Is it true that our law is based on the ten commandments?

Question

And before you just answer yes without thinking about it, tell me if it is illegal in your area to
Be Hindu, atheist, etc
Make graven images
Work on Saturday
Use God's name in vain
Dishonor your parents
Covet your neighbor's livestock.

Also tell me if it illegal to rape someone where you live, and if so, which commandment covers that. Same question for kidnapping and assault.

Finally, tell me if you can if any other country has had laws against murder, theft, or perjury before having contact with Christians or Jews.

By the way - those last three I just mentioned are the only commandments to make it into our law! If our law is based on the ten commandments, that's a pretty slim connection.

Matty - Rape and adultery are very, very different things, and you are quite misguided. I am unmarried. If I have sex with an unmarried woman without her consent, that is rape, and has nothing to do with adultery. Furthermore, a man who forces sex on his wife against her will is also guilty of rape.
A few states still have adultery laws on their books, but they are no longer enforced.
Rape is not covered by the ten commandments at all.
If the law against theft is actually against kidnapping, then flip the question around and ask where we got our laws against theft?

And not that I subscribe to your creationism, but Noah was quite a bit before the time of Moses and the Ten Commandments. Every body of law in the world has included laws against murder and theft independently of knowledge of a ten commandments given to Moses.

Dreamdress - A zealot judge slipping a biblical reference into an opinion in a judgment is not the same thing as basing law on the ten commandments. Adding a biblical reference to an opinion will actually insure that it becomes worthless to cite in future cases.
There was a federal judge here in Tampa who threatened in a brief to settle an endless dispute between two parties by making them play a round of paper, scissors, rock.

Kveldulf: You are either lying, or you have been lied to and are ignorantly passing on lies. No such statement was made by The Supreme Court. The closest anything comes is a statement made by Greg Abbott, A Texas Attorney General arguing in the Supreme court that "The Ten Commandments are a historically recognized system of law".

You expose the weakness of your case when you must resort to lies.

Answer 1

Let's take a look at them.

I am the Lord thy God
Thou shalt have no other gods before me
Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol
Thou shalt not make wrongful use of the name of thy God
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
Honor thy Mother and Father
Thou shalt not murder
Thou shalt not commit adultery
Thou shalt not steal
Thou shalt not bear false witness
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.

I would say no. None of our laws have anything to do with the first six. Murder and stealing are a part of every religion's moral code, as well as every society's. There are no laws about coveting. And adultery and lying are not large crimes to my knowledge. Adultery is only addressed in divorce court and it's not against the law, but grounds for divorce. And lying only matters in court.

So...I say no. Our laws are NOT based on the 10 commandments.

atheist

Answer 2

Hello, It's not that you are far off-base, it's just that when we're talking about the early days of the US, there may have been a large difference between the federal laws (Bill of Rights, etc.) and the states. Blue laws and prohibitions of behaviors mentioned as sinful in the Bible were common for a very long time in many states. Many of the constitutions of the original colonies had clauses saying the governor or other elected officials had to be of a certain denomination, say Anglican, or at least Protestant. Almost all had Catholics being denied office. Thomas Jefferson had to wait until about ten years (until about 1787) to get the Virginia legislature to do away with the religious check. As you know, the Constitution left a lot of things up to the states, hence the long history of struggle between federal vs. state power that culminated in the Civil War and is even being felt today. While it's true that most of the founding fathers were of a very liberal bent religiously speaking, the average colonist was less freethinking. One could make a very strong case that the colonies were "founded" on Christian values, at least some of the more fringe type values--Puritanism, Quakerism. But the guys that formulated the documents of the United States were hardly the kind of Christians most Christians today would recognize. They were (almost all of them) deists and Unitarians. But, they all, with rare exceptions like Thomas Paine, recognized the salutary nature of religion, especially the Christian religion, and had high respect for the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. It's a complex historical problem owing to the flavor of the times--both enlightened and highly traditional. Yours in Christ, Nick The book listed as a reference gives a pretty good overview of the religious beliefs that influenced the early United States.

Answer 3

Let me say this about that....in 2003 the United States Supreme Court made the following statment..."The ten commandments is the foundation for the system of laws and government that we have in the United States."

This statement was made during the appeals process for a case in the southern United States where a judge had erected a stone monument with the ten commandments the entry area of a city government building.

That at least means that the position of the highest court in the land is that they are the basis of the laws, slim as that connection may be.

Answer 4

No, our law is not based on the ten commandments, and thank God for that!

Interestingly, the ten commandments were never meant to be universal rules for all mankind. Those would be the seven commandments. The ten commandments, while some of them overlap the seven commandments, are requirements for Jews (as evidenced by "I am your God who took you out of Egypt" and the command to keep the Sabbath). Two other common misunderstandings about the ten commandments are, "You shall not kill," which should read, "You shall not murder," and, "You shall not steal," which should read, "You shall not kidnap."

The seven commandments are:
1) Don't worship idols (this does not include paying respect to a concept a statue represents as a Buddhist does)
2) Do not curse the Creator (this necessitates acknowledgment that He exists as well as denial of His greatness or goodness)
3) Do not murder
4) Do not commit immoral sexual acts (this is different from the mere "no adultery" of the ten commandments as it includes rape and incest)
5) Do not steal (as opposed to "do not kidnap")
6) Pursue Justice (set up a court system to uphold laws - no lynching or vigilante justice)
7) Don't eat flesh taken from a live animal

According to the Jewish religion, anyone, regardless of religion, politics, ethnicity, race, nationality, astrological sign, etc. who keeps a minimum of these basic laws merits a share in the world to come. As a side note, I find it much more believable that a compassionate God would create this system over, "Belong to my secret club or burn in Hell forever."

Answer 5

These commandments are not directed toward the state, but to you as an individual. Nevertheless, governments in the Common Law tradition have indeed taken from them..

Our legal system was not built upon every one of the Ten Commandments , but upon the entire body of Biblical Law. Here is an example from the Supreme Court of Delaware:

Long before Lord Hale declared that Christianity was a part of the laws of England, the Court of Kings Bench, 34 Eliz. in Ratcliff's case, 3 Coke Rep. 40, b. had gone so far as to declare that "in almost all cases, the common law was grounded on the law of God, which it was said was causa causans," and the court cited the 27th chapter of Numbers, to show that their judgment on a common law principle in regard to the law of inheritance, was founded on God's revelation of that law to Moses.
State v. Chandler, 2 Harr. 553 at 561 (1837)

Answer 6

Since you seem to be getting more opinions than answers - I'll try my best. You picked out 3 commandments that our laws are based on, mentioned 6 that are not necessarily US laws, yet overlooked the 1 that pertained to your own question about rape. "Thou shall NOT commit adultery." It is illegal in most states to have sex outside of wedlock. Rape falls into that category. That's 4 of ten directly in line with the laws of the US. And since our country was founded by many seeking religous freedom, some of the other commandments would be in direct violation of those rights.

And since all people of the Earth originated from Adam - thenagain from Noah after the flood - there aren't any countries on the planet that did not have contact with God's basic principles - being Jew or Christian or Muslim for that matter.

Answer 7

Yes it is. Just because a country has "based" its laws on something doesnt mean that it has followed every one. You know what though if a country did follow all of these though this country would be the greatest country because God would bless it and only good can come from these things. Okay rape kidnapping and is under thou shall not covet anything that is your neighbors assault is love thy neigbor. The bible says that since adam and eve have eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that man has a basic knowledge of right and wrong in his heart but it is this law that puts it down for sure. These are ancient laws and there are not many civilizations that are as old as the Jewish people these laws are very old as given by God to Moses and since the flood all people came from around these areas anyways so since Moses time people gradually migrated to form nations and most of these laws were well known and implemented into societies.

Answer 8

Diminati, interesting post. I think that most would agree that America was built on a very strong religious foundation. The Puritans and others helped to shaped the foundation of our Constitution. Most states still have Sunday Blue laws on their books. However these laws are no longer enforced upon citizens due to the rise of secularism.

The Ten Commandments are still fundamentally the moral fabric of our society albeit not overtly.

Answer 9

My understanding is that US law is based on English common law. That in turn evolved over a long period of time but was based on common sense rather than any religion.

Since several of the ten commandments are also based on common sense there is some syncronicity.

There are several societies that had similar laws before the alleged exodus

Answer 10

Our law is a mix of things, but for much that is good in it we owe a debt of gratitude to Anglo-Saxon (aka pagan) heritage.

Thomas Jefferson wrote about this. He held that the basis of the common law was shaped in the immediate aftermath of the arrival of Hengist and Horsa in the mid-fifth century. Since England was not converted to Christianity until two centuries later, the common law is by definition pagan.