[Avodah] Apikores?

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:
> On Tue, December 18, 2007 4:36 pm, Zev Sero wrote:
> : Micha Berger wrote:

> :> But when Sanhedrin saw that the masses weren't on the same page, and
> :> oneshim would turn Inquisition-esque, they exiled themselves to
> :> prevent the eventuality.
> 
> : Was that the reason?  Or was it because they were prevented by the
> : Romans from carrying out their duty?
> 
> I'm worried that we're headed in a Historical School direction.
> 
> Regardless of what was the primary reason historically, as recorded by
> Chazal, the reason was as I gave it -- they saw too much corporal
> punishment.

What it says is that there were too many murderers, not that there was
too many executions.  (And it says nothing about corporal punishment.)
It doesn't say explicitly what the problem was with too many murderers;
why not execute them all?  You're speculating that the reason was that
they were reluctant to do that, but I don't see anything in the source
to support that.  I understand the gemara to mean that they moved because
they *couldn't* execute the murderers.  I then bolster my reading by
pointing to the history we know from elsewhere, that in fact at that
time the Romans did not allow batei din to execute people.  As
evidenced by a famous story, fictional or not, that is supposedly set
37 years before the churban, give or take a few, which puts it right
around the time that the Sanhedrin moved.  Even if the story didn't
happen, it's evidence that the rule was in place.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas