Misrepresented Harshness--Deuteronomy 21:18-21

This post marks the beginning of a sporadic series about individual passages in Mosaic Law that, in my experience, people seem to horrendously misrepresent.  I have encountered multiple websites, some Christian and some hostile towards Christianity, which proclaim things about the meaning of these verses that the verses themselves do not say.  Now, when an atheist website or some other non-Christian source does this, the words "straw man" immediately come to my mind.  But when Christians do it . . . come on, why the hell do Christians sometimes misrepresent their own religious text?

This time the passage in question is from Deuteronomy:


Deuteronomy 21:18-21--"If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.  They shall say to the elders, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious.  He will not obey us.  He is a profligate and a drunkard.'  Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death.  You must purge the evil from among you.  All Israel will hear of it and be afraid."


Often one will see this passage represented as if it teaches that Mosaic Law prescribes execution of sons and daughters for mere lack of compliance with the instructions of their parents.  But upon an examination that both takes the whole passage into account (not just one verse of it!) and one that goes beyond interpretive superficiality, this represents a misunderstanding of the text.  Deuteronomy 21:18-21 does not say that children should be put to death for refusing to sit in time out or for questioning the reasoning of their parents!  I will repeat that point--the Bible does NOT say to execute children for mere disobedience!  Also, the parents were not killing children guilty of this offense; the community killed capital offenders and was only authorized to by Biblical law upon the honest testimony of two or three witnesses (Deuteronomy 17:6, 19:15).  The degree of disobedience mentioned in Deuteronomy 21:18-21 is a type of selfish and apathetic rebellion drenched in gratuitous, habitual recklessness and disregard for one's parents, not casual disobedience that practically every child commits at one time or another.  The words of the parents to the elders in the text itself demonstrate this.

These four verses do not teach what many fallaciously represent them as teaching.  The Christian deity never commanded anyone to stone children for acts of simple disobedience, but for prolonged, unrepentant, dangerous disobedience--perhaps kinds that might develop into sociopathic behavior.  That last part is not mentioned in the text and the Bible never says to punish someone for what he or she might eventually choose to do, but this would serve as a benefit obtained from adherence to this passage.

As this is the first post in a series, I will sporadically upload short corrections of misrepresentations of various verses in Mosaic Law.  Until then, remember to not read into the Bible--or the Quran or any other document, religious or otherwise--what its own words do not permit as a rationally and textually legitimate interpretation.