother, shall die the death.

Deuteronomy 21:18. If a man have a stubborn and unruly son, who will not hear the commandments of his father or mother, and being corrected, slighteth obedience:

Deuteronomy 21:19. They shall take him and bring him to the ancients of the city, and to the gate of judgment,

Deuteronomy 21:20. And shall say to them: This our son is rebellious and stubborn, he slighteth hearing our admonitions, he giveth himself to revelling, and to debauchery and banquetings:

Deuteronomy 21:21. The people of the city shall stone him: and he shall die, that you may take away the evil out of the midst of you, and all Israel hearing it may be afraid.

=Punishment for worshipping other gods=

Exodus 22:20. He that sacrificeth to gods, shall be put to death, save only to the Lord.

Deutoronomy 7:26. Neither shalt thou bring any thing of the idol into thy house, lest thou become an anathema, like it. Thou shalt detest it as dung, and shalt utterly abhor it as uncleanness and filth, because it is an anathema.

=Prohibitions on what to eat, wear and personal appearance=

Leviticus: 11:4 Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

Leviticus 11:6. The hare also: for that too cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof.

Leviticus 11:7. And the swine, which, though it divideth the hoof, cheweth not the cud.

Leviticus 11:8. The flesh of these you shall not eat, nor shall you touch their carcasses, because they are unclean to you.

Leviticus 11:10. But whatsoever hath not fins and scales, of those things that move and live in the waters, shall be an abomination to you,

Leviticus 11:11. And detestable. Their flesh you shall not eat: and their carcasses you shall avoid.

Leviticus 11:12. All that have not fins and scales, in the waters, shall be unclean.

Leviticus 19:19. Keep ye my laws. Thou shalt not make thy cattle to gender with beasts of any other kind. Thou shalt not sow thy field with different seeds. Thou shalt not wear a garment that is woven of two sorts.

Leviticus 19:27. Nor shall you cut your hair roundwise: nor shave your beard.

Leviticus 19:28. You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh, for the dead: neither shall you make in yourselves any figures or marks. I am the Lord.

=Prevention of the disabled from worshipping=

Leviticus 21:17. Say to Aaron: Whosoever of thy seed throughout their families, hath a blemish, he shall not offer bread to his God.

Leviticus 21:18. Neither shall he approach to minister to him: If he be blind; if he be lame; if he have a little, or a great, or a crooked nose;

Leviticus 21:19. If his foot, or if his hand be broken;

Leviticus 21:20. If he be crookbacked; or blear eyed; or have a pearl in his eye, or a continual scab, or a dry scurf in his body, or a rupture.

Leviticus 21:21. Whosoever of the seed of Aaron the priest hath a blemish: he shall not approach to offer sacrifices to the Lord, nor bread to his God. Punishment for bestiality

Leviticus 20:15. He that shall copulate with any beast or cattle, dying let him die: the beast also ye shall kill. The beast also ye shall kill. . .The killing of the beast was for the greater horror of the crime, and to prevent the remembrance of such abomination.

Leviticus 20:16. The woman that shall lie under any beast, shall be killed together with the same. Their blood be upon them.

=Sanctioning of slavery=

Exodus 21:7-8. When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not satisfy her owner, he must allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her.

Leviticus 25:44-46. As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.

Exodus 21:20-21. When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. 

Ephesians 6:5. Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ.

Titus 2:9-10. Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

=Subordination of women to men=

Genesis 2:16-18. It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.

1 Timothy 2:13. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.

Genesis 2:22. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.

1 Corinthians 11:8. For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man

1 Corinthians 11:9 For indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake.

Genesis 2:19. Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.

Genesis 1:28. Rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

Genesis 2:23. The man said, This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.

1 Timothy 2:14. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.

1 Corinthians 11:7. For a man is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.

=Miscellaneous=

Deuteronomy 25:11-12. If men get into a fight with one another, and the wife of one intervenes to rescue her husband from the grip of his opponent by reaching out and seizing his genitals, you shall cut off her hand; show no pity.

=References=


 * The Old Testament of the King James Version of the Bible
 * Father Nathan Monk, "What if your pastor taught biblical slavery", 10 Sep 2013.
 * Valerie Tarico, "9 Ways the Bible Condones Torture", Alternet, 31 December 2014.