David Jay,
Jews do not believe that gathering wood on the Sabbath is or ever was a capital offense.
And thus begins your rationalization:
The account in Torah at Numbers 15:32-34 tells about the stoning of a man who was caught gathering wood on Shabbat, but his sentence doesn't match anything that Jews know about Torah and the Sabbath. According to the Mishna (Shabbat ch.7), gathering is not a type of work forbidden on the Sabbath.
It does not matter what other books have to say on one subject so long as it's found in one.
Therefore the account in Numbers is NOT stating that gathering wood is forbidden on the Sabbath (note there is no law that states this in Scripture).
Circular reasoning.
The man perhaps was doing something either in the way he gathered wood or the reason why he gathered wood that caused him to be stoned.
Maybe he was gathering the wood to warm himself up while committing adultery? Seriously now, one would think that the real crime would be mentioned without bothering to mention something as trivial as gathering wood.