Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him. The blasphemy ruling: death by stoning outside the camp, with the witnesses laying their hands on the blasphemer's head before the stoning. The hand-laying by the witnesses transfers the moral responsibility for the blasphemy from the community to the blasphemer's head — the same transfer principle as the hand-laying in the sin offering, but now applied to judicial execution. The entire assembly's participation in the stoning communicates the communal renunciation of the blasphemy.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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