Biblical Law in America: Historical Perspectives and Potentials for Reform

This article presents a sort of apologia, an apology for greater awareness of biblical law in connection with the study of American legal history and the underlying fabric of the common law. Following a brief introduction to the modern study and broad relevance of biblical law, I review the prevalence and importance of biblical law in American colonial law, consider the influence of these biblical foundations on American law in general, and finally draw attention to some of the ways in which biblical law generates prospects for legal reforms alleviating some of the problems and challenges faced by the American legal system as it continues on into the twenty-first century. This article strives to show that the study of biblical law has much to offer to anyone interested not only in the history of American law but also in its future. I. THE RELEVANCE OF BIBLICAL LAW The study of legal materials in the Bible has changed dramatically in recent years. With these changes should come a shift in the way legal scholars view the current significance of biblical law. No longer do careful scholars view the Bible merely from parochial or inspirational points of view. Although most readers in the past have used the Bible simply as a repository of divinely revealed dicta, modern students bring greater sophistication to the understanding of this complex collection of ancient writings. Not only serving as the religious foundation of biblical society, the texts of the Bible also functioned, as it were, as the constitution, the codes of civil and criminal procedure, as well as the handbooks of public and private law for the Israelite world of its day. Therefore, to see the Bible as relevant only to religious as opposed to legal interests or political applications is to misunderstand major portions of this text fundamentally. The Bible is indeed a rich source of a variety of legal materials.1 It comprises so-called law codes, including the Code of the Covenant,2 the Holiness Code,3 and the laws in Deuteronomy.4 It also features law lists, such as the Ten Commandments in Exodus5 and Deuteronomy,6 or the cultic code in Exodus.7 Actual lawsuits or legal proceedings are reported, namely the trial of the blasphemer,8 the trial of the Sabbath breaker,9 the resolution of the petitions of the daughters of Zelophehad,10 the detection and trial of Achan,11 the trial of Ahimelech,12 as well as the trials of Naboth,13 of Micah,14 of Uriah ben Shemaiah,15 and of Jeremiah himself.16 Embedded in IMAGE FORMULA8 almost every narrative story in the Bible are legal assumptions and cultural expectations, examples include the marriages of Abraham and the dealings of Jacob with Laban in Genesis,17 the proceedings of Boaz before the elders at the town gate in the book of Ruth,18 the killing of the rebel Sheba,19 and the land transaction reported in Jeremiah,20 to mention only a few. Prophetic speech forms (particularly the so-called prophetic lawsuit)21 and proverbial wisdom sayings of the Bible also reflect the legal values and norms that stand at the root of the Judeo-Christian world. Nevertheless, despite the ubiquity of the Bible in the history of Western civilization, the breadth of legal subjects addressed in its law codes and legal sections is not widely understood or generally appreciated today. Indeed, biblical laws deal with topics ranging from criminal and penal law to judicial procedure and the administration of justice, commercial law, torts and injuries, family law, property law, estate planning, martial law, and social welfare, in addition to the laws concerning divine sanctity, cultic sacrifice, and religious taboos that usually come to mind when people first think of law in the Bible. Due to its role as a vast repository of legal wisdom and social justice, the Bible has long been valued as a source of basic norms and rubrics. Thus, legal provisions in the Bible drew the attention of religious reformers and legal advocates, as well as clergymen and devotional readers, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. …