US Tort-Law as a 'Bible's Child'

Abstract or Introduction

A central idea of the Holy Bible is the concept of right and wrong. Following this idea a whole set of commandments and prohibitions, such as "...Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not commit adultery..." or "...that ye love another"1, are developed in this book establishing an unique moral system. As Christians are told about good and evil, defined in Bible′s rules and construed by Theologians, their believe comprises a complete legal system as well. As it is typical for legal systems the religious basic principles are not just meant as signposts on one′s way through life, but are enforced by the common practice of reward and punishment, too. God as the final individual′s judge is believed to decide all cases, if a person′s soul will be blessed with "life everlasting" or will be sentenced to be "cast into the lake of fire." Concerning its methods the Christian set of rules is therefore well comparable to other legal systems such as the US-Common Law. In its concrete content quite different of course, rewards as the guaranty of the Civil Rights and punishments as imprisonment are to be found here as a similar framework , too. Since the Christian believe undoubtedly has had a strong influence on modern western moral concepts, in the following part it will be examined, how strong the Bible′s impact on recent legal terms and the concept of modern US-law of intentional torts and product liability has been and if other influences must be recognised.