• Searching Out Legal Roots
    Awake!—1981 | January 22

    • Bible Laws in U.S. Constitution

      Article III, Section 3, of the U.S. Constitution states: “No person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”

      This is similar to the Bible law, which stated: “No single witness should rise up against a man respecting any error or any sin. . . . At the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses the matter should stand good.”​—Deut. 19:15.

      The same section of the Constitution goes on to state that “no attainder [denial of civil rights because] of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the Person attainted.” What does that mean? It means that the family of a person convicted of treason cannot be punished for what the person did.

      This also is a Bible law. “Fathers should not be put to death on account of children, and children should not be put to death on account of fathers. Each one should be put to death for his own sin.”​—Deut. 24:16.

      Equal Before Law

      The Constitution provides that no one, not even the president of the United States, can be above the law. If convicted of misconduct and removed from office, the president is then “liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.”​—Article I, Section 3.

      In this case the Constitution goes beyond British common law, which did not usually apply to the king. However, the Constitution does not go beyond Bible law, which said this of the king: “It must occur that when he takes his seat on the throne of his kingdom, he must write in a book for himself a copy of this law from that which is in the charge of the priests . . . and he must read in it all the days of his life, in order that he may learn to fear Jehovah his God so as to keep all the words of this law and these regulations by doing them.” (Deut. 17:18, 19) The king was certainly not above the law!

      The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution further developed the idea of equality under law, saying that no state could “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”​—Section 1.

      The law of Moses said the same thing! “You must not treat the lowly with partiality, and you must not prefer the person of a great one. With justice you should judge your associate.”​—Lev. 19:15.

      Significantly, the equal protection of Israelite laws extended to alien residents ‘within the jurisdiction’ of Israel. “One law is to exist for the native and for the alien resident.”​—Ex. 12:49.

      This insistence on equality is surprising when we consider that the kings of other nations in Israel’s day were often absolute rulers, utterly above the law. Moreover, Babylonian and Assyrian laws dating from about the period of the law of Moses routinely discriminated against poor classes.

      This class discrimination in law did not vanish with the Babylonians. In England as recently as a few hundred years ago a poor man could be hanged for mere theft, but someone who could read​—hence, a member of a special class, such as a clergyman—​could commit murder and receive only a light punishment!​—Biblical Law, H. B. Clark, pp. 269, 270.

      “Speedy and Public Trial”

      Guidelines for judicial procedure in the United States are found in the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution. “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial . . . to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” Did justice in Bible times employ these guidelines?

      Indeed it did. Criminal trials were doubtless much speedier in Israel than they are at present in countries such as the United States, where clogged courts and elaborate procedure give rise to many delays. Since the local court was situated at the city gates, there was no question about the trial being public! (Deut. 16:18-20) No doubt the public trials helped influence the judges toward carefulness and justice, qualities that sometimes vanish in secret star-chamber hearings. What about witnesses?

      Witnesses in Bible times were required to testify publicly. For this reason they were warned not to be influenced in their testimony by the pressure of public opinion “so as to turn aside with the crowd in order to pervert justice.” Perjury was not punished with a jail term, but with whatever punishment the false witness had sought to bring upon the defendant​—even death!​—Ex. 23:2; Deut. 19:15-21.

      “Cruel and Unusual Punishment”

      Amendment VIII to the Constitution states that “cruel and unusual punishment” shall not be inflicted. This too reflects a feature of the Mosaic Law, which stated: “If the wicked one deserves to be beaten, . . . with forty strokes [the judge] may beat him. He should add none, for fear he should continue to beat him with many strokes in addition to these and your brother is actually disgraced in your eyes.”​—Deut. 25:2, 3.

      What a contrast this makes with the extremely “cruel and unusual” punishments by some of Israel’s neighbors, such as the Assyrians, who often cut off ears, noses, and lips for minor offenses! Even when the death penalty was executed in Israel it was usually done by stoning, which was humane by ancient standards. Additionally, the witnesses against a person were required to participate in his execution by stoning, which no doubt was a deterrent to witnesses’ giving false testimony.​—Deut. 13:9, 10.

      Advanced Law

      Of course, the U.S. Constitution is just one example of modern laws that are indebted to Bible laws. When the Bible is compared with other modern statutes it shows itself to be remarkably advanced.

      Consider the Bible’s laws against murder. As one legal writer noted: “First degree murder under modern statutes is often defined, at least in part, in terms of ‘malice’ or ‘malice aforethought.”’ In other words, modern law distinguishes between killing a person accidentally, and doing so deliberately, with malicious intentions.

      Bible law makes the same distinction. It wisely provided for someone who had killed another person to put himself into ‘protective custody’ by fleeing to cities set aside for that purpose. This would allow time for the relatives of the victim to recover from their initial outrage while the facts of the matter were determined. Later a trial was held to determine if the killing was accidental or deliberate. The death penalty was not required for accidental killing, or manslaughter, but was always invoked for deliberate murder.​—Num. 35:6-34.