As I was doing some reading in the Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, a thought jumped out at me in the article Family Relationships: stoning is a unique form of capital punishment because it requires the entire community to accept the responsibility for putting someone to death and it prevents any one person from having to serve as the executioner. It’s like a firing squad that way. I wonder how the debate on the death penalty woud change if we each had to help execute convicts…