THE PENALTY FOR PERJURY If a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong; Then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days; And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother; Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you (Deut. 19:16-19).
The theocentric principle here is that God is a true witness. He does not lie. God, as the supreme Judge, does not respect persons. This is a constant theme in both testaments.(1) The law of God is to be applied impartially, meaning without respect to persons. The civil magistrate's evaluation also must not be in terms of the class (money) or status (social position) of either the victim or the accused.(2) Showing respect of persons in the exercise of judgment is one of the major sins of mankind, in both church(3) and State. This was not a land law.
Deuteronomy 19:16-19 presents the civil standard governing false witnesses. The standard is lex talionis: an eye for an eye. "And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" (Deut. 19:21). That which the false witness had hoped to achieve -- having the court impose a specific negative civil sanction against his intended victim -- he himself would bear. The cost of offering false testimony was commensurate with the cost of being a victim of false testimony. The economic procedure of counting the cost was to lead to a conclusion: it was risky to become a false witness in Mosaic Israel. The more flagrant the false testimony, the riskier it became.
Witness for the Prosecution Let us begin with the witness for the prosecution in a criminal trial. The court is God's court: the State is acting as the prosecutor on God's behalf. The witness for the prosecution becomes an agent of this court. God delegates to the State the authority and requirement to execute people convicted of capital crimes. God identifies the witnesses as the primary agents of execution. The historically permanent civil sanction of death removes the convicted person from the local jurisdiction of the earthly court into God's heavenly court. The witness is therefore acting as God's designated judicial agent through the court.
The biblical texts do not identify the witness specifically as a witness for the prosecution. This does not necessarily mean that the defense's witnesses had to participate in the stoning. If a witness had confirmed the testimony of the accused, it would seem to be excessively stringent for the law to require him to participate in the execution. On the other hand, the witness serves as a defender of the court's authority. The court has declared the accused guilty. Why shouldn't the witness participate in the execution? On this basis: his unwillingness to participate actively in what he regards as an unjust decision. Participation would violate his conscience. He is not to rebel against the court, but he need not become an active participant.
Witness for the Defense What about witness for the defense? What if he had refused to swear? What if he was not circumcised Israelites or circumcised strangers? Was he permitted to testify? Here I must make deductions based on what is required of witnesses for the prosecution, and why. I conclude that witnesses for the defense were allowed to testify to the court, whether or not they were citizens. They were required to take an oath to the court because they were the State's sanctions-bringers.
Witnesses for the defense were also under court sanctions. They were not allowed to lie under oath. What if they did? Were they under the threat of the court's sanctions? Yes. False witnessing was not allowed. Then what was the appropriate sanction? We return to the lex talionis: eye for eye. If they deliberately testified falsely, thereby persuading the court to release a guilty person back into society, they came under the sanctions that should have been applied to him. The court cannot prosecute the defendant a second time if he has been declared innocent by a jury,(4) but it can prosecute the perjurer. This is not double jeopardy. The perjurer judicially represents the criminal whose testimony the perjurer has set free. The criminal has been set free; the perjurer takes his place. Judgment is upheld. The appropriate civil sanction is applied. The victim is not left with a sense of justice. The person who inflicted the damage has not paid for his crime, but his substitute has. This is an application of the biblical principle of substitutionary atonement. If someone who is in a lawful position to pay the victim does so on behalf of the criminal, the victim is not to pursue the matter any further. The false witness is in a legal position to make this substitutionary payment, and the court is supposed to insist that he make it. The text does not say this specifically with respect to a witness for the defense, but the principle of the substitionary atonement makes it clear that such a substitute is legitimate. When the sanction is imposed on the false witness, the judicial matter is settled. Peace may then be restored to society. This is a major goal of biblical law. The accused should be placated when the court imposes on the conspirators the penalty that would have been imposed on him.
Eye for Eye The Mosaic civil sanction against perjury by a witness is clear: the perjurer must suffer the same penalty that would have been applied to his potential victim. He has sought to impose civil sanctions; now those sanctions are imposed on him.
There is a major practical problem here for any covenant-keeping society that would restrict the office of witness to citizens. The citizen in a biblical commonwealth is bound by two oaths. One of these is taken in a Trinitarian church. What about the nonbeliever? He has taken no such oath. Is he therefore prohibited from serving as a witness? If a nation's borders (or state's borders, or county's borders) are open to immigrants, as they were in Mosaic Israel, then a community could become predominantly occupied by non-citizens. A non-citizen would be more likely to see a crime than a citizen would be. If the non-citizen may not testify in a court regarding what he has seen, then law enforcement becomes problematical. Criminals in the wider community of non-citizens would impose their will on the rest of society. This would place law-abiding people at the mercy of criminals. Is this the goal of biblical law?
Here is a solution to this dilemma. We know that the stranger who dwelt in Israel was allowed to offer a sacrifice to God if he abided by the laws governing sacrifices. This was the biblical principle of equality under the law. "And if a stranger sojourn with you, or whosoever be among you in your generations, and will offer an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD; as ye do, so he shall do. One ordinance shall be both for you of the congregation, and also for the stranger that sojourneth with you , an ordinance for ever in your generations: as ye are, so shall the stranger be before the LORD. One law and one manner shall be for you, and for the stranger that sojourneth with you" (Num. 15:14-16). This stranger was a geyr or resident alien. He did not have to be circumcised in order to offer his sacrifice to God. He merely had to live inside the borders of Israel and under the Mosaic law.
If the stranger had the right to offer a sacrifice without being a citizen, then why not also the right to testify in a court? If he was willing to come under the civil sanction -- eye for eye -- why not allow his testimony? If he believed that he was protected by the God of Moses, as manifested by his willingness to live under the Mosaic law, then why not accept his testimony?
The biblical principle of an eye for an eye -- the lex talionis -- is imposed on the false witness. If he testifies falsely against the accused, and this is discovered by the judges, then he becomes subject to the penalty that would have been imposed on the victim. This threat brings civil sanctions into the picture. The witness comes under civil sanctions, which means that he comes under the laws of the civil covenant. But must he confess faith in the God of the civil covenant in order to come under its sanctions?
He was required by law to cast the first stone. Did this make him a judge? Wasn't he imposing judgment in the name of God? Yes, but only at the instruction of the court. He did not declare judgment; he merely contributed information to those who would declare judgment. As an agent of the court, he cast the first stone. He did not do this on his own authority. Because he was not a citizen, he did not evaluate the evidence, i.e., he did not serve as a judge. He did act on behalf of the court in casting the first stone. This sanction would have been imposed on him had he been convicted of perjury. He was under oath-bound negative civil sanctions. He was therefore bound by an oath of obedience, irrespective of the absence of his personal confession of faith in the God of the covenant. A civil oath invoked covenant sanctions: the stones of justice. If the court convicted the accused, the prosecution's witness would participate in the execution as one who was formally under the court's civil sanctions. But he was already under these civil sanctions as a resident of Israel.
The citizen was eligible to declare God's judgment as a judge.(5) The non-citizen did not possess this authority. A person did not have to be a citizen in order to testify. The casting of stones was not a mark of citizenship; it was a mark of subordination to the Mosaic civil covenant, including its sanctions. What was invoked by the non-citizen witness was not God's direct sanctions, either on Israel or on him; rather, it was God's indirect sanctions through the court. He who would be required by law to cast the first stone would also have the first stone cast at him if he was convicted of perjury in a capital trial. The sanction was valid for all those who came under the Mosaic civil covenant and who then committed capital crimes. This included strangers in the land. But if they subordinated themselves to these sanctions, they also had the authority to impose them, as agents of the court, though not as citizens. They served as agents of the court when they served as witnesses for the prosecution.
The Cost of Obtaining Accurate Information The punishment should fit the crime. This is the biblical principle of justice that undergirds the lex talionis. Similarly, the court's cost of obtaining accurate information should be proportional to the crime. A society that spends as much money in court to convict a bicycle thief as it does to convict a murder is indirectly subsidizing murderers. Resources are not unlimited. Court costs are positive. If the court is spending as much to prosecute bicycle thieves as murderers, the society will experience fewer stolen bicycles and more murders. The court should not require the same thoroughness of investigation in a minor case as it does where a person's life is on the line. A society that cannot allocate court expenses in terms of the severity of the criminal acts under examination will find itself burdened with injustice.(6)
The biblical law of perjury helps to balance the court's cost of obtaining information and the severity of the infractions. The court does not threaten a witness with the risk of subsequently being brought to trial and convicted of a capital crime for having lied regarding a minor crime. If the threat is too great, witnesses will not readily volunteer. On the other hand, witnesses in a capital crime will be hesitant to participate in a conspiracy to bring false information before the court. The court's benefit (i.e., reduced cost) of screening out false information by means of a threat of perjury sanctions is partially offset by its cost of not obtaining accurate information because of witnesses who are fearful of volunteering to testify under oath.
The Economics of Conspiracy
Because false testimony is easier for one person to commit than many, this law mandates multiple witnesses for the prosecution. "One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established" (v. 15). The testimony of one false witness is insufficient to convict the accused unless supporting impersonal evidence is very strong. But false witnesses involved in a conspiracy face a problem: they know that they are lying. They know that for their lie to be successful, the defense must not be able to prove collusion among the witnesses. But more than one person is involved in the deception. If one participant's conscience gets the better of him, he may reveal the existence of a conspiracy.
One way for the defense to encourage one of the participants in the conspiracy to admit the truth is to offer him future immunity for his true testimony and an accusation against the others. The principle of victim's rights allows the victim to offer forgiveness to anyone who has victimized him. He can be selective in this judgment. If the criminal has offered to confess his sin, the victim is in a legal position to forego the application of the biblically mandated sanctions.(7) The State must honor the victim's assessment.(8) In modern law, the criminal who testifies for the State is said to offer State's evidence. In a case of false witness, the confessing perjurer offers either victim's evidence or plaintiff's evidence.
Because of this possibility, the larger the conspiracy, the greater the likelihood that the conspiracy will be revealed by one of the participants. Betrayal does not require either a stricken conscience or an offer of immunity from the victim. The very nature of the motivation of secrecy can lead to a betrayal. The sense of power that knowing a secret conveys to the participants can itself lead to betrayal. Georg Simmel wrote in 1908: "The secret contains a tension that is dissolved in the moment of revelation. This moment constitutes the acme in the development of the secret; all of its charms are once more gathered in it and brought to a climax. . . . The secret, too, is full of the consciousness that it can be betrayed; that one holds the power of surprises, turns of fate, joy, destruction -- if only, perhaps, of self-destruction. For this reason, the secret is surrounded by the possibility and temptation of betrayal. . . ."(9) The betrayer becomes a big shot -- even bigger, perhaps, than what he would have been had he remained a cooperating participant in the conspiracy.
A prosecuting attorney is not allowed knowingly to bring in a false witness. Neither is a defense attorney. They are agents of the court, bound by the court's rules of procedure. A conspiracy to mislead the court brings the court's penalty on any attorney who knowingly uses a false witness to testify. The goal of the court is to obtain accurate information. A conspiracy to mislead the court is a serious infraction. It is an assault on the court and an assault on the accused.
By requiring multiple witnesses for the prosecution (accusation), the State makes possible cross examination of more than one person. Their stories can be compared and evaluated for consistency. Lies can be detected more easily. The prosecution has to prove its case. The defense has an easier time of it. The Bible does not teach explicitly that the accused must be assumed to be innocent, but the person making the accusation has a greater burden of proof. In this sense, the accused is presumed to be innocent. The two stories are not assumed to be of equal weight judicially. This would lead to a stalemate. In the case of a stalemate, the accused is not convicted. So, again, the implication is that the accused is presumed innocent.
Perjury Sanctions Threaten Both Parties If a man brings an accusation against another, and the accused says that the other man is not telling the truth, this is not necessarily the same as saying that the accuser is lying. The accuser may be misinformed. But if the accused says that the accuser is a false witness who is deliberately telling a lie, then the accused is putting the accuser at risk. The accused must not commit perjury. He must not accuse the other person of telling a lie if the accuser is telling the truth.
What if the accused person resorts to perjury? What are the consequences? The lex talionis principle applies. First, if he stole something, he owes double restitution to his victim (Ex. 22:4). But if in addition he has lied about the accuser, saying that the accuser has committed perjury, he has not merely stolen; he has attempted to place his accuser under penalties. The lying criminal will then have to pay double restitution on these penalties, as well as the original restitution payment. When the criminal compounds the sin, he compounds his obligation.
Consider the alternative interpretation: the convicted person does not owe double restitution for his false accusation against the accuser. If his ineffective lie on the witness stand goes unpunished, he owes double restitution for the original crime, which he would have owed anyway. Lying to the court would then be a rational decision: the criminal is no worse off by his false accusation against the victim, and he may reduce the likelihood of being convicted for the theft. This would subsidize lying on the witness stand. But biblical law's goal is to reduce criminal behavior and to protect the victim. Thus, the implication of this law is that lying to the court increases risk. Double restitution on the original infraction is insufficient. It repays the victim for the original infraction; it does not repay him for the second.
Priests and Judges The conflicting parties "shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days; And the judges shall make diligent inquisition." First, the joint assembly of priests and judges constituted a representative assembly. This assembly represented God. To stand before this assembly was to stand before the Lord. The priests and judges would hand down judgments in the name of the Lord: ecclesiastical and civil. They served as spokesmen for God in history. In civil affairs, a court speaks for God. Under the Mosaic covenant, the priests had to be present in this civil assembly. Just as the priesthood's representative agents had to blow the two trumpets in order for Israel's holy army to be lawfully assembled and sent into battle (Num. 10:5-8), so did priests have to be present at this court. The priests had a civil function in Mosaic Israel: to offer counsel regarding the written law. They also were in a position to excommunicate a false witness. They gathered information by being present in civil court. This did not restrict them from conducting a separate trial in a church court, but they were there to hear the evidence in civil court.
The judges conducted the inquiry, according to this text. The priests were there to provide counsel and legitimacy, but the civil representatives conducted the investigation. The court might hand down negative sanctions. The investigatory work of the court was therefore conducted by civil officers.
Today's courts are strictly civil. In the United States, a witness for decades was sworn in by having him repeat an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God, with his left hand on a Bible, Old and New Testaments, and his right hand pointed skyward. This was a Christian oath because of the presence of a Christian Bible. In the late twentieth century, this practice has been modified. Atheists may affirm that they will tell the truth. They need not invoke God's name or place a hand on the Bible. They come under the sanctions of the earthly court. They do not imply through affirmation their belief in a heavenly court. Their testimony must be accepted as equal in authority to any other witness's testimony. This is legitimate biblically. The witness is under the court's sanctions, just as a stranger was in Mosaic Israel.
The question arises: What about the presence of a priest on the court? Covenantally, there are no priests today, for the sons of Aaron are gone, and there is no altar of sacrifice. The office is as defunct as the office of prophet.(10) Does this fact invalidate the Mosaic law governing civil courts? Or is there an implied continuity of office from Old Covenant to New Covenant? Is the Trinitarian ecclesiastical minister the covenantal heir of the Mosaic priest? Should an ecclesiastical minister or ministers be present on the court to provide counsel and legitimacy? A civil magistrate is a minister (Rom. 13:4). He speaks in God's name. Must a civil court also include ecclesiastical ministers? To answer all this, we must first consider the structure on Mosaic civil government.
Federalism: Mosaic vs. Enlightenment The Mosaic law provided a system of federalism between church and State. The church was part of the federal judicial order. The civil government could not unilaterally speak in God's name when handing down formal decisions in which sanctions were involved. It could not unilaterally start a war nor decide between witnesses. In both cases, a representative of the church had to be present. This was true of Israel's supreme court (Deut. 17:8-13).(11)
Modern federalism seeks a balance of power and authority within the divisions of civil government: executive, legislative, and judicial; national, state, and local. But modern federalism is exclusively civil. It assumes that the church has neither a legitimate claim nor any legitimating function in civil government. The biblical doctrine of the separation of church and State has become a doctrine of exclusively secular authority: the separation of supernatural religion and State. It proclaims that those ministers known as civil magistrates possess exclusive authority to speak in the name of God in civil cases. The State is said to have exclusive jurisdiction -- law-speaking -- in applying physical and monetary negative sanctions. The theocracy of modern federalism is an exclusively civil theocracy. The autonomous corporate people rather than God is said to legitimize civil government. This corporate sovereign, whether Rousseau's General Will or Madison's "We, the People," must be represented by a voice of authority which speaks in the name of the sovereign and him only. This sovereign is seen as exclusively natural, not supernatural. Therefore, no ecclesiastical representative is said to possess lawful authority in civil matters except insofar as he may be a citizen, like any other citizen.(12) The church has no representation in the State. While there are exceptions to this general rule, such as bishops who sit in England's House of Lords, which does not initiate legislation, the West has moved toward the elimination of church authority in civil government since the late eighteenth century.
The doctrine of separation is justified by modern, post-Enlightenment Christians in the name of protecting the church from secular influence. But this argument cuts two ways. It is used by secularists be used to protect the State from Christian influence. The idea is that there is some neutral common law that derives its authority from something broader than the Bible or Christianity. This broader judicial authority is considered superior to biblical authority in the realm of politics, which today encompasses just about everything. The kingdom of politics is as comprehensive in its claims as is the kingdom of God. Christians today have accepted the majority of these claims, reserving only small zones of supposed autonomy from the kingdom of politics. These claims of immunity are constantly being challenged by the State. To accommodate the claims of the State, Christians have all but abandoned the ideal of the kingdom of God in history as a realm as comprehensive as Adam's kingdom. The suggestion that the Great Commission extends as far as Adam's Fall did is rejected by most Christians, for such a suggestion raises the issue of theocracy: the rule of God's law. The Great Commission has been redefined to include the Christian family, the Christian church, the humanist-accredited college and theological seminary, and the Christian school -- also state-certified, in most cases -- but not the civil government.(13)
This passage proves that in the Mosaic civil order, the priesthood had a role to play in civil government. To deny that this role has been transferred to the ecclesiastical ministry under the New Covenant is to argue for a covenantal discontinuity. The New Covenant's abolition of the Mosaic priesthood is the obvious way to make such a claim. But if the abolition of the priesthood becomes the basis of the discontinuity, then some aspect of the Mosaic priesthood that was connected to animal sacrifices has to be associated with civil justice. With the abolition of the sacrifices, the ecclesiastical ministry has supposedly lost its role in civil justice. If, however, the basis of the priest's participation in a civil court was the priest's expertise in biblical law and the political need to create a federalism of covenantal authority in civil justice, then there is no civil discontinuity between the Mosaic priesthood and the New Covenant's ecclesiastical eldership. If so, then modern humanistic civil justice is illegitimate biblically and must be reformed. The monopoly of the State -- the formally secular State -- over civil justice then cannot find justification in the Bible. This is my view.
The doctrine of the complete separation of church and State has been a convenient way for Christians to escape any responsibility for dealing with questions of civil government and political theory from an explicitly biblical viewpoint. They have preferred to defer to Enlightenment Whigs or to Enlightenment social democrats on such matters. To justify this deferral, they have adopted some version of secular natural law theory,(14) long after Darwinism had completely undermined the philosophical basis of secular natural law theory.(15)
Conclusion The text says that the judges had the responsibility of investigating and evaluating the conflicting testimonies of rival parties. They had to decide if one person was deliberately lying. If he was, then he was to be placed under a civil sanction. The sanction was clear: whatever penalty the State would have imposed on the victim had the testimony of the false witness been believed. Equity in this instance was based on lex talionis: eye for eye. The justification was the elimination of a public evil: "so shalt thou put the evil away from among you."
Then why were the priests there? The text does not say. I think there are three reasons. First, to provide counsel regarding God's written law. Second, gather information in order to declare a false witness excommunicate. There would be a double witness against false witness. Third, to provide legitimacy to the court.
There had to be civil sanctions if there was civil law. The sanction was to be commensurate with the infraction. Because the sanction was the same in both cases, the rule of law was affirmed. There could be no favoritism on the part of the court. The fear of offering false witness was to be comparable to the fear of being convicted by false witness. The false witness had to consider the consequences of his testimony. He had to count the cost. He had to consider the damage that his testimony would cause another person. To assist him in his process of cost accounting, the Mosaic law specified that if he was shown to be a false witness, he would suffer the same penalty that he had sought to inflict on his victim.
There is no indication that this aspect of the Mosaic law has been annulled by the New Covenant. On the contrary, the New Covenant affirms the principle. More than this: the New Covenant order was sealed forever by God's final judgment against Israel's false testimony. The false testimony given against Jesus Christ -- that He was not who and what He said He was -- led to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, thereby ending forever the Old Covenant order. The Sanhedrin had sentenced Christ to death, knowing that their procedures were illegal, even in terms of their own law.(16) God sentenced Old Covenant Israel to death, a sentence carried out in A.D. 70. Jesus had warned His disciples of that day, a day foreshadowed by false witnesses: "Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" (Matt. 24:23-27).
Is there continuity of the other aspect of this law, i.e., the presence of priests in a civil court's procedure? The presence of representatives of both church and State made the covenantal implications clear. The State must not hand down judgments irrespective of the church's interpretation of what constitutes righteous judgment. The priest was a counsellor and a legitimizer. He did not conduct the actual investigation, but he could respond to questions regarding equity.(17) His main assignments in this case were to serve as a source of legitimacy for the court and to protect the citizenry from a monopolistic civil government that would refuse to acknowledge any authority but its own in rendering civil judgment. There was to be no absolute separation of church and State in Mosaic Israel.
The would-be false witness was warned to count the cost of his action. This cost was the same as the cost borne by the victim of his false testimony. There was an equality of sanctions. This is why Adam's rebellion was attempted regicide and parricide. This is why there was a death penalty attached to the eating of the tree's fruit. Adam had in principle agreed to act as the serpent's agent in bringing a covenant lawsuit against God by publicly challenging God's supposedly false claim of absolute authority. By violating the tree's boundary, he handed down judgment against God in the name of the serpent. The proof that his accusation was false was his own death. He had failed to count the cost accurately.
God, on the day of judgment, will serve as a witness. If He has granted salvation by grace through faith, He will serve as a witness for the defense.
Footnotes:
1. Deuteronomy 1:17; 16:19; II Chronicles 19:7; Proverbs 24:23; 28:21; Lamentations 4:16; Acts 10:34; Romans 2:11; Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 3:25; James 2:1, 9; I Peter 1:17.
2. On the modern sociological distinction between class and status, see Robert A. Nisbet, The Sociological Tradition (New York: Basic Books, 1966), ch. 5.
3. "For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?" (James 2:2-6).
4. This assumes that the common law's prohibition against double jeopardy is enforced. I regard this principle is as biblical. When God declares a man not guilty, he is forever not guilty. The State in this sense is to imitate God. When double jeopardy is not honored by civil law, this restrains the State from becoming tyrannical, bankrupting innocent people by endless trials. The principle does not restrict the enforcement of ecclesiastical law. Gary North, Crossed Fingers: How the Liberals Captured the Presbyterian Church (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1996), pp. 831-32.
5. In modern times, a member of a jury serves as a judge: one who evaluates the law's application to the evidence.
6. In November, 1996, a libel trial became the longest trial in English history: over 292 days. The lawsuit was brought by the McDonald's Corporation against a pair of unemployed people who had accused the company of having promoted poor nutrition, exploited children, encouraged litter, mistreated animals, and destroyed rain forests. Sarah Lyall, "Britain's Big `McLibel Trial' (It's McEndless, Too)," New York Times (Nov. 29, 1996). The couple eventually lost the case, but they had no money to pay the plaintiff's huge legal fees, as English law requires.
7. Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990), pp. 294-95.
8. Ibid., p. 296.
9. The Sociology of Georg Simmel, translated and edited by Kurt H. Wolf (New York: Free Press, 1950), pp. 333-34.
10. See above, Chapter 32.
11. See Chapter 39.
12. In the United States Constitution (1788), the outlawing of religious test oaths for U.S. government office-holders was the means of asserting this autonomy (Article VI, Section III). Gary North, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989), pp. 385-85, 389-92.
13. Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., The Greatness of the Great Commission: The Christian Enterprise in a Fallen World (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990).
14. Cf. Thomas McWhorter, Res Publica (Nutley, New Jersey: Craig Press, 1966).
15. R. J. Rushdoony, The Biblical Philosophy of History (Nutley, New Jersey: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1969), p. 7.
16. Under the Pharisees' interpretation of Judaic law, if the court paid a witness, this invalidated his testimony. Bekhoreth 4:6, in The Mishnah, edited by Herbert Danby (New York: Oxford University Press, [1933] 1987), p. 534. The court had paid Judas 30 pieces of silver to identify Jesus, i.e., to provide witness that this was the man they planned to accuse. "Then Judas, which had betrayeth him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that" (Mat. 27:3-4). Then the execution of Jesus took place. Judas repented of his act before the sentence was carried out. The Jews did not. Judas paid with his life (v. 5). So did Old Covenant Israel.
17. This indicates that God's examination of Adam and Eve was done in His judicial capacity as king rather than priest.
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