more witnesses, the court had the authority to lock-up the convicted individual within a cupola, or similar confined structure, and to feed them meager portions of bread and water until they died. Megillat Taanit According to an oral teaching appearing in Megillat Taanit, the four modes of execution formerly used in Jewish law were mostly orally transmitted practices not explicitly stated in the Written Law of Moses, although some modes of punishment are explicitly stated. Megillat Taanit records that "On the fourth [day] of [the lunar month] Tammuz, the book of decrees had been purged ()". The Hebrew commentary (scholion) on this line brings two different explanations of this event; according to one of the explanations, the "book of decrees" was composed by the Sadducees and used by them as proof concerning the four modes of capital punishment; the Pharisees and rabbis preferred to determine the punishments via orally transmitted interpretation of scripture. Modes of punishment The court had power to inflict four kinds of death-penalty: stoning, burning, beheading, and strangling. For some crimes, the Bible specifies which form of execution is to be used. Blasphemy, idolatry, Sabbath-breaking, witchcraft, prostitution by a betrothed virgin, or deceiving her husband at marriage as to her chastity (Deut. 22:21), and the rebellious son are punished with death by stoning; bigamous marriage with a wife's mother and the prostitution of a priest's daughter are punished by burning; communal apostasy is punished by the sword. With reference to all other capital offenses, the law ordains that the perpetrator shall die a violent death, occasionally adding the expression, "His (their) blood shall be upon him (them)." This expression applies to death by stoning. The Bible speaks also of hanging (Deut. 21:22), but (according to the rabbinical interpretation) not as a mode of execution, but rather of exposure after death. The following is a list by Maimonides of the crimes punished by each form of capital punishment: Punishment by stoning Death by stoning (סקילה, skila) was issued for the transgression of one of eighteen crimes, among which being those who wantonly transgressed the Sabbath-day by breaking its laws (excluding those who may have broken the Sabbath laws unintentionally), as well as a male who had a licentious connection with another male. Stoning was administered by pushing the bound, convicted criminal over the side of a building, so that he fell down and died upon impact with the