Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Schmuel <schmuel AT nyc.rr.com>]

Hi Folks,

Ethel Jean (Kowan) Saltz - 
>Constantine decreed legal reasons for capital punishment (IOW death/murder):
>1.  No one can convert to Judaism.
>2.  No Christian can marry a Jew.
>3.  No Chrisitian can be circumcized.
>4.  No Christian can read the Talmud.

Schmuel
Ethel, The Talmud did not even exist as a unit at the time of Constantine.
It would be hard to find "any" Christian reference to it till much later.

And I doubt there is any 4th-century reference of capital punishment
for any of the items you mention. 

Let me give a little note that there is web reference to a 'Constantine 
decree' 
that is misreferenced, it really came at least 600 years later.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/message/9285
Messianic scholarship about early church - caveat emptor 

When pointed out, some folks accepted the correction, others did not.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/message/11086
Constantine Decree correction - HRNSA and Torah of Messiah responses 

So there may be some confusion in your source documents.  The only real
way to check these is the original source documents, in translation is fine
as long as the translation is credible (eg. CCEL, EarlyChristianWritings on 
the web). 

> Can anyone prove that Constantine decreed this?  I do have one article 
> where 
> all the Coda exists but I can't find it and besides one article isn't 
> sufficient anyway.

Maybe you should check that before writing that he did :-) 

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic