What is the source of law? Many people are taught, or come to conclude on their own, that religion is the source of law. This misguided belief is probably more widespread in monotheistic religions, which tend to have as their godhead some sort of divine lawgiver, than in pantheistic or maybe even polytheistic religions.
The religion-as-source-of-law is particularly common among Americans who believe the U.S. is a Christian nation and espouse all sorts of Judeo-Christian nonsense.1
My own hypothesis is that religion and law may have evolved in proximity, and indeed very closely, but by no means does law come from religion and by no account is religion required for law, or ethics, or morality. In my hypothesis, law and religion don’t evolve together; rather, law and ritual evolve together, and it is ritual and not law that is tied to religion.
Thomas Jefferson: Christianity is not the source of the common law.
Instead of laying out my whole source of law argument here, I intend only to show that the Christian religion (and by virtue, the Jewish religion) is not the source of American law. To do this, I need not write much more. In fact, I merely need to quote the mightily esteemed Mr. Thomas Jefferson over on the left here:
The summation is, according to Jefferson, that there is incontrovertible proof that the Anglo-Saxon law, from whence we obtained our own, is derived directly from the Pagans before they ever even heard of Jesus, Christianity, or Judaism.
An English judge, back in the day, mistranslated a simple phrase, ancien scripture, into “holy scripture.”
This errant translation was then propagated down among several prominent judges and legal scholars, apparently without question or verification, until it became as though Christianity was the basis for the English law.
As Jefferson says in that same letter, ”What a conspiracy this between Church and State!”
Indeed.
- While there are Jews who use the term, as I am aware, I tend to believe that “Judeo-Christian” is used more by Christianists who want to give some sense of legitimacy to their beliefs by attaching the rather more innocuous and liberalized Judaic religion to them. <sarcasm>If they add Judeo- to Christian, then no one can possibly criticize their beliefs. </sarcasm>
Tags: Christian nation, Judeo-Christian, source of law, Thomas Jefferson
Note:
A source of inspiration to write this post was a random blog I was perusing, here: giveusliberty1776.blogspot.com/2009/11/separation-of-church-and-state.html.
This blog was not the original source of my inspiration, but it was a recent reminder that I had been meaning to comment on Thomas Jefferson refutation of Christianity as the source of English and American law. Clearly, it is the source of neither.
I think one on the verse in the bible I can’t say which one that 2 (A&B) ladies says that the child is theirs. They are claiming the child and the king said that would you like that I would cut the child in half to take what is yours, so the rightful mother(A) told and refuse the judgment of the king and so she let the other woman (B) take the child and the king had decided and did his judgment by giving the child to his rightful mother (A)
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Thanks for the well-thought article. I’m actually at work right now! So I need to go off without reading all I’d like. However, I put your blog on my RSS feed so that I can read even more.
interesting take on the subject, count me as a new subscriber!
I love your take on this, could not agree more.
very good insight, I really enjoyed reading this, keep it up!
very good insight, I really enjoyed reading this, keep it up!
I couldn’t agree more, thanks for writing.
excellent post, you must got another subscriber ;-)
interesting read, if you get a chance check out my site.
I just bookmarked your site, so glad I found it
I just bookmarked your site, so glad I found it
Religion arrives at a small location.
great post, thanks. theres great stuff in this blog
That is, Jesus had to get it from his human father!