Was the Stoning of a Rebellious Son Too Harsh?

18    "If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them,
19    then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives,
20    and they shall say to the elders of his city, 'This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.'
21    Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.- Deut. 21:18-21

The following is a more developed version of my comments HERE.

When it comes to this issue of the stoning of a rebellious son, the son is clearly not a prepubescent child. He's obviously at least as old as a teenager since he's committing sins like gluttony and drunkenness. Any younger and the parents would be strong enough to prevent such sins. They could just take away the food and alcohol and the weak child wouldn't be able to resist. Some might object by saying that the parents are strong enough to grab a hold of him and bring him out to the elders. I'll address that objection later.

Also, the son is clearly incorrigible (so not a recent or very young teenager). He's described as stubborn. So, it's not a matter of a one time offense, but a son with a persistently unteachable spirit/attitude.

Furthermore, it seems the law was voluntary. The parents must voluntarily give up the son to the fate of stoning, and the community as a whole must agree to the stoning of the incorrigibly rebellious son. It wasn't a matter of private justice, but public justice. Parents couldn't just unilaterally stone their son to death in the backyard. Parents must (voluntarily) enlist the support of the community. So, both the parents and the community must be in agreement.

Finally, in all likelihood, the law served more regularly as a deterrent to scare kids straight. Few parents likely took advantage of the law. Especially since it would be a shame to the family for a son to have been stoned to death. Corporal punishment was an accepted form of training for parents to use back then and they would have availed themselves of that option as much as possible before recourse to stoning (v. 18). Stoning would have been the very last resort.

Regular beatings would remind kids of how much more stoning would hurt and its permanent nature (i.e. death). I'm reminded of how when me and my cousin were around six years old my uncle drove both of us to the parking lot of the Police Station and threatened to give us over to the police if we didn't stop fighting. It's no surprise that that scary experience dramatically decreased our tendency to fight. My cousin and I still laugh about it today.

Many adults (like myself) love and are thankful to their parents for having used corporal punishment on them when they were children. We also feel sorry for kids/adults who were never loved enough to be spanked, and the terrible consequences of that deprivation on the development of their character and the respectful attitude for authority (most especially toward God) they didn't develop.

Like I said above, some might object by saying that the parents are strong enough to grab a hold of the son and bring him out to the elders. So, this argues against the claim that the son is fairly mature. But the text doesn't say that the parents couldn't enlist other people to help them (like the elders themselves). Also, a sufficiently inebriated person is fairly easy to handle and guide. In which case, it's theoretically possible for parents to lead (or carry an unconscious) son to the elders. Then when he sobers up, he can be sentenced to death knowing full well why he deserved such a sentence.

Steve Hays wrote in his blogpost:

i) I didn't say if that was the thing to do now. Not everything that God commanded ancient Israel to do is a direct command to or for Christians.

ii) You fail to grasp the nature of the Mosaic penalty structure. As various scholars contend, the death penalty was generally a maximum penalty, not a mandatory penalty (first degree murder might be a notable exception). 

ii) The fact that the legislator invokes the purgation formula in the case of the incorrigible son indicates to me that in this case (and other cases in kind), the penalty is indexed to the cultic holiness of Israel. If so, that doesn't carry over into the new covenant era. By contrast, the penalty for murder antedates the Mosaic covenant. The penalty for murder is indexed to the image of God rather than holy land. 

Deuteronomy has a refrain about "purging evil" (Cf. Deut 13:5/6; 17:7,12; 19:13,19; 21:9,21; 22:21-22,24; 24:7). A dramatic illustration is the ceremony to cleanse the land of blood guilt (21:1-9). These penalties operate within a framework of ritual holiness, where the land is culturally holy, and transgressions defile the land, necessitating punitive actions that reconsecrate the land. But that principle doesn't carry over into the new covenant, because the holy land category is defunct.