Abstract
This book review examines the book Criminals in the Bible by Professor Mark Jones. It examines the bases and features of criminal justice and the criminalizing process across different timelines and eras. The review examines the constitutional elements of different criminal justice systems and generations and how it relates to specific aspects of society.
The book review assesses and evaluates some of the elements of society including chapter analysis and how serious crimes occur. The main discovery of this book review is that crime and criminalizing is done within the context and framework of dominant constitutional processes and generally accepted criminal systems. These procedures define what is right and wrong and they vary across time and space.
Some cases are analyzed closely like murder, communal matters and the entire criminalizing procedure. Basically, in Biblical times, crime was mainly spiritual and people were punished through divine retribution. On the other hand, in modern times, crime is mainly based on the ability to prove people had an evil mind and did an act that was considered wrong. Biblical practices involved spiritual matters and people could be punished on the basis of their deepest spiritual intentions. Many things that are criminalized today would have been alright in Biblical times. And many heroes in the Bible could today be considered criminals by our criminal justice system.
Introduction
There are many different methods on reviewing crime and the process of criminalizing people in society. The book, Criminals in the Bible is written by Mark Jones, a professor with a lot of experience in Criminal Law. The book provides a comparative assessment of the criminalizing process as it existed in Biblical times and how it relates to the criminal justice procedures in today’s time. This is a daring attempt to compare two completely different times and eras with different legal and justice systems. This essay is a book review of the work of work of Mark Jones and how it relates to law.
Preamble of the Book
The outline of the book is such that it provides a general preamble and framework within which criminal law is formulated. This provides the reader with a background of what the book is about and how the book is outlined in order to present his core ideas and views. The book is mainly prescriptive because it provides a lesson or note at the end of each chapter which the book completes. All-in-all, there is the case study of 25 heroic figures in the Christian Bible and based on popular Christian narration of these views, he outlines how their actions would be viewed within the lenses of criminal law in Biblical times and in our own time. This helps to outline similarities and divergences in the criminal justice system of our era and previous generations.
The main pitch of the book is to provide the shocking nature of crime and how it existed in the two timelines. Most people hold Biblical heroes to be blameless and faultless. People like Jesus, David and others are seen as faultless in our eyes. However, when their actions are critiqued according to criminal justice rules that we have adopted today, most of them would be found guilty for various crimes.
Written by an expert in criminal law, Criminals in the Bible provide a view of relativism in criminal justice. Basically, it shows that what was a crime in Biblical times might be considered perfectly normal today and vice versa. This provides information about important things like the authority of law and the definition of crime and illegality.
The Constitution and Criminal Law
Jones begins his book by outlining a conflict in society – “what is a crime”? This is something that does not have a simple and straightforward answer if viewed from the context of different timelines as the book did. He points out that at least Prohibition in America in the 1930s is considered to be normal in the 21st Century. He goes on to show information about the mixed race population called Samaritans in the time of Jesus and how they were considered impure and illegal.
The book indicates that crime is defined by the society and the leaders of the society. This is because people have the right to define what they want to apply as the law for bad conduct and punishable conduct. Due to this, Jones’ view indicates that crime is something that varies across time and space.
Criminalizing is a process that start when the recognized authorities decide to make laws that render something illegal. This links up to Jones’ book which indicates the main sources of power and authority which laid the foundation for criminalization. He lists some major systems of laying laws like codes of Sumerians and other spiritually revealed laws that were the basis for the criminal justice system in Biblical Israel. Jones also goes on to compare these Biblical legal authorities and systems by identify the sources of the US Constitution which includes Separation of Powers, Bill of Rights and other guarantees of freedoms which lay the foundation for laws to be made concerning criminal law and the punishment of crimes.
Kline insists that criminalizing is something that comes within a constitutional framework. Thus, the constitution provides an authoritative framework through which the leaders of a generation can make laws and apply them. Thus, Biblical laws that defined crimes were made over different timelines and by different sets of authorities. There are things like pre-biblical laws like the Sumerian Code and Ancient Egyptian laws around 2,400 BC. This was complemented by Mosaic Laws, the Judges and Kings of Ancient Israel and then foreign laws imposed by colonizers of Ancient Egypt like the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans. These provide important directions that were applied in creating the legal and criminal justice systems that defined the activities and processes of the cases studied in the book.
Character Analysis
After defining the constitutional parameters for criminal justice, there was the identification of cases and situations as they occurred. The Scriptures give hints about the laws that existed in Biblical times. Mark Jones identified the laws from a Christian perspective and this helps to get a literal meaning and view of these characters. This helped to review the characters and show how they fared.
Mark Jones states clearly that crimes and issues raised in the Bible as well as modern issues and problems occur within legal, social and political definitions. This is reiterated by the fact that individual choices and crimes are shaped by societal structures and the circumstances within which they occur. Many things are non-issues unless the society views it as problematic and label it as a crime. Therefore, with this in mind, Jones sets out to evaluate the 25 cases that are critiqued.
Serious Crime and Precedents
Murder is considered to be a serious crime. Taking the life of another person is seen as a negative situation and in the case of Cain, which is the first situation that was evaluated, there was no precedence and there were no courts. However, the Bible had stated in Genesis and in the story of Noah that anyone who shed blood, by human hands his blood would be shed (Genesis 9:6).
This shows that in situations where serious crimes and offences occur, there must be a way of identifying what is absolutely right and wrong. This is because serious actions that destroy and affect other people must be handled with a seriousness. Cain was therefore destined to be punished.
We also realize that there is more to mere criminalizing of a person. The concept of divine retribution is brought to the fore. And the concept of “marked man” see to be an important aspect of life and situations. Thus in most criminal cases, the defense always plead on the basis of the stigmatization of the defendant in society. For instance, George Zimmerman was viewed as a “marked man”. And this provides a criminal justice tradition that we use to-date.
Also, there is the case of degrading punishment which is part of our legal tradition today. In the case of Trop v Dulles, Mark Jones identifies that the idea of degrading punishment was invoked along the lines of the Cain story.
Spiritual Causation and Communal Crimes
In most cases in America today, there is the need for a mens rea and an actus reus which show that there must be an evil mind in a person that causes him to act in a way that is criminal. However, one thing that runs through the book is the fact that crimes could be attributed to people in Biblical times for spiritual acts or acts that could not be proven.
Before the US Constitution was instituted, people could be tried and punished for witchcraft. However, the US Constitution’s requirement for a fair trial before a court makes it impossible to criminalize a person on the grounds of crime committed with spiritual inputs.
Sodom and Gomorrah was collectively punished because of a divine retribution. Abraham sought to intercede to prevent the divine retribution. However, it did not work and the people were punished for collective crimes like sodomy. Sodomy was illegal in America until recently. As recently as 1986 when the ruling of Bowers v Hardwick showed that people could still be criminalized for engaging in sodomy. These are sins against the soul and has spiritual implication and thus, became the basis for criminalizing.
Another communal sin had to do with Joseph and slavery. The book indicated that slavery was based on the lack of a jurisdiction to protect all people. Therefore, Joseph could be captured and sold in a system where slavery was legal. This is also a communal problem that could not be checked until a universal criminalization system and process could be formulated.
Morality-Based Spiritual Crimes
The first 50 pages showed that sin in Biblical times could be seen as something that was based on crimes that were spiritual. Thus, Mark Jones discusses how divine retribution led to the divine punishment on Judah’s sons, Onan and Er (2006 p45). At the same time, Judah committed a similar sin like prostitution that is considered to be socially wrong and worthy of the death penalty. However, he was not destroyed. He lived to enjoy his life and raise a child with his son’s wife. In today’s terms, Judah could have been tried and convicted in some states for pandering the soliciting of prostitution.
The same preamble applies to Achan who stole cursed items meant to be given to Moses and destroyed when Israel conquered a cursed society. This is because he touched a cursed item and it led to a spiritual problem which was directly responsible for the death of other Israelites. Thus, Achan had to be killed to remove that curse.
War Crimes and International Law
Today, we have serious laws against war crimes which are considered to be major problems in society. However, Saul and David both committed war crimes and in their generations it was permitted. As a matter of fact, Saul was demoted as king for failing to do something that today’s legal system would consider to be war crimes. On the other hand, David who was coroneted in Saul’s stead committed war crimes and was considered to be alright.
Practical Matters
There is a question of how we should view the Good Samaritan in today’s world. Mark Jones identifies how it is common for us to bypass people who do not look like us just like the Levites did when the man in the parable of the Good Samaritan was injured and suffering. No priest in any church would do anything more than call the police or just continue to church if he has to give a sermon.
This indicates that there are things in the New Testament that shows ideal goals and ends. However, these are somewhat not possible and practical. This is because there are some important matters that require major adjustments and are for people who want to go the extra mile to prove their Christian values. There are also cases of Simon the Zealot and others who would be convicted as terrorists in today’s terms. But they were not so in Biblical times.
Conclusion
Criminalizing is a matter of morality and perspective. This is about social, legal and political will and perspectives of a generation. Thus, the book shows that criminal law is a matter of circumstances and relativist. Thus, what is right in one generation might be wrong in another. Therefore, a society will have to make laws that meets its best goals and objectives. Criminalizing on the other hand has some limits and some serious matters like murder are universal and are considered to be wrong. Other things like standards for trying people is left to the leaders of each generation.
References
Horder, J. (2015). Ashworth's Principles of Criminal Law. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jones, M. (2006). Criminals of the Bible: Twenty-Five Case Studies of Biblical Crimes and Outlaws. . New York: FaithWalk Publishing.
Kline, L. (2011). Criminals by Necessity: The American Homeless in the Twenty-First Century . Liberty University Law Review: Vol. 5: Iss. 2, 275-299.
Stroope, S., Franzen, A., & Uecker, J. (2015). Social Context and College Completion in the United States. Sociological Perspectives 58 (1), 120-137.
