Book Study-Prager's Rational Bible

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There is "no record of a Jewish court actually carrying out an execution" in large part because, for the bulk of Israelite history, there is no record, period. Put differently, most of what can be known with any degree of certainty deals with rabbinic jurisprudence and almost certainly reflects Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and even Roman influences.

Definitely a worthy point. Most of Jewish history (for that part, history in general) has been lost. The vacuum is obviously filled with faith claims, though. Loads of claims fill in gaps that there is no historical support for, and it happens all the time.

Yes, and there's a reason that the Documentary Hypothesis is labeled an hypothesis. When it comes to such things as history, archaeology, and philology, certainty is exceedingly rare. But the scholarship that informs DH is abundant and clearly informs such modern Torah commentaries as JPS, Plaut, Etz Hyim, Alter, Fox, R.E. Friedman and others, commentaries used throughout the Reform and Conservative movements in the US.

We are a pattern-matching species; filling the gaps happens all the time. What one fills them with matters.

Finally, we should not forget the Prager text that spurred the current interchange. At issue is not that Prager resorted to a faith claim. At issue is that Prager employed a baseless faith claim to justify a faith claim.