java.lang.ClassFormatError: Absent Code attribute in method that is not native or abstract in class file javax/validation/Validation

The dependency javax::javaee-api contains stripped classes which contain no method implementations as described here. You can use the API JAR provided by JBoss instead:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.jboss.spec</groupId>
    <artifactId>jboss-javaee-6.0</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.0.Final</version>
    <type>pom</type>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

I know it is very old question but I have had this issue recently and I've found an easy solution that may work for someone in the future.

Due to the validator-api cannot be removed from javaee-api (it is not imported as a dependency) The trick is to use javaee-api version 8.0 (it also contains validation-api inside but the factory works) and you can avoid adding validation-api, would be something like:

<dependency>
    <groupId>javax</groupId>
    <artifactId>javaee-api</artifactId>
    <version>8.0</version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.glassfish</groupId>
    <artifactId>javax.el</artifactId>
    <version>3.0.0</version>
</dependency>

That's it.