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1. Murder - Exodus (Ex.) 21:12; Leviticus (Lev.) 24:17.
2. Offering strange fire - Ex. 30:9; Lev. 10:1, 2.
3. Priest ministering without washing clean his hands and feet - Ex. 30:20, 21.
4. Worshiper eating sacrifice belonging to the Lord after touching anything unclean - Lev. 7:18-21
5. Worshiper who eats fat of animal offered as sacrifice - Lev. 7:23-25.
6. Anyone eating blood - Lev. 7:26, 27; 17:10-14.
7. Priest when being consecrated is not to leave tabernacle for seven days, day or night - Lev. 8:30-35.
8. Priests forbidden to drink alcohol when going into the tabernacle - Lev. 10:9-11.
9. Anyone defiling God's tabernacle with uncleanness - Lev. 15:31.
10. Uncover (to lie with for sexual purposes) nakedness of uncle's wife, both guilty - Lev. 20:20.
11. Anyone killing a sacrifice and not bringing it to the tabernacle - Lev. 17:2-5.
12. Uncovering nakedness of father or mother - Lev. 18:7, 29-30.
13. Uncovering nakedness of grandchild - Lev. 18:10, 29, 30.
14. Uncovering nakedness of sister - Lev. 18:9.
15. Uncovering nakedness of half-sister - Lev. 18:11, 29-30.
16. Uncovering nakedness of father's brother's wife - Lev. 18:14, 29, 30.
17. Uncovering nakedness of a woman and her daughter - Lev. 18:17, 29, 30.
18. Uncovering nakedness of a woman and her son's daughter - Lev. 18:17, 29,30.
19. Uncovering nakedness of a woman and her daughter's daughter - Lev. 18:17,29,30.
20. Lie carnally with neighbor's wife - Lev. 18:20, 29, 30.
21. Profaning the name of God - Lev. 18:21, 29, 30.
22. Anyone committing abominations of the heathen nations before them - Lev. 18:25-30.
23. Anyone who is not Aaron's descendent coming near to exercise or assume priesthood - Numbers (Num.) 3:10; 18:7.
24. Any outsider who comes near tabernacle while legitimate priests function - Num. 3:38.
25. Levites (sons of Kohath) assigned to transport tabernacle are forbidden to touch holy things - Num. 4:15.
26. Levites who come near the articles of sanctuary or altar - Num. 18:2, 3.
27. Any priest who allows a Levite to come near sanctuary articles. - Numbers 18:3.
28. Levites looking on holy things while they are being covered by priests - Num. 4:18-20.
29. Levite who has physical defect or sore, or is a eunuch, who offers bread to the Lord - Lev. 21:17-23.
30. Any priest who touches a dead person defiles himself and if not purified defiles the tabernacle - Num. 19:11-13.
31. Any Levite who profanes the holy gifts of the children of Israel - Num. 18:32.
32. Anyone qualified to keep Passover but declines to or absents himself - Num. 9:13.
33. Anyone offering a peace offering and fails to eat it the first or second day - Lev. 19:5-8.
34. Presumptuous sin, despising God's commandment - Num. 15:30, 31.
35. Anyone who lets his descendent pass through fire to Molech - Lev. 18:21, 25-30.
36. Anyone who gives his descendent to Molech - Lev. 20:2, 3.
37. Anyone who knows someone has given a descendent to Molech and fails to execute him - Lev. 20:4, 5.
38. All who prostitute themselves to the god Molech - Lev. 20:5.
39. Taking a wife and her mother - Lev. 20:14.
40. Priest officiating with any uncleanness on him Lev. 22:2-9.
41. Priest's daughter who plays the harlot - Lev. 21:9; 18:25-30.
42. Man who hires his daughter out to prostitution - Lev. 19:29.
43. Woman who marries while professing virginity but is not - Deuteronomy (Deut.) 22:13-21.
44. Anyone working on the Day of Atonement - Lev. 23:28, 30.
45. Anyone not afflicting himself on Day of Atonement - Lev. 23:29.
46. Any outsider, an alien, who comes near the tabernacle when it is being pitched or taken down - Num. 1:51.
47. Murder secretly - Deut. 27:24.
48. Murder for hire - Deut. 27:25.
49. Murder with guile - Exodus 21:14.
50. Anyone who strikes his servant who dies suddenly -Ex. 21:20, 2l.
51. Manslaughter - Ex. 21:13; Num. 35:24-28.
52. Smiting or striking a parent - Ex. 21:15.
53. Kidnapping -Ex. 21:16.
54. Stealing a man and selling him into slavery - Deut. 24:7.
55. Rape - Deut. 22:25.
56. Man or woman who lies carnally with a married person, both die - Lev. 20:l0; Deut. 22:22.
57. Man or woman who commits bestiality, both die - Lev. 18:23; 20:15,16; Ex. 22:19.
58. Homosexuals and lesbians, both die - Lev. 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26, 27.
59. An engaged woman who has sexual relations with someone other than her fiancé, both die - Deut. 22:23, 24.
60. Lie carnally with father's wife (step-mother, Leviticus 18:8), both guilty - Lev. 20:11.
61. Lie carnally with daughter-in-law, both guilty - Lev. 18:15; 20:12.
62. Lie carnally with uncle's wife - Lev. 20:20.
63. Lie carnally with mother's sister - Lev. 18:13.
64. Lie carnally with father's or mother's sister, both guilty - Lev. 20:19.
65. Lie carnally with brother's wife, both guilty - Lev. 20:21.
66. Lie carnally with a woman as a rival to her sister - Lev. 18:18.
67. Sex with menstruating woman, who is unclean for seven days, both are guilty - Lev. 18:19; 20:18.
68. Worshipper of false god - Ex. 22:20.
69. Sorceress or witch - Ex. 22:18.
70. Close relatives or friends who seek to entice you to serve false gods - Deut. 13:6-9.
7l. Prophets that seek to turn you to serve false gods - Deut. 13:3-5.
72. Wizards or those with a familiar spirit - Lev. 20:27.
73. Engaging in spiritualism - Lev. 20:6.
74. Those who worship sun, moon and stars - Deut. 17:2-7.
75. Offering sacrifices to demons - Lev. 17:7; Deut. 32:17.
76. Anyone offering a burnt offering and failing to offer it to the Lord at the door of the tabernacle - Lev. 17:8-10.
77. City with its inhabitants that serve false gods - Deut. 13:12-16.
78. Withholding a thing devoted to God - Lev. 27:28, 29.
79. Blasphemy or cursing God by citizens and aliens, believers and non-believers - Lev. 24:16.
80. Gross irreverence - Ex. 32:6-8, 25-28.
81. Sabbath work and desecration - Ex. 31:14-17; 35:1,2.
82. Presumption in rejecting the Word of God - Deut. 17:9-13; Num. 15:30.
83. Any assuming office of priesthood other than Aaron's descending sons - Numbers 18:7.
84. Anyone other than a Levite who comes near the tabernacle or its furnishings - Num. 1:51.
85. Serving as a ritual harlot - Deut. 23:17.
86. Serving as a ritual sodomite - Deut. 23:17.
87. Cursing parents - Ex. 21:17.
88. Owner of unrestrained animal that continues to kill after first occasion - Ex. 21:29.
89. Perjury in a capital offense accusation - Deut. 19:15-21.
90. Oppressing strangers, widows and orphans - Exodus 22.21-24.
91. One who is breaking and entering (can be killed in self-defense) - Ex. 22:2.
92. Taking pagan worship objects into one's home - Deut. 7:25, 26.
93. Anyone, including whole cities, urging the worship of false gods - Deut. 13:12-17.
94. One falsely claiming God commanded him to speak -Deut. 18:19,20.
95. Stubborn, rebellious, gluttonous drunkard son - Deut. 21:18-24.
96. Anyone eating leavened bread during Feast of Unleavened Bread - Exodus 12:15-19.
97. Making holy anointing oil for use other than for the sanctuary, or place on an outsider - Exodus 30:23-33.
98. Using holy incense for personal reasons - Exodus 30:34-38.
99. Anyone who fails to circumcise his son or any man who is not circumcised - Genesis 17:10-14; Exodus 4:24-26.
100. Sinners die the final, second, permanent death, while faithful are given everlasting life - Psalm 37:34-40; Revelation 20:6,9,12-15; John 3:16.
101. Anyone touching mountain where God was giving Ten Commandments to Moses - Ex. 19:12, 13.
102. Priest entering sanctuary without modest clothing - Ex. 28:41-43.
103. Anyone failing to pay ransom (1/2 shekel) at time of census aged 20 or more - Ex. 30:12-15.
104. Anyone who sympathizes with those executed for desecrating sanctuary - Lev. 10:6,.7.
105. Any Israelite male who refuses to be circumcised - Genesis 17:10-14.

It should be noted that this list has been compiled carefully and thoroughly over a period of twenty-five years and is quite comprehensive-all that the author could discover. The list contains 105 different offenses that were punishable by the death penalty. Note that each capital offense is against the perpetrator for a crime against another human being-a living person or against God. The phrase cut off has the same meaning as "put to death:' (See NKJV, Exodus 31:14, 15 and margin, Leviticus 17:4; Exodus 30:33; Leviticus 23:29, 30). The absence of any specific reference to capital punishment for abortion certainly and clearly defines the non-personhood status of the fetus. With the minute distinctions drawn in great detail in the types of murder and killing, as well as the numerous definitions of incest, the people were not left in doubt as to what was a crime of murder, killing, or other capital punishment offenses. It would be strange indeed that God would leave out abortion as a capital crime, or even as a killing, if He considered the fetus a living person. It does have borrowed life from the mother but does not have its own independent life until it is born and breathing. Until born, the fetus is considered property by God (see Exodus 21:22-25), and a fine ensues if miscarriage is induced by a non-family member. To uncover the nakedness of another person is to be carnally with that person (see Leviticus 20:20).

The justice system that God established in the Old Testament safeguards against finding an innocent person guilty. Witnesses who testified in trials including those which could carry the death penalty, had to be credible - they had to be eyewitnesses. No convictions were based on circumstantial evidence.  Here are God's explicit instructions:

"Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses; he shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness. The hands of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterwards all the people. So you shall put away the evil from among you" (Deuteronomy 17:6, 7).

And how was false testimony dealt with? Should a witness be challenged and charged with perjury, the following procedure took place:

"One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits: by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established. If a false witness rises against a man to testify against him of wrongdoing, then both men in the controversy shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days. And the judges shall make careful inquiry, and indeed, if the witness is a false witness, who has testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother: shoo u shall put away the evil from among you. And those who remain shall her and fear, and hereafter they shall not again commit such evil among you. Your eye shall not pity; life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot"
(Deuteronomy 19:15-21).

The matter of false testimony in any crime or sin was looked upon as seriously as the crime for which a man was accused, and the penalty against the perjurer was meant to prevent false testimony and the conviction penalizing the innocent, including the execution of innocent people.

Of interest also is the fact that Middle Eastern civilizations at the time of the Exodus considered abortion the killing of a person and prescribed capital punishment. Their religions, of course, were pagan. Personhood of the fetus was the natural presumption, based on their belief that an immortal soul came into the fertilized egg at the time of conception. Obviously, God looked upon personhood, life, and abortion differently than the contemporary cultures at the time of the giving of His laws at Mount Sinai. Much of American religious culture today holds the same basic views on the subject as the pagan religions at the time of the Exodus and the giving of the laws by God at Mt. Sinai. Those holding that - abortion is murder or killing believe a religious doctrine on the nature of man that finds its foundation in the heretical teaching of the natural immortality of the soul, which holds an underlying premise of personhood at conception. This false doctrine has found its way from paganism into much of Christianity, through Roman Catholicism and afterward, through Protestantism.

Governor Rose Mofford's Letter

Appendix B