Direct and Indirect Causation in Biblical Law 1)

Abstract

The first point is this. As is well known, some ancient regulations attach legal consequences only to the most direct causation, say, a man hitting his slave with a stick and the slave dying there and then 2). It would be quite wrong to conclude that a restriction of this sort is due to a primitive incapacity for seeing through a less direct causation. The same code which contains the statute just quoted also contains one imposing liability on a man who digs a pit into which another man's animal falls 3). It might perhaps be argued that the two statutes, though in the same code, date from different periods, the rule concerning the slave being prior to that concerning the pit. Even if correct, this would not alter the principal point here to be established: that however far back in time we go, we find a full understanding of the most lengthy and complicated chain of events linking cause and effect. The opposite view is founded on a naive belief (which captured the world of anthropology, ancient history and classics in the 19th century) in a progress of mankind from childishness to intelligence. The narrative of David and Uriah is old. No murder could be less