Tractate Sanhedrin: IV. Offenders Liable to Capital Punishment: 1-6. Those Guilty of Incestuous and Unnatural Crimes

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1-6. Those Guilty of Incestuous and Unnatural Crimes.

(1) He who has criminal connexion with his mother 2 is guilty both in respect of the law of the mother and the law of the father's wife. R. Jehuda holds that he is guilty in respect of the law of the mother only. (2) He who has criminal connexion with his father's wife 3 is thereby guilty both in respect of the law of the father's wife and that of the married woman, whether before or after his father's death, whether she be betrothed or actually married. (3) He who has criminal connexion with his daughter-in-law 4 is thereby guilty in respect both of the law of a man's daughter-in-law and that of a married woman, whether it be before or after his son's death, whether she be betrothed or actually married. (4-5) In the case of one who has criminal connexion with a male 5 or

1 or (6) of the woman who has criminal M. connexion with a beast, 2 if the human being has sinned wherein lies the sin of the beast? Since by its means an offence has happened to a human being, Scripture says: LET IT BE STONED. 3 Or, according to another explanation, (it is put to death) lest the beast should go through the street and it be said: This is the animal on account of which such a man was stoned.

X. 1. R. Jehuda said: He who has criminal connexion with his mother is guilty only in respect of the law of the mother. R. Jehuda said: He who has criminal connexion with his father's wife is guilty only in respect of the law of the father's wife.

2. He who has criminal connexion with his own mother who is the divorced wife of a high-priest, or an ordinary priest's wife who has been subjected to the ḥaliṣa ceremony, or an illegal wife of his father, or one of the "nakednesses" of his father,--is liable to the penalty of stoning.

He who has criminal connexion with his father's wife (not his own mother) who is the divorced widow of a high-priest, or an ordinary priest's wife who has been subjected to the ḥaliṣa ceremony,--is liable to the penalty of stoning; but if (being neither of these two) she is an illegal wife of his father, or one of the "nakednesses" of his father,--he is not liable to the penalty of stoning.

He who has criminal connexion with his sister is guilty in respect of the law of the sister and also of the law of the daughter of his father's wife. R. Jose says: He is guilty only in respect of the law of the

sister; and the same holds good for one who has criminal connexion with his daughter-in-law.

One who has criminal connexion with a male, nine 1 years and a day old; and one who has criminal connexion with a beast in its way, and not in a woman's way; and the woman who has criminal connexion with a beast, whether or not according to its way,--are to be stoned.

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Footnotes

96:1 For these, see Mishnah VII. 7b and notes.

96:2 Lev. 20. 11.

96:3 Lev. 20. 11.

96:4 Lev. 20. 12.

96:5 Lev. 20. 13.

97:1 Lev. 20. 15.

97:2 Lev. 20. 16.

97:3 Cf. Lev. 20. 16, "Their blood shall be upon them," and this, according to Lev. 20. 27, by the argument gezera shawa, means death by stoning.

98:1 The age at which males were regarded as nubile.