Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/28

 Chapters from the Biblical Law. statute : " And every daughterthat possesseth an inheritance in any tribe of the children of Israel shall be wife unto one of the family of the tribe of her father, that the children of Israel may enjoy every man the inheritance of his fathers. Neither shall the inheritance remove from one tribe to another tribe; but every one of the tribes of the children of Israel shall keep himself to his own in heritance." So that the special custom of the tribe of Manasseh, through the medium of the case of Zelophehad's daughters, be came the general law for all Israel. The interest of this case lies in the fact that it is a guide to the manner in which the ancient customs of the wandering Hebrew tribes crystallized into law, and shows how the local or special custom of the dominant tribe might become the general law of the land. For the influence of the tribe of Manasseh was very great. It was a divi sion of the great tribe of Joseph, the ruling tribe in Northern Palestine. To him who considers the Pentateuch the work of Moses, all of it literally inspired by-

God, the case of Zelophehad's daughters has no special interest or importance. To him the whole Bible is unintelligible; for he necessarily misses the point, that the records here preserved extend over centu ries of time, and represent different stages of legal and social progression. To the lawyer familiar with the history of the com mon and Roman law, and the origins of legal institutions, the Bible will become more and more interesting, according to his ability to disencumber his mind from the notions engendered by Sunday-school methods of Bible reading. For the Penta teuch is not a unit, — a single work written by one man. It contains the germ, the first shoot, and the fully developed legal system, all mingled, but perfectly distinguishable, and capable of being put together in the order of their natural growth. He will not be hindered from using the Bible as a guide in ethical matters, nor, by approaching it in a spirit of free inquiry, will he lose anything except the prejudices which are unfortu nately created by dogmatic tradition.