The scene in Life of Brian where John Cleese presides over a poorly executed stoning has always been one of my favorites. But I wonder how much was made up about it, and if there was any basis in fact for the scene. In particular:
Were women actually not permitted at stonings? For that matter, were stonings used as a means of execution in Roman occupied Nazareth?
Was it really blasphemy to say ‘Jehova’? If so, was this punishable by death?
I can’t find anything relevant on Google. Every combination that uses the word 'stoning" brings up nasty current events in Iran.
Here’s the deal. The Mosaic Law, as presented in the five books of the Torah, does call far death by stoning for a number of crimes including blasphemy. However, the details about enforcement, trial, and punishment do not come from the Torah. They instead came from the traditionals handed down in Jewish society which became the Talmud, though it had not been compiled at the time. So before there could be any execution according to the Mosaic Law, there was an exacting process that had to be followed from the initial accusation against the person, at least two witnesses had to have seen the crime being committed, there had the be twenty-three judges and an even larger jury. (One of the stranger notes is that if the entire jury voted guilty, then the person was not executed, because this suggested a mob mentality at work.) As a result, execution was not as common as you’d think from reading the Torah alone. I’d be surprised if there’s a record of anyone being executed for blasphemy based only on violating the “Jehovah” taboo.
As for whether women were present, I’m not sure, but given that they were not allowed in many public situations it seems likely.
The ban was on speaking the name of the Jewish God, whose name was written with four consonants – the “Tetragrammaton” – YHWH. The vowels are not written in Hebrew, but it was probably pronounced “Yahweh”. “Jehovah” is another way of pronouncing YHWH, with different vowels.
A mob is about to stone the woman taken in adultery. Jesus is there and says, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Everyone looks around sheepishly, except for one little old lady in the crowd. The little old lady picks up a rock and flings it, nailing the adulterous woman right between the eyes.
Jesus flushes with anger and storms right up to the little old lady and says, “Mom! You really piss me off sometimes!”