Mosaic Law

While insisting that he’s a mere simpleton, he preaches for hours, elaborating on his dreams and visions, spinning fables and parables, and promoting a scrambled theology that rejects the Mosaic law — particularly its sexual restrictions — in favor of a heretical mishmash of faiths.

Christian reconstructionism, Tabachnick explained, is "about bringing government in all areas of life under biblical law, a continuation of the Mosaic law in the Old Testament, with some exceptions."

As recently as 2001, Avery Dulles, an American Jesuit scholar, noted that “The Mosaic Law specifies no less than thirty-six capital offenses calling for execution by stoning, burning, decapitation, or strangulation. Included in the list are idolatry, magic, blasphemy, violation of the sabbath, murder, adultery, bestiality, pederasty, and incest.”

Different Christian traditions take different approaches to Mosaic law, but in general they view it as the “Old Covenant,” superseded by the arrival of Jesus.

Before Monday’s 63-24 vote, one lawmaker questioned whether Smith’s bill might also prohibit the use of Mosaic law - such as the Ten Commandments.