volume 10, issue 1, 2018, pages 40-59

DOI: https://doi.org/10.64438/sbsDZCI4879
Published online: 2018-06-01
Published in print: 2018-06-30

Abstract: The analysis of Deut 21:22-23 demonstrates that the Mosaic Law relating to the public exposition of the corpse of a condemned man does not refer to the torture of crucifixion, but texts found at Qumran highlight that it was adopted from the Hellenistic epoch (4QpNah 3-4 I, 7-8; 11QTa 64,6-13). Reference to intertestamental literature is fundamental in reading and understanding the complex syntagma that constitute the crux interpretum of the whole
concept of “the curse of God in the person hanged”. Being hanged on the wood of a tree shows everyone that the person killed was God’s curse because the crime committed had rendered him such. It separated him from God. He is a sign of God’s absolute estrangement
from whatever connivance there may be with evil and this is why he had to be hanged. It is necessary to publicly denounce the sin that breaks the covenant with God.