Blasphemy: Verbal Offense Against the Sacred, from Moses to Salman Rushdie"What society considers blasphemy - a verbal assault against the sacred - is a litmus test of the standards it believes to be necessary to preserve unity, order, and morality. Society has always condemned as blasphemy what it regards as an abuse of liberty." "Looking across the centuries - from Moses to Salman Rushdie - at writings and speech that societies have and have not tolerated, Leonard Levy demonstrates that throughout history, prosecutions for blasphemy have been tinged with political considerations. Socrates, Aristotle, Jesus, Michael Servetus, Giordano Bruno, George Fox, William Penn, Thomas Paine, Edward Moxon, Roberto Rossellini, Martin Scorsese, and the 1976 editor of the British journal Gay News are among those whose "blasphemies" Levy examines in their historical contexts." "Professor Levy traces the varied meanings of the offense in Western law - from the ancient Hebrew crime of cursing God by name to the modern crime of ridiculing God or professing atheistical principles that insult the religious feelings of Christians. He explores the blurring of meaning that occurred as at various times blasphemy became nearly indistinguishable from heresy, idolatry, sacrilege, nonconformity, sedition, treason, profanity, obscenity, and breach of peace. He shows, too, how frequently and ferociously Christians have persecuted each other for blasphemy, with Catholics pursuing and killing one another over differences of interpretation, then Protestants - all of whom once seemed blasphemous to Catholics - turning on each other, and the more established denominations punishing Unitarians, Baptists, Quakers, and Presbyterians." "We see how in the United States, where blasphemy was initially denounced in sermons and statutes, prosecutions became less frequent and more isolated as people grew increasingly indifferent to aberrant beliefs and First Amendment freedoms were expanded by the courts. Although prosecutions ceased entirely in 1971 in America and in 1979 in England, Levy argues that the threat of prosecution is not dead. The laws still exist, and the U.S. Supreme Court has never found a blasphemy law to be unconstitutional." "Levy also makes it clear that while past sanctions against blasphemy have inhibited all manner of cultural, political, scientific, and literary expression, we also pay a price for the current extraordinary expansion in the scope of permissible speech. We have become, he says, not only a free society but a "numb" society. We are beyond outrage."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Contents
Origins of the Offense | 3 |
The Jewish Trial of Jesus | 15 |
Christianity Transforms Blasphemy | 31 |
Copyright | |
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Anabaptists Anglican anti-Trinitarians antinomian argument Arian atheist authority Baptists believed Bible Biddle bishop blas blasphemous libel blasphemy laws blasphemy prosecutions burned Carlile Carlile's Catholic century charge Chief Justice Christ Christianity church Church of England claimed common law condemned constituted convicted court crime criminal cursing death declared defendant deism deists denial denied dissenters divine doctrine England English expression faith freedom Freethinker Freethought Gospels guilty heresy heretics History Holy Holyoake Ibid imprisonment indictment insult James Nayler Jesus Jewish Jews John judge jury Kneeland law of blasphemy libel liberty Lodowick Muggleton London Lord matter ment Muggleton Nayler obscenity offense opinions Parliament persecution person phemy political preached Presbyterian prison profanity protection published punishment Quakers radical Ranters reason religion religious reprinted reviling Sanhedrin Scriptures sects seditious sentence Servetus society Socinianism speech Spirit statute Testament Thomas toleration tract trial Trinity truth Unitarian William Woolston words worship wrote York