Victim's Rights: The Biblical View of Civil Justice

An Economic Commentary on the Bible

by Gary North

Dr. Gary North sets out the biblical view of crime and punishment in this title. Too often in modern legal proceedings the victim is punished more severely than the criminal. The case law of Scripture provides a workable antidote to modern injustice in our courts of law. The 17 chapters of this 300-page book are an extract and expansion of material found in North's colossal Tools of Dominion. Here North sets out the biblical view of crime and punishment, arguing that in all cases biblical law works to restore the victims while punishing the criminal - the reverse of the modern judicial practice, which leaves the victim in his suffering and seeks to rehabilitate the criminal. North takes up case by case the teachings on crime and punishment handed down by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, discusses what these meant in that society, and suggests implications for today.

Genres: Theology

316 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1990

About the author

Gary North received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside. He served on the Senior Staff of the Foundation for Economic Education, in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, and was the president of the Institute for Christian Economics. Dr. North’s essays and reviews have appeared in three dozen magazines and journals, including The Wall Street Journal, National Review, The American Spectator, and others.

Reviews

[Josiah Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

North tackles the subject of Civil Justice, tracing it back to Old Testament case laws. What exactly does the general equity of the law look like for Victim's today, specifically. It has been a well covered subject in theonomic circles to speak about what to do to the perpetrator of a crime. But what is done for the victims of those crimes. Sometimes that is a restitutionary response, as in the question of what should we do for the victim who falls in an uncovered pit. And other times that is a preemptive response, as in finding an uncovered pit before someone falls in.

North is consistent in his responses and gave me several things to chew on. Still trying to decide if I'm chewing on the meat or the bone.

[Tim Mcclain · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The United States is the world's leader in incarceration with 2.2 million people currently in the nation's prisons or jails -- a 500% increase over the past thirty years” (February 10, 2016, The Sentencing Project). We find such figures staggering and we want to see change, yet the way we are approaching the problem now is the definition of insanity: we keep doing things the same way and expecting different results. And as a matter of fact, with this tactic over the past two centuries, things have just gotten worse and worse. Prison has proven itself not to be the answer. What, then, is the answer?

The principle of lex talionis—eye for an eye (the punishment shall fit the crime)—“is essential to all of life,” as North says. God’s law is the only way of insuring equity for all people. Yet, we have set aside God’s eternal law for man’s law, thus destroying equality before the law and making the State divine, and thus, ultimately lawless itself. And consequently, the victim, the one who should be recompensed for crimes against him, often winds up being left out in the cold. Reading this book—if you dare—will certainly challenge your thinking on just why a sovereign God’s system, as He shows us in the Old Testament, is far superior than anything we could come up with separately on which to build a society, and the only genuine and fair way to govern. Granted, much of this book is very hard to swallow and even shocking (I have to admit that there are some points in it that even I am struggling with), but the reason is largely that even we as Christians have gotten far away from understanding God’s justice by adopting a very humanistic way of thinking in which we often fail to remember that His thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are His ways our ways. Even though it is now 26 years old, the principles in this brilliantly reasoned book are just as relevant now as to any time in history and to any country. We have a long, long way to go to get there, and it will require radical change in our collective thinking, but the answers this book proposes are well worth considering by any thinking person.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is worth reading, despite its methodological flaws. The author provides a lot of very interesting insights into the reason for a number of Old Testament laws, that I have not heard before. This is the positive aspect of the attention to detail that Theonomy brings about. In addition, North effectively critiques modern evangelical views of politics and law. (However, he implies that theonomy is the only alternative)

The negative aspect of this book is a very rigid and ideological approach. There is a theological framework (and a certain interpretation of Austrian economics) that is applied across the board, even to texts where it doesn't seem to make sense.

Also, in areas where a literal application of theonomy would lead to an absurd or impractical result (public roads, speed limits, fire codes, etc.), North either applies a prooftext very broadly or just makes an assertion without providing the detailed exegesis that supposedly is necessary in order to have just law. I don't personally have any problem with laws that are simply based on common sense, but isn't that "autonomous reasoning" and "humanism" under theonomy?

[D Steven Ledingham · Rating 1 out of 5]

We always get crackpot radical extremist in nearly all movements but Gary North takes the cake! He sounds just like Rousas Rushdoony. Reconstructionism takes Calvinism to an entirely new level and North loves to speak like an authority and ride that wave until he created hell on Earth for anyone who has any faith other then what Reconstructionism-Dominionism-Nationalism-and believes in masculine white supremacy he supports.
For those already concerned about a Narcissistic, Jealous, demanding God as a dictator over all his followers, well we should be really concerned about the kool-aide he wants all of us to drink.
Unless you enjoy Hitler style wet dreams, avoid this like it will kill you, because it will.
I find his comments repulsive.

[Aurora Grace · Rating 1 out of 5]

Despite his insistence that anyone who deviates from the bronze age law code set down in Exodus and Deuteronomy be stoned to death by friends, family, and neighbors, Gary North wants you to know that he's not a bad guy. Just look at this book, in which he argues that the victims of crimes in ancient Israel could reduce the sentence of death if they wanted. Such compassion!

[Thomas Little · Rating 2 out of 5]

North is not qualified and he is clearly biased in his Biblical commentaries. Reconstructionism is regarded as a heresy by most real Christian theologians. Read other major Bible commentaries like the Anchor series or the Interpreter commentary, much better and more lucid and scholarly. North lives in an ideological bubble and a mutual admiration internet society of conservative extremists.

[Joshua Horn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started this book but didn't make it very far before giving up. I appreciate that North takes God's law seriously, and that gets him an extra star from me. But I quickly came to the conclusion that Victim's Rights Theonomy is imposing an interpretive grid onto the law that I do not think can be derived from it, and that I don't think is consistent with it when you get down to the details.

[Jacob Pippin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Game changer right here, a look at biblical justice.

[Austin Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book, however, I'm not fully persuaded of all the ins and outs of his argument.

[Benjamin Glaser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like all of North's books this one is full of good prose with the kind of witty one-liners that is fairly normal for his work. It is fairly controversial to be against the prison industrial complex and the arbitrary and vindictive criminal justice system in our day, but Dr. North does a commendable job of showing how unbiblical the anabaptist conception of the "penitentiary" is and how the Scriptures define justice et al. The author does an excellent job of showing how Biblical Law is far more fair and less onerous to victims (and in most cases to criminals as well) than the way things are set up today

The criticism of this particular work are also fairly common for Gary North's work. For one he has a tendency in works post 1987 to a fault slavishly follow Ray Sutton's 5-Point Covenant model and for another everything is seemingly reduced to economic categories.

All that being said it is a worthwhile read that is honestly pretty simple to follow and read.

[Peter Clegg · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are some difficult views presented in this book. I'm not sure how they could be applied in today's society. That being said, I believe this is still a much needed book for American Christians to read. It is a God and Scripture centered view of justice that is much needed in our secular humanist baptized society. Highly recommended.

[David Holford · Rating 2 out of 5]

See my original review for the journal Contra Mundum in 1993 http://www.contra-mundum.org/cm/revie...

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to try Gary North for the first time, this might be the place to start. Forget everything you may have heard about social justice, and take a look at victim's 'rights' revealed by God in His Word.