Did Jesus advocate the stoning of children?
Ellis, are you joking? Or is this a serious question?
If so, in the the spirit of dialogue, I ask: How much do you know about what it says of Jesus in the Gospels? Are you aware that he risked being stoned, on more than one occasion, because of what he said, and did, in the name of spiritual, social, political and economic reform?
Take a look at John 8:1-11, which tells the story of how he, publicly, defended the rights of a women. His action was a heroic one.He was for the rights of women, and children, before the law, long before our time.
BTW, what we call Palm Sunday was more than just an innocent and happy parade down some church aisle with people waving palms. When Jesus turned over the table of the crooked moneychangers--the ones who ran the Temple banking system--he no doubt sealed his fate (John 2:12-22.). It was this final act, in the name of economic justice, that led to his arrest and execution in the most horrible way.
THE JEWISH TEMPLE-AREA HOUSED THE CENTRAL JEWISH BANK
Are you aware that, in Jesus' time--and even before this--Temple money--gold, silver and bronze--were supposed to be pure metals, and they were supposed to circulate free of interest to fellow Jews?
WHO WERE THE MONEYCHANGERS?
Note that they were not called money exchangers--the kind we have today. Today, each nation has its own paper-money system (the fiat kind). Thus we have an exchange system.
But ancient moneychangers, particularly in Israel, were actually expected to melt down and change the stamp on each coin so that it became a Temple coin.
There are few historic details about how the banking system, in ancient times, actually operated. But it is not hard to imagine that certain honest moneychangers--for example, Matthew--took any foreign coins (the ones with graven images, as mentioned in the second commandment), melted them down and changed them--perhaps for a small fee--into Temple coins. Keep in mind that in ancient times coins circulated by weight, not by denomination.
WHY JESUS CALLED THE MONEYCHANGERS THIEVES
It is not hard to imagine that, in the melting process, crooks and thieves had, and no doubt took, the opportunity to debase any coins on deposit to them to their own profit. Often they would hold on to foreign coins because it was lawful (see. Deut. 23:19) for them to make loans to Gentiles and charge interest.
