The Death Penalty in Roman Judea

The Gospel of John fabricates a detail about history to say the Jewish authorities couldn't administer the death penalty in Judea and the Tetrarchies, and apologists rush to commit the sharpshooter fallacy and paint their target over the arrow after the fact.

Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law." The Jews replied, "We are not permitted put anyone to death."

John 18.31 NRSVUE

To be fair, I believe that the authors of the Gospel of John are confusing a detail about history that was true about crucifixion because crucifixion does seem to be the prevue of the Romans but not the death penalty in general, or it could be the mangling of the fact that Jesus had not done anything to warrant the death penalty under Jewish Law.

Apologists will use the passage in the Gospel of John to make claims about Jewish authorities in first century Roman Judea as if this passage represented something true. They do so because they understand that allowing the Gospel of John to be wrong about this detail undermines the integrity of the parts that they like, such as the catchy, simple, and exclusionary formulas of faith put in the mouth of Jesus.

One does not need to sort through the annals of ancient sources like Josephus to prove the Gospel of John is wrong about Jewish authorities and the death penalty because all one needs are examples from the New Testament itself.

The woman caught in adultery.

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and, making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.  Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.”[a] And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”

John 8.3-11 NRSVUE

Notwithstanding the fact that the story of the woman caught in adultery was added in later from another source, the Gospel of John seems completely unaware of the fact that it had depicted a woman as being in danger of getting killed by Jewish authorities administering the death penalty in accordance with their law earlier in the text.

The stoning of St. Stephen.

Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him, and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he died. And Saul approved of their killing him. That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem."

Acts 7.58-8.1 NRSVUE

The stoning of St. Stephen proves that not only did Jewish authorities have the ability to execute people but that they did, and nowhere do we see Paul nor the ones, who laid St. Stephen's coats at his feet, having tensions with the Roman officials about their administration of a death penalty.

The beheading of the Apostle James, son of Zebedee.

About that time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. He had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword. After he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also.

Acts 12.1-3 NRSVUE

The Apostle James was beheaded by a Jewish authority in Jerusalem because the Herodians, despite how they were viewed by other Jews, were still "Jewish" authorities, and the last example was executed by the Jewish authority, Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee, Perea, and Idumea, that is, John the Baptist.

John the Baptist, the woman caught in adultery, St. Stephen, and James son of Zebedee each challenge and undermine the claim in the Gospel of John in different but important ways.

To claim that Jewish authorities couldn't put anyone to death in accordance with their own law is just another example of the Gospel of John giving false testimony in the analogy of a court of Jewish Law.