The classical instance of abduction reported in the Bible is Joseph's sale into slavery (Gen. These would have been required not only for each of the constituent elements of the offense, but also for the prescribed warnings that first had to be administered to the accused in respect of the abduction, the detention, the enslavement, and the sale, separately.

There is no recorded instance of any prosecution for abduction – not, presumably, because no abductions occurred, but because it proved difficult, if not impossible, to find the required groups of *witnesses.

It has been said that this interpretation reflects the abhorrence with which the talmudic jurists viewed this particular crime alternatively, it has been maintained that the reliance on the general words 'Thou shalt not steal' made the interdiction of manstealing applicable also to non-Jews and hence amounted to a repudiation of slave trading, which in other legal systems of the period was considered wholly legitimate.

19:11), and because of the context of the command next to the interdictions of murder and adultery, both of which are capital offenses and offenses against the human person (Mekh. The reason for this is both because the latter is proscribed elsewhere (Lev. 20:13), has been interpreted to refer to the stealing of persons rather than the stealing of chattels. The injunction of the Decalogue, 'Thou shalt not steal' (Ex. The term rendered in the translation quoted above as 'kidnap' is ganov ('steal'). However, the attempted sale has to be proved in addition to the purchaser's custody, because giving away the abducted person as a gift would not be a 'sale' even for this purpose (Rashba to BK 78b). In this context, any attempt at selling the person, by delivering him or her into the hands of a purchaser, would suffice. On the other hand, even the slightest, most harmless, and casual use of the abducted person would amount to 'enslavement' and as for the 'sale,' it does not matter that the sale of any human being (other than a slave) is legally void ( BK 68b). Thus, abduction without detention or enslavement or sale, like enslavement or sale or detention without abduction, however morally reprehensible, was not punishable (even by *flogging), because none of these acts was in itself a completed offense. Talmudic law, in order to reconcile these conflicting scriptural texts or to render prosecution for this capital offense more difficult (or for both purposes), made the detention, the enslavement, and the sale of the abducted person all necessary elements of the offense, giving the Hebrew 'and' (which in the translation quoted above is rendered as 'or') its cumulative meaning (Sanh. Codex Hammurapi, 14), while the latter requires either enslavement or sale as an essential element to constitute the offense. The first passage appears to prohibit the abduction of any person, while the latter is confined to Israelites only the first appears to outlaw any abduction, however motivated (cf. 21:16) and, 'If a man is found to have kidnapped a fellow Israelite, enslaving him or selling him, that kidnapper shall die' (Deut. 'He who kidnaps a man – whether he has sold him or is still holding him – shall be put to death' (Ex. According to the Bible, abduction is a capital offense. גְּנֵבַת נֶפֶשׁ, genevat nefesh), stealing of a human being for capital gain.

Abduction festival