Periodically I read on
social media the idea that the Constitution of the United States was based on
Judeo-Christian principles.
As a diligent reader of
both, the Constitution, and the Bible, I can find no truth or substance in the
idea.
Nowhere in the Bible do I
read that human governments should be set in three coequal branches of
legislative, executive, and judicial.
Nowhere in the Bible do I
find the right to keep and bear arms, nor of the freedom of the press, or speech.
Nowhere in the Bible do I
read, as I do read in the Constitution, that government has the authority to
establish laws for copyright and patent protections.
There just is not
anything in the Bible that resembles to any degree the content or principle
contained in the Constitution.
I cannot find anything in
the Constitution that brings over the Ten Commandments, the teachings of Jesus,
the advice of Paul to churches as to how they should run their churches.
These two, the
Constitution and the Bible, are as different in nature and purpose as are a
hockey game and a wine-tasting event.
I do, however, report one
singular thought in the Constitution that, incidentally and accidentally, can
be found in the Bible; Article I, Section 8, clause 5 states The Congress shall
have Power To . . . fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.
Proverbs 20:10 states “Differing
weights and differing measures— the LORD detests them both.”
It is a stretch to think
that the founders, when given opportunity to reach toward the Bible for readily
recognizable principles, grasped only this solitary concept to include, especially
when one discovers that the importance of accurate weights and measures can
also be found in the records of the ancient Egyptians.
(https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/weights/weight.html)
It is just as logical to conclude
that founders imported principles from the Egyptians to the Constitution as to
assume they did so from the Bible.
