One of the biggest debates in Noahidism is when do the beheadings begin. Some Jews believe you need a Sanhedrin for the Noahide beheadings to begin, but Rabbi Schneerson, who is lauded as the spiritual leader of world Jewry (here) believed there was no need for a Sanhedrin (here). Here, another Jew does admit that there are Jews who believe that the penalty for breaking any of the Noahide Laws in any way, in this age, not the messianic age, is beheading. But the author does not agree with this and believes that there not be need to behead in every instance and that beheading in every instance starts in the Messianic age and only for Noahides living in Israel. However, Michael Dallen makes it clear that in this age, in every age, not just the Messianic age, non-Jews are to be punished for breaking the Noahide Laws. Non-Jewish Noahide courts have the option of beheading offenders of the Noahide Laws if they choose, but they need not bring the punishment to that degree if they don't want to.
"Several writers have said, in effect, that the notoriously harsh and unjust laws of benighted countries like ancient Syria, Rome and Persia provide humanity with examples for enlightened Noahide courts to follow. Solemnly, they argue that Gentiles may properly enforce their own laws with horrible severity, and that the regular, statutory punishment administered by Noahide courts must always be capital punishment, die death penalty.
This sort of ghastly misconception does little credit to the logic of the Law. Analysis reveals the error. The key teaching is Maimonides', in his seminal work, the Yad HaChazaka or Mishneh Torah ("Repetition of the Torah"), Hilchot Melachim ("Laws of Kings"): "A Ben Noah who transgresses one of these Seven Commandment laws shall be executed by the sword."
Let's take a close look at this:
Execution by the sword: this means, as the Torah teaches, that society shll effect the death penalty only by the quickest and least painful method possible, decapitation in one stroke. The grotesque final penalties so often imposed in humanity's bloody history — flaying, drawing and quartering, keelhauling, burning at the stake, and other mutilating tortures to kill men really, really dead — are forbidden.
Must every convicted criminal be executed? Must every teenaged shoplifter be punished just as murderers are punished? The context of this passage, setting out the duties of Israel's kings once the line of (King David has been restored to sovereignty and the Messianic era has begun, explains everything. Plainly, it directly pertains only to B'nai Noah who have elected to live alongside the people of Israel, within the land of Israel, in the future — that is, in Messianic times, when "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."
Recently, many scholars have taken us deeper into this supposed harsh rule of Maimonides. Love and mercy make up the bare bones of the Law and here we have another instance where the exemptions, exacting safeguards and loopholes of divine jurisprudence make a harsh penalty — capital punishment — mostly important only as a symbolic legal benchmark. God wants us to know just how seriously He takes our every failure to live up to our humanity, to His minimal moral expectations for us. Every time we fail to act fully human we die at least a little anyway; the symbolism of the harsh general penalty — the technical penalty — ought to bring that moral value home. As for the practical working details of Noahide jurisprudence, actual penalties are for each nation to determine for itself, based on the facts and circumstances of every case and over time.
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God doesn't act as a tyrant to His creatures. The fact is, persuasive ancient as well as modern scholarship insists, that God has established the substance of His Law while He grants B 'nai Noah freedom to legislate its details.
Such details include minimal amounts or threshold quantities and the mechanisms for the Law's enforcement, to be determined in accordance with their — the nations' — own communal needs. So the nations may devise whatever structure or hierarchy of penalties they think appropriate to secure compliance with their laws.
Looking at this system logically, we see that it must be so. Which means that we can say plainly: B'nai Noah legislators have the right to enact the death penalty to punish any crimes committed under the Noahide Law. After all, these aren't just crimes committed against other men, offensive to the good order of society. They are crimes of idolatry, committed against God and His sovereignty, which are direcdy offensive to Him. But a legal right is not an obligation: a right need not be exercised.
God's Universal laws are also laws of sublime justice. They aren't merely ideal or far off, designed for application only in some spiritual or Messianic future: it is another Revolutionary principle that God's laws are practical laws, meant to govern man's practices now? We see that He has designed them accordingly, to commend themselves to the enlightened conscience and sense of justice of every nation. The nations can adjust the details to suit themselves." (Dallen, 2003, p. 82-85)
SOURCE: Dallen, Michael E. (2003). The Rainbow Covenant. Light Catcher Books & The Rainbow Covenant Foundation.
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