I believe orthodox Jews accept the biblical injunction to stone adulterers to death.  Anyone know the biblical citation?  Islam has the same rule apparently.  Since Islam is a "Mosaic" religion does it get its sex views from the bible or does the Koran have a like or other provision?  Again if someone knows could they tell me where.  Where is stoning actually allowed/enforced?  Are there any good sources for seeing the various sex and marital rules of different cultures and religion through time?  I'm curious as to where monogamy came from- obviously not from Moses and David - it seems down right unnatural.  As to bans on prostitution - how did that arise?  Seems like a pretty natural outcome of the market economy.  Anyone know?

Leviticus 20:10-21 lists a series of sexual offenses, and their respective punishments. The first offense, in Leviticus 20:10, is adultery between a man and the wife of another not his blood relative, punishable by death of both parties.

Interestingly, this somewhat conflicts with Leviticus 18:6-29. Leviticus 18:20 also prohibits adultery, and 18:29 lists the punishment as only banishment of both parties.

Deutoronomy 19:15-21 establishes the requirement for corroborating testimony from at least two independent witnesses for conviction of an accused, and sets the punishment for perjury. (False witnesses must receive the punishment they had intended the accused to suffer.)

As for the Qu'ran, Sura 4:14-16 establishes the requirement for 4 witnesses for conviction on charges of adultery. These 4 need not witness the same act. 4 separate acts, each with one witness, is sufficient to convict. (False witnesses shown to have perjured themselves are to be punished with public flogging.) The convicted women are then punished with house arrest for the rest of their lives, or until they are legally redeemed.

Unfortunately, this conflicts with Sura 24:2, which prescribes public flogging for both parties.

Saw this on the Discovery channel the other day.

They had a show about prostitution in the US, and traced the bans on prostitution back to Anthony Comstok, and the Comstok laws in New York around the turn of the century.  His rules enforcing "moral" behavior became a model for the rest of the country.

Before this, there wasn't a ban on prostitution in NY, just a ban on "lewd behavior", and most prostitutes were ignored by LE.

King David had 7 wives and 4 concubines; His son, King Solomon had 200 wives and 300 concubines.  Abraham had 4 wives and had sex with 3 of his wives' maid servants; as did his son Jacob, who also had 4 wives, and a bunch of his wives' maid servants.  Then of course there's Lot, who had sex with his 2 daughters.  Then there's Leah who tried to get it on with her husband's 2 brothers, but they "pulled out" (and then they died); so then she got it on with father in law Jacob, who thought he was having sex with a "provider" (back in those days they were called harlots)(he paid her with his walking staff and cloak; then when she had his child, she was able to proove it with the "evidence").  

Oh well, there's the biblical precident for you.

Interesting story

Sorry: it was the story of Tamar.  check it out.  back in those days it was perfectly permissible for the husband to visit a Provider on his "out of town" journeys; and also permissible for the brothers to have sex with their deceased brother's widow.

But then, we now have the rape of Dinah.  That's when the Israeli Dinah (daughter of Jacob) was (presumably) "raped" by a Phillistine prince (of course, the bible doesn't say what Dinah had to say about all of this.  But then the Phillistine prince wanted to mary Dinah.  Dinah's brothers were against the deal; but then agreed only if the phillistines would "circumsize" themselves.  Well, they finally agreed; and then when the night of this mass circumcision occurred, and all of the Phillistines were in their beds recouperatiing, the Israelis (sons of Jacob), came into the town and killed all on them, including the young prince who wanted to marry poor Dinah.  And, as Paul Harvey would say, that's "the rest of the story."  The Israelis and Phillistines (now euphemistically Pallestinians) have been at each others throats; and they are still going at it.

The ONLY connection between "Palestinian" and
"Phillistine" is purely linguistic.  Phillistinians were a Pagan population that ceased to exist after Alexander the Great.  Palestinians are Arabs and Muslims.  They are culturally and religiously different than Phillistines.

10% of Palestinians living in Israel are Christian.  For instance, Yasser Arafat's wife.