Willis : Hebrew Law 
17 
the child followed the status of the mother, altho it may have 
been because it was held that a stranger as well as a native 
was punishable for blasphemy of the name of Jehovah. At 
any rate, if such was not made the law by this decision it was 
by subsequent codification and revision of the law . 57 The final 
question was the punishment, and this was fixed as death by 
stoning. Accordingly the judgment was carried out, and the 
blasphemer was stoned by all the congregation, which means 
the select men of the people who acted as executioners . 58 
Other cases of trials at law and of legal transactions, re- 
ported in the Old Testament and discussed elsewhere in this 
article, are the Trial of Adam and Eve , 59 the Case of Cain and 
Abel , 60 Abraham’s Purchase of the Cave of Machpelah , 61 the 
Case of Jacob and Laban , 62 the Sale of Esau’s Birthright , 63 
the Matter of Isaac’s Will , 64 the Case of Jephthah’s Daugh- 
ter , 65 the Case of Adonijah, Abiathar, and Joab , 66 the Judg- 
ment of Solomon , 67 the Trial of Jeremiah , 68 and the Trial of 
Jesus . 69 The trial of Job, which has been an excuse for in- 
quisitions, was not according to Hebrew legal procedure, and 
was not a Hebrew precedent. There must have been a great 
many other cases decided, which have not been preserved, and 
they added their contribution to the growing body of Hebrew 
law. Some of the cases reported occurred before the time of 
Moses, altho the writers who reported them evidently read into 
them some of the principles of procedure of a later time with 
which they were familiar, and some of them occurred after 
the time when the codifications began ; but most of them oc- 
curred in the period between the time of Moses and the time of 
the codifications, when Hebrew law was in its formative period. 
They constitute the judicial precedents of the Hebrew common 
law. They are only a few in number. Yet, tho comparatively 
few, they are sufficient so that, if we had no other sources of 
information, we could almost reconstruct the principles of 
Hebrew law. They give us a fairly adequate idea of the II e- 
57 24 Lev. 15-16. 
58 24 Lev. 10-14, 23. 
59 2 Gen. 4—3 Gen. 24. 
60 4 Gen. 1-16. 
61 23 Gen. 1-20. 
62 31 Gen. 
63 2 5 Gen. 29-34. 
64 27 Gen. 1—28 Gen. 9. 
65 11 Judg. 29-40. 
66 1 I Kings 5-11, 34. 
67 3 I Kings 16-28. 
68 26 Jer. 1-24. 
69 14 Mark 53-65 ; 26 Matt. 57-68 ; 22 Luke 54-71 ; 18 John 12-27. 
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