Question:

I have a question on John 19:6-7 (NIV); 6As soon as the chief priests and
their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!” ;But Pilate
answered, “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a
charge against him.” The Jews insisted, “We have a law, and according to
that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.” Where in
the OT did the Jews get this law from? Is it direct or is it implied by a
law?

Answer:

I have been thinking about this one a while, and to the best of my
knowledge, there is no direct command that anyone who claims to be the Son
of God must die in the Old Testament. I cannot absolutely state that this
is the case, but I did a fair amount of research (limited mostly to the
Torah) and conclude that the Jews are working by implication. My guess is
that if you found an expert on the Mishnah or the Talmud, you may find
that one of the Rabbi?s applications of the various laws will specifically
condemn anyone who claims to be a Son of God or a Son of the gods. So,
even if we cannot find a specific law in the Old Testament, there still
may be a specific law in the added traditional Jewish laws or written
interpretations which do mention this. I can think of two passages which
the Jews may be referring to. One is in Deuteronomy 13:1-11 in which God
tells his people that even if someone were to come and work miracles and
tell prophecies, but that person also teaches that the people should
follow other gods, then that person must be “purged from among you.”
Another passage which came to my mind in this connection is Deuteronomy
18:20 which says, “But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything
I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of
other gods, must be put to death.” The priests and other officials are
charging Jesus with blasphemy for claiming to be God, or a god, or a son
of the gods.

John Oakes, PhD