Mods, feel free to move this if necessary, but I’m trying to ask a question and get a factual answer, to wit:
Judge Moore in Alabama is claiming that the 10 Commandments is the basis of our legal system. I was under the impression that our legal system comes from English common law practices that date back to the Middle Ages, possibly earlier. Did the Decalogue influence the formation of English common law?
Freyr is accurate as to the origins of The English Common Law. After William I conquered England, he had a network of judges installed to administer justice, settle disputes, etc. To encourage uniformity in their decisions, he had the judges convene each year in Westminster to discuss their actions over the past year. The “common” in common law is used in the sense of “general” or “by consensus”.
The early court systems in England were complex, with some courts being run by the church. As a Christian society, the development of English law was necessarily influenced by Christian ideas about fairness and justice anyway.
In recent years a number of Evangelical Christians have argued loud and long that our system of law and government is “based” on the Bible. Beyond arguing that Biblical suggestions about fair play are inherant in the law, however, they don’t have much to show by way of proof. One argument I have heard is that the separation of powers is “derived” from a passage in Isaiah which says that The Lord is our king, our judge, and our lawgiver. This is, obviously, the exact reverse of the separation of powers.
Fulton Sheen argued that the United States is a “Christian” country in that the ideals of its culture are primarily in keeping with the Christian ethic. In the same sense, however, it could be said to be a Jewish nation, or one belonging to any number of other religions or secular movements which share common ideas about justice and decency.
Our democratic heritage is, in any case, primarily drived from pagan Greek thought. One can argue that the American system of law “follows” The Ten Commandments to some degree, but if that means it is “based” on The Ten Commandments, then it is based just as much on The Upanishads, The Koran, and The Boy Scout Oath.
Thomas Jefforson wrote:
“. . . we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of the Magna Charta [1215 CE], which terminates the period of the common law…and commences that of the statute law… This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century… Here, then, was a space of about two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it… If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians, and if, having their laws from that period to the close of the common law, we are able to find among them no such act of adoption, we may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law…We might as well say that the Newtonian system of philosophy is a part of the common law, as that the Christian religion is…Finally, in answer to Fortescue Aland’s question why the ten commandments should not now be a part of the common law of England? We may say they are not because they never were made so by legislative authority, the document which has imposed that doubt on him being a manifest forgery.” (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814. From Andrew A. Lipscomb, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. XIV, Washington, DC: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903, pp. 85-97.)”
(quote taken from this site), sticking to the quotation as this is GQ.
Since the previous posts nailed it, let’s get literal. Which of the 10 commandments translate directly into law?
Keeping in mind different editions of the commandments…
But I still don’t see how even a (insert adjective here) fundamentalist could begin to argue that this is THE basis for our current legal system. :smack:
Perhaps some fundamentalists would like to see some other commandments become criminalized as well.
Until fairly recently, “adultery” could be prosecuted in most United States jurisdictions as a crime.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/mugshots/sinatramug1.html
(one past example).
Matchka:
But you can go back in time and many of the commandments marked “no” would be marked “yes”. The statement is not whether our modern law is directly taken from the 10 Commandments, but that it has evolved over a long period of time from the 10 Com’s (among other sources).
Right, the question is about the 10C as a historical source of law or of the development of a structure of law. In which case, as said in another thread by Dogface they are at least as much so as the Code Hammurabi, Code Justinian, Aristotle’s Ethics, Plato’s Republic, etc. However the 10C (and Judeo-Christian ethhics in general) do have a high cultural influence due to a greater number of the population being more familiar with them than with any of the others – and social custom is an important player in how a civil society will structure its laws.
Even as staunch a Christian as C. S. Lewis (in On Ethics in the book Christian Reflections) stated that the moral and legal codes from Hammurabi on all come from a single source. Lewis says that source is the common experience of mankind. The basic principles are derived from pragmatism; they are what has been found to work best in organizing and maintaining a society.
Most basic areas that the law criminalises in countries with a Judeo-Christian heritage (protection of property, violence, various sexual behaviours) are negatively sanctioned everywhere, from the Vatican to the highlands of Papua New Guinea. And of course at the latter end of the scale, you have no Judeo-Christian influence at all.
Much as religious people (such as, one assumes, Judge Moore) like to glorify their particular religion by attempting to have their religion take the credit for laying down the good basic laws most people agree upon, actually the only logical conclusion from the cross cultural experience is that good basic laws derive from the human experience and that religion is merely a gloss upon that.
SNAP!
The logic of this is rather dubious as very little is known about Anglo-Saxon legal thought in England before the conversion to Christianity and what evidence there is from the period after conversion shows that attempts were made to incorporate specifically Christian ideas - this is most obvious in the law code of Alfred which actually opens with a recitation of the Ten Commandments.
It’s a bit of a stretch (and typically fundamentalist) to suggest that the Ten Commandments have more than a very minor role as a possible origin for our extremely complex modern legal system.
The Ten Commandments merely instruct what one should not do. What goes on in a modern courthouse is not legislation (under the US system). The Ten Commandments do not speak of penalties, punishments, juries, prison sentences, oaths on the bible*, lawyers, stenographers, teapot tempests, or even judges.
*Some Christians believe that swearing on the bible violates the Second Commandment. I wonder how they feel about a sculpture out of a Chuck Heston movie sitting in the courthouse?
Other Christians feel that swearing on Scripture or swearing at all explicitly violates the instructions of Christ on that matter. Want to disobey Christ? Swear an oath.
Thanks for your responses, everyone!
Okay, we seem to have two sides here. One, lead by slipster and (Tim) who say the connection is non-existent or very weak and the other side, by APB and gluteus maximus, who say that there’s a direct influence.
So, again, can we trace a historically factual trail between the Decalogue and the formation of Englich common law?
Uh-uh. Not directly. The formation of the common law wan’t based so much on “what would Jesus (or Moses) do” as it was “how can I resolve the dispute over this pig, get these people out of here, and simultaneously establish a rule so that people with pig disputes won’t come in here bothering me again.” In other words, fairness, pragmatism, trial and error, and dispute resolution. Certain rules may have been influenced by Christain beliefs and values, but it would be going way too far to say that the decalogue was a direct source of law for the common law.
Just for the sake of accuracy, you missed one. Commandment #2 is actually “Thou shalt make no graven images.” “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” is generally considered to be the 10th and final commandment, and the rest of the “thou shalt not covet…” bits are part of this commandment.
Or, at least, that’s what they taught me in Sunday school.
Carry on…
Barry
English!! English!! English!!
Not undead sorcerors speaking in funny accents! 
Carry on!
well it is probably more a civil proceedings than a state prosecution so I would give it a half a yes
Matchka’s right when he says that only three (maybe four) of the Ten (maybe Eleven) Commandments translate into law. Actually the first four deal with mankind’s relationship to God and are explicitly prohibited from being codified by the First Amendment.
We’re really left with only three commandments that have a direct connection to our laws: don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t lie. Can anyone name a single culture anywhere at any time when these things weren’t proscribed in some way? Even in outlaw contries there has always been hell to pay if you killed, stole from or lied to people in power. I’m just not seeing the Christian connection here.
Actually pergery is a crime.