Where in Genesis do we find the first evidence of government and law?
The question assumes that where there is government there must be law also.
I look forward to your insightful answers!
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GENESIS through the lens of Anthropology (Founded 21 March 2007)
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About Me
- Alice C. Linsley
- My book "The First Lords of the Earth: An Anthropological Study" is available on Amazon. The book identifies the social structure and religious beliefs of the early Hebrew ruler-priest caste (6000-4000 years ago), their dispersion out of Africa, their territorial expansion, trade routes, and influence on the populations of the Fertile Crescent and Ancient Near East.
4 comments:
1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
Humanity is given delegated authority over other creatures. The first law is essentially "environmental regulation"!
2:24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Family law/definition of marriage.
3:16 To the woman he said,
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you."
Hmmmmm...more family law, but symptomatic of the fall. Thomas Hobbes - without government/law, we live in "the state of war" and are basically animals.
4:17 Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch.
A city implies communal living and probably brings primitive law with it.
My guesses to get started.
I love your idea of the first law being environmental regulation! Boy! We've sure violated that one.
The last three ideas suggest that the earliest laws/rules/taboos addressed familial or kin-clan relationships. Who was permitted to marry whom; residence, inheritance, lines of descent, etc. But we still don't have explicit evidence of government with laws. You're on the right track though! Keep thinking along these kinship lines.
Genesis 1:3 And God said, let there be light: and there was light-the forces governing the universe obey God. Lisa
Very interesting, Lisa. The Logos is generative. God speaks and it is. This indeed must be the first Law and the ultimate government.
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