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Biblical Law and the First Year Curriculum of American Legal Education
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 April 2015
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From the landing of the seventeenth century Pilgrims, who wanted to establish in the colony of Massachusetts Bay a commonwealth that was distinctive precisely because of its fidelity to biblical commands, down to the present moment in American politics, when the Rev. Jesse Jackson continues to organize a “rainbow coalition” by the use of biblical rhetoric and when the Rev. Pat Robertson is considering a run for the Presidency to reassert the need for “biblical values” in America, the Bible has been inextricably interwoven into the fabric of American life, including the formation of American public policy.
In 1982, the centennial year of the Society for Biblical Literature, this reality was explored thoughtfully in series of essays that filled six volumes. More recently, Pastor Richard John Neuhaus has differentiated between the constitutional separation of the institutions of the state and the church and an extraconstitutional separation of religiously based morality from the realm of public policy choices.
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- Colloquium on Law and Religion in the First Year Curriculum A Loyola Law School Colloquium
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- Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 1986
References
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47. A translation of these three royal codes is included in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Pritchard, J. ed. 1969)Google Scholar.
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50. “Listen, Israel: Yahweh our God is the one Yahweh. You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Deut. 6:4-5.
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62. See, e.g., the charming episode of clever Abraham using the customs of the Hittites to lay solid title to a piece of the land of promise (Gen. 23).
63. See, e.g., the story of the framing of Naboth by the two lying witnesses, with the result that he will be executed and his land confiscated (1 Kings 21).
64. Commenting on the Year of the Jubilee tradition in the Holiness Code, (Lev. 25) Professor Patrick writes:
The family holding was a share in Israel (a basis of citizenship) and an inheritance to be passed on from generation to generation in perpetuity. Unfortunately, holdings might have to be sold due to bankruptcy or other reasons. The purpose of the … Year of Jubilee was to return families to their divinely ordained holdings. Yahweh … is the real owner of the land, and each Israelite is a ‘temporary resident’ who cannot buy or sell the land in perpetuity. This theological principle means in fact that the family has been granted a right of usage in perpetuity (like a fief-holding according to feudal law) and can only alienate it temporarily …. Family inheritances revert to the grantee in the Year of the Jubilee.
D. Patrick, supra note 45, at 183.
65. For a discussion of the Ninth Commandment, see D. Patrick, supra note 45, at 56-57, and literature cited supra note 60.
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68. See D. Patrick, supra note 45, at 256.
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72. See U.S. Const., art. I, § 8, cl. 4 (congressional power to enact uniform laws on bankruptcies); but see, e.g., Sturges v. Crowinshield, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 122 (1819) (invalidating under the contract clause a state insolvency law discharging debtors of their obligations upon surrender of their property), and Ogden v. Saunders, 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) 213 (1827) (sustaining a state insolvency law applied only to debts incurred after the enactment of the statute).
73. See, e.g., Home Building and Loan Ass'n v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398 (1934) (sustaining state mortgage moratorium act against contract clause challenge).
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77. See supra note 64.
78. Acts 4:34-35; see also 2 Cor. 8:1-9:15 for an account of Hellenstic Christian compassion for the relief of the Jerusalem community; and Mt. 25:31-46, for a parable addressing to Jewish Christians the identification of the king with those in human need: the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, and those in prison.
79. See Uniform Commerical Code, § 2-302(1).
80. See Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905) (invalidating state regulation of maximum hours of bakers as violative of “liberty of contract” protected as a substantive aspect of due process); see also L. Tribe, supra note 55, at 434-42.
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83. Id. at 165.
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89. J. Finkelstein, supra note 70.
90. Id.
91. Id.
92. See D. Patrick, supra note 45, at 89.
93. For a brief comment on the Good Samaritan story, see id. at 211-13.
94. See, e.g., Minn. Stat. 145.851 (1986); 176B.01(2)(h) (1986).
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97. See supra text accompanying notes 68-70.
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103. Id. at 90.
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106. See Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. (6 Cranch) 87 (1810) (sustaining validity of land grants by bribed legislators).
107. Noonan, supra note 105, at 22-24.
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