The Process Of Stoning

Is stoning a sadistic method of capital punishment?

The execution method of stoning may strike some as a cruel and inhumane, and thus immoral and unworthy of modern usage.  A talk today emphasized to me how some Christians can even think of it as unjust or too severe.  I want to show that stoning (at least Biblical stoning) is not at all the monstrously cruel thing that some might assume.

God cannot order someone to sin (James 1:13), and thus it follows from God prescribing stoning for certain offenses that stoning itself is not inherently evil.  This means that the issue at hand is not whether stoning is Biblically just or unjust, since the Bible clearly teaches that it is just in some contexts, but whether stoning is cruel or not.

The belief that stoning is by necessity a prolonged, sadistic process is mistaken.  In fact, stoning can be one of the quickest execution methods, since all it takes is several stones to the head--or maybe even one--to bring about the unconsciousness or death of the victim.  A person can be killed by stoning rather swiftly, with minimal conscious pain.  It is not as if the process lasts for hours.

Whereas some methods of execution are specifically intended to maximize pain, humiliate the victims, and ensure the experience is as artificially lengthy  as possible, stoning as a generic method is not intended to do any of these things.  In addition to this, Biblical stoning in particular is not to be carried out in a way that degrades the man or woman being stoned, as God specifically forbids the use of such atrocities as punishments (Deuteronomy 25:3).  Biblical stoning does not involve prolonging someone's death, forced nudity, or any other similar dehumanizing aspects.

The standard of terrestrial criminal justice on the Christian worldview is the set of penalties found in Mosaic Law, so, ultimately, it is going beyond what is prescribed in Scripture that is unjust, not upholding its actual commands (Deuteronomy 4:2).  Stoning for offenses that are Biblically capital in cases where the Bible prescribes stoning is not cruel.  Flaying, crucifixion, scaphism, gladiatorial fights, or death by flogging, to name some alternative capital punishment methods, are each cruel and depraved precisely because they go far beyond what the standard revealed as just in the Bible demands.

No, Biblical stoning is not a thing that maximizes suffering or encourages sadism.  It is, contrarily, far more humane than many forms of capital punishment used throughout human history.