tanach - Should anyone be burned to death?

In Leviticus 20:14, it states that a man who has relations with a woman and also with her mother is a despicable lech, whose punishment is to be burned to death. This is one of two transgressions which are to be punished by burning to death, the other one is Leviticus 21:9, where the victim is a priest's daughter who chooses to prostitute herself.

Are these laws obsolete? Do any Jews think they should be revived? I ask this because I find it difficult to think of Leviticus law as divinely inspired because of barbarous passages such as this. All of Leviticus 27, for example.

I am aware that Judaism no longer takes these things seriously, nor does it follow these laws, but I have never seen anyone condemn these practices. Does anyone?

Answer

The death penalty can only be carried out:

-with a specific kind of rabbinic court (which we don't have today)

-after the sinner has been caught in the act, warned by two people eligible to testify in a rabbinic court, and then IMMEDIATELY commits the same act again, in front of the same witnesses.

There are several other limiting factors to the death penalty in Jewish law, so much so that the Talmud, tractate Makkos declares that a court (the kind that we don't have today) which executes one man in SEVENTY YEARS is a murderous court!

Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon go even further, and explain that they would make the questioning of witnesses so exacting, that no one would stand up to it, thus precluding any "accurate testimony" from any such witnesses (who witnessed a capital crime, warned the perpetrator, and then witnessed him immediately commit the same act again) - and effectively preempting the death penalty entirely.

This question also brings up a general problem in drawing practical conclusions from the Tanach. Judaism has never believed that the Tanach is LITERALLY TRUE. Judaism has always believed that the Tanach is MASORETICALLY TRUE. The actual meaning of any given verse is whatever our mesorah (handed-down tradition) says it is.

I recommend this article for further clarification.