{"id":7448,"date":"2023-07-09T22:34:04","date_gmt":"2023-07-10T02:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/?p=7448"},"modified":"2025-11-13T14:52:43","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T20:52:43","slug":"127-inventing-god-and-law-another-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/?p=7448","title":{"rendered":"127. Inventing God and Law: Another Accident"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Leviticus<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

I’m starting to wonder if anything important has ever happened on purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Constitutional Law<\/p>\n

Part 2: \u201cWhat Were They Thinking?\u201d<\/p>\n

Digression: \u201cA History of Government in 6 Revolutions: From the Paleolithic to Philadelphia\u201d<\/p>\n

127. Inventing God and Law: Another Accident<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

TITLE: Part U: Another Accident<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Panel 1: The inner courtyard of the Second Temple. As people look on from atop the walls, flames blaze on the gigantic open-air horned altar. Below, an army of priests in their priestly attire butcher cows, lambs, goats, and other animals at an array of smaller altars. The entrance to the courtyard is to the left, while the temple building itself is to the right.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

NARRATION:<\/p>\n

Having never before heard<\/strong> of universal rules that carried their own authority, the Hebrew scribes obviously hadn\u2019t planned<\/strong> to invent them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many rules, for example, had only been meant for priests.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

They\u2019d been written down so as to preserve and memorialize<\/strong> the Old Temple practices, from before the exile.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

They prescribed how the rites<\/strong> had to be performed, so as not to piss off the god[s].<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And they prescribed lifestyle<\/strong> rules, to ensure that a priest was ritually pure<\/strong> when he performed the ceremonies and sacrifices.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

PRIEST 1:<\/p>\n

Obviously these aren\u2019t rules for all<\/strong> Jews.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Such matters are too important to leave up to regular folks.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

PRIEST 2:<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we have<\/strong> a priestly class.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

ONLOOKERS:<\/p>\n

Too late. They\u2019re all<\/strong> of our scriptures now, so\u2026<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

IT IS WRITTEN!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

-=-<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Panel 2: Moses stands on the side of Mount Sinai, with a burning bush in the distance.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

NARRATION:<\/p>\n

As for the Ten Commandments,<\/strong> they don\u2019t even resemble<\/em> laws.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t kill\u201d doesn\u2019t define a crime of murder. Nor does it specify a punishment. It\u2019s simply a command.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

An order.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

MOSES:<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

NARRATION:<\/p>\n

The commandments make sense when you realize that they were part of the new origin myth<\/strong> that would give the post-exilic Hebrews a new sense of shared identity.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

That story was the epic of Exodus, and it\u2019s hero<\/strong> was Moses, who gave<\/strong> Yahweh\u2019s laws to the people.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

You won\u2019t find a single mention of Moses or the exodus anywhere prior to this period, because until now nobody had ever heard<\/strong> of Moses or the exodus. These were entirely new<\/strong> stories, just now being made up!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

As origin myths go, though, this epic has been a phenomenal<\/strong> success, beyond anything its authors could have imagined.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, this tale from an obscure little province is a major belief of billions<\/strong> of people on every continent!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

-=-<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Panel 3: A bustling Jerusalem street scene, with lots of people going about their business among streets and buildings and trees and plazas. In the foreground, two teenage girls carry clay jugs on their bare heads, while a young woman in a red headdress gives the reader a grin of amused reproach.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

NARRATION:<\/p>\n

In this origin myth, the Ten Commandments are a brilliant<\/strong> example of the rhetoric of monotheism!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The goal<\/strong> was to instill a sense that worshipping only Yahweh was morally right.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The strategy<\/strong> here was to package that monolatry with fundamental values of right and wrong that everyone already<\/strong> lived by. The basic, pro-social ethics common to any<\/strong> kinship-based society:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Honor your parents. Don\u2019t kill. Don\u2019t sleep around and risk birthing a son into the wrong lineage. Don\u2019t steal or desire other people\u2019s stuff. Gossip and reputation are still super important, so don\u2019t spread malicious stories\u2026<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

WATER GIRL:<\/p>\n

Nobody\u2019s ever needed to write down those<\/strong> moral rules.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

RED GIRL:<\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t tell right from wrong without a holy book, there might be something wrong with you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

NARRATION:<\/p>\n

Adding monolatry to the mix worked like a charm!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Forget worshiping\u2014before long, even believing<\/strong> in other gods felt\u2026 unnatural.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But law?<\/strong> That\u2019s not what the commandments were for.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

-=-<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

FOOTNOTE:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m starting to wonder if anything important has ever happened on purpose.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>View Transcript<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. I’m starting to wonder if anything important has ever happened on purpose. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48,35,63,60,1,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-brief-history-of-government","category-constitutional-law","category-inventing-the-law","category-the-institution-revolution","category-uncategorized","category-what-were-they-thinking"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7448"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10598,"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7448\/revisions\/10598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}