Exactly What Biblical Principles are Behind the US Constitution?

[MineralMan]

I've been trying to find some, and I can't. Now, I'm very familiar with the Bible, both New and Old Testaments, and I cannot for the life of me find anything in it that has anything to do with the US Constitution.

The 10 Commandments? Not a chance. Our First Amendment throws the religious commandments right out of the window from the start. The Commandments that don't have to do with purely religious issues are not the basis for anything in the constitution, which has nothing to do with honoring parents, avoiding adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, or covetousness. Nothing in the Constitution about those things at all.

Our System of Government? Nope. There was not a hint of a representative republic with three branches of government in the Bible. It was all Kings, Priests, and Caesars, etc. Not in there. Our Constitution is primarily about the structure, function, and limitations of our form of government, which would have seemed very strange to people in Biblical times. Even Jesus didn't address government, except to say that you should be obedient to it. Now, the early church operated as a sort of socialism, but that's not really our system either.

The States? I don't think so. Our concept of individual states forming a union wasn't Biblical, either.

Elections? Nah. They didn't have those, either. Now, the soldiers did throw lots to see who got Jesus' robe, but that's not an election.

Individual Freedoms and Rights? Sorry. The Bible was about religious rules up the wazoo. Slavery was around. Men had many wives. No voting. No racial equality. Heck, God had the Israelites destroy whole cities and kill everyone. Everyone except the virgins. They got to keep them for themselves as booty.

Taxes? Wait...there's one. There were taxes mentioned in the Bible. But not like our taxes.

No, I can't find anything in the Bible that was incorporated into the US Constitution. I've been trying for years to find something, but it just doesn't seem to be in there. Oh, well...

[immoderate]

1. Just keep looking...

I called a radio show once when the radio preacher said that the Constitution was based on biblical principles.

I asked the person who answered the phone to name one such principle. He thought a moment and offered: "Jesus is the Lord of the Universe?"

There was no point going further.

--imm

[MarkCharles]

2. White, rich, only males, more than half slave-...

owners, and some non-slave-owners willing to allow slave-holding, most of them the best educated of their day.. all men..all white, all brave enough to stake their lives and reputations upon their sigatures

In 21'st century terms, not the best of what we like to look at for role models, few of them we would want to have a beer with, but ALL of them somehow came together, most of them 100+ miles from their mansions, and they all wanted to say F U to religion, and this was 240+ years ago.

I'll post maybe more later, but these guys were NOT all about a state founded upon Christian or even any Biblical principles, far from it.

[MichiganVote]

3. Anything that spells boys club and leaves out women

[Liberal Veteran]

4. They both have, like, words and fancy talk.

Of course, by that measurement, one could say the Constitution was based off Macbeth.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Do unto others before they do unto you--

No, wait--I thought you said behind US Capitalism.

Nevermind.

[laconicsax]

6. You can't read the Bible literally and expect to find an answer.

The key is to superimpose what you're looking for on scripture. It's how Sophisticated Theology™ works--it isn't about what it says, it's about what you want it to mean.

[Kurmudgeon]

7. Can't find what you won't see.

The 10 Commandments, eh? So I guess our forefathers were thieves, murderers and liars in your eyes?
The Decalogue has been influential for centuries, not just on US law.
Our System of Government? Democracy as a word didn't even exist until around 500 BC with the Greeks.
The States? Did you think the Jews were only one tribe?
Elections? See my comment about the Greeks and Our System of Government. May as well ask Plato about light bulbs.
Individual Freedoms and Rights? If people would actually follow the 2nd Commandment, you wouldn't need rules to tell you how to behave.
Taxes. Christ put it very basically. "And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's".
Bub, if you can't find anything, you obviously weren't looking very hard.

[GOPonziconz]

8. The post is sarcastic! The author is as brainwashed as you are. The FF were Athiests

The Founding Fathers Were NOT Christians
http://freethought.mbdojo.com/foundingfathers.html

"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies."
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies."
All Thomas Jefferson

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind." - Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason, 1794-1795.)

There are many more here from all of the FF! Very anti-religious those Founding Fathers! http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/dispatch/fathers_quote2.htm

[Kurmudgeon]

15. Who are the Founding Fathers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United_States
"Lambert (2003) has examined the religious affiliations and beliefs of the Founders. Of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, 49 were Protestants, and three were Roman Catholics (C. Carroll, D. Carroll, and Fitzsimons). Among the Protestant delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 28 were Church of England (or Episcopalian, after the American Revolutionary War was won), eight were Presbyterians, seven were Congregationalists, two were Lutherans, two were Dutch Reformed, and two were Methodists.

A few prominent Founding Fathers were anti-clerical Christians, such as Thomas Jefferson[13][14][15] (who created the so-called "Jefferson Bible&quot and Benjamin Franklin.[16] A few others (most notably Thomas Paine) were deists, or at least held beliefs very similar to those of deists.[17]"

Hmm, funny that you don't see the word "atheist" there.
It's a bit presumptuous to assume we know what all they thought, what they felt and when, after all this time.
However, I bet George Washington didn't like jawbreakers much with those wooden teeth of his.

[Humanist_Activist]

9. So the only rule we need to follow is not making any graven images?

How does that make sense? In addition, I find it ironic considering your avatar picture.

[Kurmudgeon]

16. I never said that, so apparently you need to make sense to yourself. Good luck with that.

My post has each point that I covered. Go back and read it again if you need to.

[Humanist_Activist]

20. "If people would actually follow the 2nd Commandment, you wouldn't need rules to tell you how to.."

"behave."

Direct quote from your post, of course, I focused on that as the most ridiculous part of a ridiculous post that actually, while trying to argue for the whole "Christian nation" mythos, actually argued quite successfully for the Constitution being extra-biblical and non-Christian in origin.

[laconicsax]

10. .

[ChadwickHenryWard]

12. I think that's a bit of a stretch.

So I guess our forefathers were thieves, murderers and liars in your eyes?

While I have to say that three out of ten is setting the bar pretty low, considering that prohibitions of murder, theft, and perjury are present in cultures totally lacking Christian influences, I have to question the extent to which the Decalogue is the source of those notion.

Democracy as a word didn't even exist until around 500 BC with the Greeks.

And it most certainly is not part of Christian scripture or religious tradition.

Did you think the Jews were only one tribe?

Are there really substantial similarities between the tribes of Israel and American Federalism and the Tenth Amendment?

If people would actually follow the 2nd Commandment, you wouldn't need rules to tell you how to behave.

This one really threw me for a loop. Google says that the Second Commandment is "no graven images" and that the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Babylonians all used statues in their religious worship, and this is an attack on the surrounding pagan faiths. I don't know how that's relevant.

Christ put it very basically. "And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's".

Basically, all he says about taxes is "pay them." This is hardly a comprehensive tax scheme for a modern nation-state, but I don't know why we're talking about taxes at all. I hardly think of our tax structure as being a defining characteristic of the American government or ideals.

[laconicsax]

14. On the 2nd commandment...

Maybe Kurmudgeon uses the Augustinian division which has not taking God's name in vain as the 2nd.
Maybe Kurmudgeon meant the real 2nd commandment from the explicit list of 10 that come in Exodus 34 which says not to make molten gods.

OR

Maybe Kurmudgeon has no idea what they're actually talking about.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

27. Turns out our friend is referring to

Christ's second commandment in Matthew 22: 39 - "Love your neighbor as yourself." I just assumed that since the Decalogue had already been mentioned, that is what was under discussion.

[Mariana]

32. Well, that's not in the Constitution, either.

It is irrelevant.

[Kurmudgeon]

17. Take it up with the original poster then.

He went so far as there "was not a chance" that the 10 Commandments had anything to do with US Constitution.
I believe I've shown there's much more than a chance. All the rest of this is just splitting hairs.
As for what threw you, look at Matthew 22:37-40
"37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38This is the first and great commandment.
39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
I am quoting Christ directly, He considers those the 2 Great Commandments.

As for which Commandment is what number, that like many things, depends on who you talk to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments

[MineralMan]

22. And there's nothing about the two Great Commandments

in the Constitution, either. Especially the first one, which is completely contrary to the 1st Amendment.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

26. My disagreements are with you, not MM.

Minus the rather out-of-place mention of taxes, there's nothing he said with which I disagree.

I don't think you've shown any influence of the Ten Commandments on the Constitution. Even though murder, theft, and perjury are covered in British (and thus American) common law, their prohibition, parameters, and punishments are not discussed in the Constitution. The other seven commandments don't have any presence in American law at all.

As for the Second Commandment, I thought we were talking about the Decalogue. It didn't occur to me at all to look at the Gospels. As far as "Love thy neighbor as thyself" goes, it is a nice sentiment, but it does not constitute a comprehensive accounting of the rights of man. It still leaves open the need for a set of criminal and civil statutes. It says nothing about what behaviors or practices should be prohibited, and what penalties should be assessed. In short, it is entirely open to interpretation, and much too broad and vague to be considered a legal principle. Beyond that, I would argue that there is a subtle but important difference between that notion and the one that underlies all of Western law. The law only requires that I do no harm to others - it does not require me to consider their concerns or interests as equal to my own. I pursue my own interests, and not my neighbors'. Nowhere in American law am I obliged to do so.

[MineralMan]

28. I'm talking about the entire Bible.

Our system of government, as laid out in our Constitution, has nothing whatever to do with the Bible. People often bring up laws, but they are not in the Constitution, and most are common to all societies.

The shibboleth of the Christian Right that the United States was founded on Biblical principles is simply hogwash. If it were, there would be some of that evident in our founding document, the Constitution of The United States. No such evidence exists. What the Constitution guarantees is that religion plays no part in the governance of this nation. Our elected officials may simply affirm their oath of office. That most include a reference to a deity is not evidence that any such inclusion is required. It is not.

We are not a Christian nation. We are a nation with a large number of Christians who are citizens, but we are not a Christian nation, any more than we are an atheistic nation or a Muslim nation, or a Hindu nation. People of all those beliefs and non-beliefs are also citizens of equal standing. It is time to stand up and say to the Christian Right to show their evidence, point by point, or hold their silence about this.

They are simply wrong.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

37. Well, there have been and are some "blue laws."

Stuff like prohibition of buying beer on Sunday, adultery, blasphemy, sodomy, crap like that. Ironically for the "Christian nation" crowd, that stuff usually gets struck down as unconstitutional, because there's no compelling, secular state interest to regulate that sort of thing.

And there it is; laws in this country have to be secular in order to stand. Those three things from the Ten Commandments - murder, theft, perjury - are all objectionable for secular reasons, not because Jesus said so. And this is the way it should be. We should not be ruled by the religious sensibilities of a few. I don't ask anybody to live according to my religious beliefs (or lack thereof, or whatever) and I won't be compelled to live by the beliefs of others.

[intaglio]

13. You are incoherent

Taking your first sentence at face value; everybody before Moses must have been thieves, murderers, adulterers and liars? That is nonsense. For your information the 5 Precepts of Taoism probably predate Mosaic law and say much the same things but cut out the heirophantic gobbledygook.

Next, the decalogue has been influential but in the UK and the USA the primary source for laws and Constitution were Roman law and Saxon Common law - but history will not interest you as you follow the fanciful hearsay of your holy book.

You comments about democracy are foolish. Yes, we use a word of Greek origin for democracy but we use words of Middle English or Latin origin for unlawful killing (murder, homicide). Saying that electoral systems did not exist before the Greeks is also to say that unlawful killing did not exist before the Saxons or Romans.

Tribes are not states. Tribes are based on kinship, states are geographical.

Elections? What is the point of this sentence? It is gibberish. Elections do not have to be democratic, the electorate can be limited; are you saying that no electoral processes occurred prior to the Greeks? Study social history.

Which 2nd Commandment? Rick Santorum and other Catholics would say that is:
"Thou Shalt not take the Name of the Lord, thy God, in vain"
Whereas most Protestant churches would say it is:
"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my Commandments."
Whilst we are here how come we don't take this commandment literally and punish the decedents of criminals?

Taxes, where do you derive taxes from that? It is just a statement about the rights of the state over the rights of the individual.

Bub, I would suggest you get a lot more learning - and not from some twopenny halfpenny religious institution.

[Kurmudgeon]

18. And you are flailing around.

Taking my 1st response by itself without seeing what I am responding to creates a false impression.
I compared tribes to states because they didn't have states back then. It was a basic comparison, no more, no less.
And consider this, I'm from West Virginia, we separated from Virginia because we felt a kinship with the United States, and our tribe at that time felt that slavery was wrong. Being geographically close was clearly not the whole point.
Which 2nd Commandment? As for that, I direct you as well to Matthew 22:37-40.

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. They did have states back then

City-states, which joined together in leagues, eg the Delian League. And empires had provinces and satrapies, which are also closer to the states of the USA (since they had a government for a locality; the tribes of Israel were historical groupings, based on claimed kinship, for which the Bible says nothing about separate government).

[intaglio]

30. Flailing? When I gave you a point for point critique?

As MV notes there were plenty of states, tribes do not cut it.

The "sins" in the decalogue, which you claim are foundations of modern law, are not foundational and the other elements of this primitive theocratic list are not incorporated into any current law because they govern religious behaviour not moral.

Now the quote cherry picked from Matthew, it does not refers to any of the 10 commandments but to the 613 Mizvot. The first element seems to be a free interpretation of Mizvot 7 but perhaps incorporating Mizvot 1 -10. The second element refers specifically to Mizvot 26 "To love all human beings who are of the covenant," (Lev. 19:18) and possibly Mizvot 56 "To love the stranger," (Deut. 10:19). Of course the Mizvot are not often used as guides to law in Christian countries because they include items like the requirement to charge interest when you loan to a Gentile (Mizvot 58) and not letting those born out of wedlock marry the daughter of a Jew (Mizvot 65)

If you wish I will list the 10 Commandments as they are currently understood by (variously) Talmudic scholars, Catholics and Lutherans and then those of the other protestant denominations. These three all vary in content and none include the two commandments Matthew gives as Jesus' reference.

[MineralMan]

21. Your first point is incorrect.

There is nothing in the Constitution about thieves, murderers and liars. Not a single word. I'm talking about the Constitution, the document that establishes the United States of America.

The rest are wrong, too. The Greeks did invent democracy. They were pagans, with many deities.

[cleanhippie]

25. Wow, Poe's Law strikes again.

[darkstar3]

36. Bingo.

[edhopper]

33. Point to the passages in the Constitution

that outlaw lying, stealing and murder. Those are crimes usually in State penal codes. And the First Amendment actually allows lying in most cases. (exceptions of slander and libel.)

[ChadwickHenryWard]

11. So far as I am aware, there is no direct influence of any Christian ideas

on the formation of the American republic. If I recall correctly, the Declaration is based mostly on Locke's second Treatise on Government, and the Constitution is mostly based on Rousseau's Social Contract. These are both works from the Enlightenment, a period characterized by the rejection of traditional Christian ideas.

While I'm no expert, none of the ideas I associate with Christianity - sin, its inheritance and absolution; eternal life after death, and the Kingdom of Heaven; Jesus Christ, and the events of his life; the Godhead; mercy and charity towards the dispossessed; Christian Creation and eschatology - has any substantial presence in American law. The ideas that are important in the creation of the American republic are property, liberty, due process, representative government and self determination, and the relationship between the states and the Federal government. I am not aware that any of these ideas originate from the Bible or are strongly developed by any of the great Christian thinkers. So far as I am aware, the form of government advocated in the Bible is a tribal band, governed by religious judges and priests.

[Kurmudgeon]

19. So you're no expert, so that's simply your opinion. Fair enough.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

23. I'm not quite clear on what your point is.

Are you claiming to be an expert? Or are you just posting your opinion too? What's the difference between you and me?

[cleanhippie]

35. His point is, that you are wrong and he is right.

In the end, you are dealing with a person that advocates for the US to become a christian theocracy. There is nothing you can do or say, other than to tell him he is right and that you agree, that will ever get through.

[MineralMan]

29. Well, if you're going to discuss expertise,

lets hear what your expertise is, both regarding the Bible and the Constitution. I'm not seeing any evidence of it. For example, here's a little test question about the Bible that every Bible expert can answer:

What was the name of the Old Testament Prophet whose hair on his head was gone, and what interesting event occurred connected with his condition?

It's an easy question, really, and anyone who had read the Old Testament would remember that particular situation.

And for the Constitution:

In what article and section is the oath of office for the President provided, and what does it say there about swearing in God's name and on the Bible?


You may treat this quiz as an open book quiz, if you like. I'll check back later.

[cleanhippie]

34. So you're no expert, so that's simply your opinion. Fair enough.

[Viva_Daddy]

31. And don't forget the Constitutions of the Masonic Lodges. There you will find the first ever

articulation of the principles of Separation of Church and State, Checks and Balances, one man one vote, etc.

[mishele]

38. some biblical principles behind us constitution

dont have time to write a book, but here a few:


Exodus 20 Sunday- a day of rest Article VII, Section 2 Sunday-only day that bill can NOT be signed into law

Leviticus 19:34 Uniform treatment of immigrants Article 1, Section 8 Uniform treatment of immigrants

Deuteronomy 17:15 Foreigners were not allowed to rule over them Article 2, Section 1 President must to be a natural born citizen of the U.S.

Deuteronomy 17:6 Must have the testimony of two or three witnesses before putting a man to death. Article III Section 3 All states that allow capital punishment are required to establish guilt in cases of treason by the testimony of at least two witnesses

SEEK and you will find!

WIN OBAMA WIN!!!!!!!!!!!

[MineralMan]

39. Uh, you're replying to a post from February as your first post on DU?

OK, but I suggest you look at more recent posts.

[Vanje]

40. Mark16:18

"They take up serpents. And if they drink any deadly thing, It shall not harm them."

Damn! I wish THAT was in the constitution!