OUR age is becoming exceedingly skeptical as regards the reliability and divine authenticity of the Sacred Scriptures. Consequently, we find that even some of our best historians, when treating the subject of divine and human law from a historical standpoint, occasionally make statements that are as far from the truth as any that can be found in the writings of Gibbon, Hume, or Ingersoll.
As an instance of this skeptical blundering, we find in Ridpath’s “History of the World” the following almost incredible affirmation:
“We are surprised to find [in the Hebrew law] better provision made for the escape of a murderer from the legal consequences of his guilt, than for the rescue of the sinner who only gathered sticks on the Sabbath day, or derided his father.”—Vol. 5, p. 300.
A little candid thought and further examination of the law which he has undertaken to criticize and expound, would have convinced the author (1) That in the case of the Sabbath-breaker or mocker of parents a fair trial could always be guaranteed, since no disturbing element of enmity or revenge could enter into it, but rather in most cases a feeling of sympathy toward the offender; and (2) That the Hebrew law made no “provision for the escape of a murderer from the legal consequences of his guilt,” but only provided that he might be saved from the vengeance awaiting him at the hands of relatives animated by personal spite and private malice. Thus there was merely guaranteed to him what the Sabbath-breaker or the mocker of parents might always expect, namely, a fair trial.
But, as is usual in such cases, a false accusation must needs have strong assertions to back it up; so our author and critic continues by saying:
“The Jewish law not only permitted a kinsman to avenge the wrong done to one of his own blood, but required him to take such office upon himself. He must personally follow the criminal and destroy him in turn. The pursuer might not forgive the homicide and let the fugitive escape. On the contrary, he must fall upon him under the sanction of the law and put him to death.”—Id., p. 303.
This statement appears, to me at least, to be a grave misapprehension of the import of the statute. If it were the true meaning, surely there would have been no need to provide cities of refuge, because the kinsman would himself have been the legally constituted judge and avenger, authorized by law to pursue, overtake, and slay the murderer without allowing him a trial.
It is true the Bible says: “The avenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer; when he meeteth him, he shall slay him.” Num. 35:19. But this evidently means that he will, of course, slay him, or is expected naturally to do so, not that he is required by law to do this; because verse 12 says: “They shall be unto you cities for refuge from the avenger; that the [actual] man-slayer die not, until he stand before the congregation in judgment.”
Here the very intent of the law is declared to be that the criminal must be tried by a jury of his peers, in order that his guilt or innocence may be established; and it is also provided that if the killing be proved accidental, he shall not be punished. Neither should one witness condemn him to die. Verse 30. Therefore it is undisputably true that no Hebrew could take the law into his own hands by divine or legal sanction.
We may learn from this lesson, however, how apt even the wisest critics, so-called, are, in this scoffing age, to take the Word of God into their own hands, twisting and applying it to suit their own skeptical fancies or ungodly wishes, as exemplified in the conduct of those who would exalt human law to a pinnacle where it becomes the expounder of the divine law, and the judge of every one who claims obedience to God’s Word.
The same writer says of the code of Menu:
“The murder of a person belonging to a lower caste may pass with slight retribution, but the killing of a cow is a mortal crime. One who kills a Brahmin with intent must thrust his own head three times into the fire until he die. If the killing is unintentional, he shall build a hut in the woods and live alone for twelve years, carrying the skull of the slain man in his girdle.”—Id., Vol. 2, p. 667.
It will be remembered by every intelligent reader that, in the Hebrew law, as in most of the legal codes of modern times, an unintentional injury inflicted upon another is not a crime, altho it may, if owing to carelessness9on the offender's part, subject him to the payment of damages under our law as well as it would under the law of the Hebrews. It is now a recognized fact among lawyers that "the essence of a crime is in the intent," as taught all through the Old Testament.