Mosaic Law

“ So far was the Mosaic law from countenancing hatred towards the persons of foreigners, that it expressly enjoined kindness: "If a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. {139} But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." Lev. 19:34.
5. Another ground of objection to the Mosaic law has been the number and minuteness of its ordinances. That this feature of the theocracy was, absolutely considered, an imperfection, is boldly asserted in the New Testament. ”

“ Hardly had the disciples of Christ abolished the Mosaic law to introduce the Christian dispensation, than mankind, carried away by force, and by their ordinary inconstancy, followed a new law-giver, who advanced himself by the same methods as Moses. He assumed, like him, the title of prophet, and envoy of God, like him he performed miracles and knew how to profit by the passions of the people. ”

“ Many of the Mosaic laws find parallels and analogies in all ages outside the sphere of Israelite influence, notably in the laws codified several centuries previously by the Babylonian king Khammurabi (see Babylonian Law) . The practice of finding in ancient authority a precedent for institutions new and old (cf. the law of booty, 1 Sam. xxx. 25, with that ascribed to Moses in Num. xxxi. 25 sqq.) is quite in accordance with Oriental custom and explains the growth of the present extremely complex sources. ”

“ Custom has made it with us second nature to take for granted a broad line of demarcation between those who live within the pale of Revelation, and the residue of mankind. But Holy Scripture does not appear to recognise such a severance in any manner, until we come to the revelation of the Mosaic law, which was like the erection of a temporary shelter for truths that had ranged at large over the plain, and that were apparently in danger of being totally absorbed in the mass of human inventions. ”

“ In a crisis the Mosaic law is so much easier and quicker to explain to primitive races than the other law which came later. For these races stand at a stage of the world’s history; and what the higher races went through, by way of judicial experiment, they must go through also. Even by Christians, when it comes to the point, Christianity has never been regarded as a short cut—not even among themselves. ”

“ In summoning those brave men, I renewed the regulations of the Mosaic law [35] —a law whose regard for natural feelings [255] distinguished it in the most striking manner from the stern violences of the pagan levy. No man was required to take up arms who had built a house and had not yet dedicated it; no man who had planted a vineyard or olive ground, and had not yet reaped the produce; no man who had betrothed a wife and had not yet taken her home; and no man during the first year of his marriage. ”

“ John xii, 14. To draw with an ox and ass together was prohibited in the Mosaic law, Deut. xxii, 10. This law is thought to have respect to some idolatrous custom of the Gentiles, who were taught to believe that their fields would be more fruitful if thus ploughed; for it is not likely that men would have yoked together two creatures so different in their tempers and motions, had they not been led to it by some superstition. There might be, however, a physical reason for this injunction. Two beasts of a different species cannot well associate together ”

“ He can accept it as a whole without any reservation or deduction: "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one [72] tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Observe, however, that this statement is not at all inconsistent with what He teaches concerning the temporary character of much of the Mosaic legislation; it simply makes it clear that whatever passes away, does not pass by destruction, but by fulfilment—i.e., the evolution of its hidden life—as the bud passes into the rose. ”

“ If it were an attempt to substitute the austerity of the Mosaic law—the law given to Moses, not the ordinances decreed by Moses—for the half-hearted Christian idealism of the day, even that would be a task in which all right-hearted men could join. ”

“ We can hardly confine למּד to religious teaching. The Mosaic law contains a number of merely civil precepts, as to which laymen learned in the law might impart instruction; and consequently the teaching probably consisted not merely in making the people acquainted with the contents of the law, but at the same time of direction and guidance in keeping the law, and generally in restoring and confirming the authority of the law among the people. ”

“ Again, New Testament servants and masters are not the servants and masters of the Mosaic law, but the servants and masters of the Roman Empire. To go to the law of Moses to find out the statutes of the Roman Empire, is folly. ”

“ He pictures the earth mourning and languishing in desolation and assigns the reason for the sad condition as follows: "The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant."— (Isaiah 24:5; read verses 1 to 6 inclusive.)
21. It may be thought that this prophecy has reference to a violation of the law of Moses under which ancient Israel lived. Let it be remembered, however, that the Mosaic law is nowhere called an everlasting covenant. ”

“ The Mosaic law seems still to influence the European world, causing men to throw away much valuable provision because unaccustomed to eat it or to hear of its being eaten. The systems of China and Japan are far more sensible for densely populated countries, and the hippophagists have shown, at least, that one animal has been greatly wasted. ”

“ There was no body of statutes till many years later, and during this time the only restriction on the arbitrary authority of the judges was the rules of the Mosaic law. The body of the free burgesses was very cautiously enlarged from court to court. ”

“ Such variation and inconstancy in the rule and practice of moral duty, as established by the feeble or fluctuating authority of human opinion, demonstrates the utility of a clear divine interposition, to impress these important prohibitions; and it is difficult for any sagacity to calculate how far such an interposition was necessary, and what effect it may have produced by influencing human opinions and regulating human conduct, when we recollect that the Mosaic code was probably the first written law ever delivered to any nation ”

“ Not one of the learned gentlemen who pretend that the Mosaic laws are filled with justice and intelligence, would live, for a moment, in any country where such laws were in force. ”

“ We have, indeed, in the part taken by many scientific 383 men in this controversy of "Law versus Miracle," a good illustration of the tenacious vitality of superstitions. Ask one of our leading geologists or physiologists whether he believes in the Mosaic account of the creation, and he will take the question as next to an insult. Either he rejects the narrative entirely, or understands it in some vague non-natural sense. Yet one part of it he unconsciously adopts; and that, too, literally. For whence has he got this notion of "special creations," ”

“ All others, however, in themselves, from a merely physical point of view, equally unwholesome or loathsome, are outside the purview of the Mosaic code. They do not render the person affected, according to the law, ceremonially unclean. It is therefore evident that the lawgiver must have had before him something other than merely the physical peculiarities of these defilements, and that, for the true meaning of this part of the law, we must look deeper than the surface. ”

“ We grant the probability that the great majority of what we call species were produced in some such ways. If science should render it certain that all the present species of living creatures were derived by natural descent from a few original germs, and that these germs were themselves an evolution of inorganic forces and materials, we should not therefore regard the Mosaic account as proved untrue. We should only be required to revise our interpretation of the word bara in Gen. 1:21, 27, and to give it there the meaning of mediate creation, or creation by law. ”

“ As has already been pointed out, a large part of the Mosaic legislation must have been adopted from the customs of the various tribes who were welded into one by Moses. It cannot be conceived that the laws against stealing, for example, the penalties for murder, or the prescriptions for sacrifice, can have been first introduced by the great Lawgiver. He made much ancient customary law to be part and parcel of the Yahwistic legislation by simply taking it over. ”

“ There is nothing in the language to limit its meaning; there is nothing in the connection in which it stands to limit its meaning; nor is there anything in the history of the Mosaic legislation to limit the application of this statute to the case of servants escaping from foreign masters. The assumption that it is thus limited is wholly gratuitous, and, so far as the Bible is concerned, unsustained by any evidence whatever. It is said that it would be absurd for Moses to enact such a law while servitude existed among the Hebrews. ”

“ The theoretical solution of this problem that has prevailed in the past and is still widely accepted is, that it was called into existence a few thousand years ago in much the condition that we now know it. This is the Mosaic theory, in its old and popular interpretation. But as the Mosaic records have been reinterpreted in recent times, and as the question whether or not the doctrine is taught there is hotly disputed among those who defer to Mosaic authority, Prof. Huxley did not assume to settle the question, and wisely let the Mosaic account alone. ”

“ Nothing can be presented from the Mosaic laws to prove that this prohibition was only of a temporary character. It is in entire harmony with the spirit of helpfulness and especially the protection of the weak, that is so characteristic of the Mosaic order.
No induction from any of the Old Testament writers can be fairly made to limit its application. The prophets place usury in the catalogue of sins that are always and everywhere offensive to God. Nehemiah condemns it as destructive to personal and civic freedom. ”

“ It is utterly impossible that the Mosaic record should have been constructed in order to suit the scientific discoveries of our own day. And those who honour science would be the last to admit that men of science have constructed their system on the lines of the Mosaic record. ”

“ Although the geocentric error of the Mosaic history was demonstrated by Copernicus, and thereby its authority as an absolutely perfect divine revelation was destroyed, yet it has maintained, down to the present day, such influence, that it forms in many wide circles the principle obstacle to the adoption of a natural theory of development. Even in our century, many naturalists, especially geologists, have tried to bring the Mosaic theory into harmony with the recent results of natural science, and have, for example, interpreted Moses’ seven days of creation as seven great geological periods. ”

“ If we will attentively examine the fossil remains of fishes, animals, birds, and vegetables, so abundantly preserved entombed in the crust of our earth, we shall easily see the necessity of looking into the sepulchres of these primitive creatures if we would freely describe the “Mosaic Creation.” Many of their genera and species are now extinct: and those which remain seem to have dwindled down to mere dwarfs in comparison with their prototypes. ”

“ Nothing can be more childish, frivolous or contradictory.
Only a few years ago the Mosaic account was considered true, and Moses was regarded as a scientific authority. Geology and astronomy were measured by the Mosaic standard. The opposite is now true. The church has changed; and instead of trying to prove that modern astronomy and geology are false, because they do not agree with Moses, it is now endeavoring to prove that the account by Moses is true, because it agrees with modern astronomy and geology. ”

“ Now, if we are to take the written history of man for the rule by which we should judge of the time when the species first began, that period would be but little removed from the present state of things. The Mosaic history places this beginning of man at no great distance; and there has not been found, in natural history, any document by which a high antiquity might be attributed to the human race. But this is not the case with regard to the inferior species of animals, particularly those which inhabit the ocean and its shores. ”

“ It is certain that it can be proved neither by the Bible nor modern science, either that God did or did not make man in that way.
But here comes the question as to the authority of the Mosaic account of creation: How was the author of that account able to state in so brief a space the main points in the earth's development, just as they are now known by the revelations of science, when he wrote at least three thousand years before the sciences which have now brought these things to light were born? Was Moses a profound scientist? ”

“ According to the theory of Mosaic geology ultimately adopted by Hugh Miller, the 'beginning' spoken of in the first verse of the Bible corresponds to that period when the planet, wrapt in primeval fires, was about to enter upon the series of changes which is inscribed in the geologic record. The chaos, dark and formless, which preceded the dawn of organic existence upon earth, was no temporary inundation, no miraculous catastrophe, but an actual state of things of which the evidence still exists in the rocks. ”