Blasphemy

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Blasphemy

In the most general sense blasphemy is an offense, in word, symbol, or action, against the sacred. The sacred may be the deity, a person, an object, or a doctrine. Blasphemy is usually associated with monotheistic religions—religions that recognize and worship one god. The offense can also occur in polytheistic religions—religions with more than one god. It is often the case, however, that polytheistic religions would use "sacrilege" to connote similar concepts.

The concept of blasphemy in the Hebrew Bible is limited in scope. In the Mosaic law is the regulation "Do not blaspheme (or revile) God or curse the ruler of your people" (Exodus 22:28). The text, however, gives no further indication at this point of what it means. The most notable text on blasphemy in the Hebrew Bible is in Leviticus 24:10–23. In this story, a man whose mother was an Israelite and whose father was an Egyptian fought with another Israelite in the camp. During the fight the former "blasphemed the name of the Lord with a curse" (Leviticus 24:11). The Israelites kept the accused blasphemer in custody until God indicated what should be done. The word came through Moses that the man should be taken outside the camp and stoned to death.

This event in Leviticus indicates that the penalty for blaspheming the name of God was death. Further, interpreters generally agree that the offense against God consisted of pronouncing aloud his ineffable name. Talmudic teaching later expanded this tradition by declaring that in a trial of one having blasphemed by speaking God's name aloud, the exact words of the offender could be repeated only before the judges alone. All others present at the trial had to be dismissed from the room. And having heard the name, the judges stood and tore their clothes as a sign of their grief and mourning over this sinful act.

The New Testament accepted the Jewish teaching on what constituted blasphemy and added the offense of rejecting Jesus as the Christ and speaking evil of him or his actions. Jesus himself was accused of blasphemy on several occasions (e.g., Matthew 9:3, 26:65; John 10:33). But Christian interpreters of these and other verses take the meaning to be that it was Jesus' accusers who actually committed the blasphemy by reviling and not believing in Jesus.

Islam does not have any laws or prohibitions against blasphemy as such. The Qur'an does include teaching against infidelity and apostasy. Infidelity, the Islamic concept perhaps most closely related to blasphemy, is the intentional rejection of God and divine revelation. Islamic law further makes clear that any insult to God, to Muhammad, or to any part of divine revelation is a crime. Without actually using the term, Islam generally considers blasphemy to be any statement that is an indication of apostasy. This concept of blasphemy is more or less equivalent to heresy, which is any teaching at variance with orthodox Islamic teaching. Heresy not only is a crime against Islam but also can be understood as a crime against the state.

The Christian Church has at times made a similar identification between blasphemy and heresy. In the first four Christian centuries many competing forms of Christianity spread around the Mediterranean world. These forms variously claimed that Jesus was human and not divine, or divine and not human; that he had one nature and two wills; that he had two natures and two wills; and so on. Controversies raged over the concept of the Trinity, its nature, and the supposed relationship of the persons of the Trinity. The various advocates of the competing positions frequently leveled the accusation of blasphemy at their opponents. The early Christians used the accusations as a tool to try to win support for their differing positions. Through these early centuries, as an orthodox Christian consensus emerged and was codified at the Council of Nicea (325 c.e.), the emergent majority moved away from calling dissenting opinions blasphemy. "Heresy" was the term that emerged after the great councils of the church established an orthodox doctrine. For the church in the Middle Ages heresy was a more useful concept than blasphemy because it was not weighed down or confined by biblical teaching as to what it meant. Therefore, church leaders could bend or alter the term to fit a variety of situations.

During and after the Reformation in the sixteenth century the Roman Catholic Church leveled the charge of blasphemy against Protestants. Protestants, in turn, later charged Anabaptists, Quakers, Baptists, and others with blasphemy.

Through the centuries following the Reformation the churches used the threat of the allegation of blasphemy with decreasing frequency. However, there was a surge in the number of blasphemy trials in the United States and England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the majority of the cases the issues had more to do with maintaining the peace of a community than with any supposed blasphemy. By the turn of the twentieth century the number of occurrences had again decreased.

In the United States there have been few blasphemy trials in the twentieth century. Even so, several states still have blasphemy laws on the books. However, the current interpretation of the First Amendment by the U.S. Supreme Court renders these laws essentially unenforceable.

From time to time various religious groups still raise the concept of blasphemy. Most recently two specific cases have drawn a good deal of attention, and both occurred in 1988. The first had to do with the release of the film The Last Temptation of Christ. In the film, based on a novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, Jesus is depicted as having the experience of coming down from the cross and living a full and happy life. He married, had children, and lived to his old age. This is his last temptation and one that he ultimately overcomes. Even so, conservative Christians in the United States were outraged by the idea at the heart of the film. Protests were mounted around the country. The film played in movie theaters for a short time before going to video.

The second occurrence was related neither to the Christian tradition nor to the United States specifically. It was the controversy surrounding the publication of The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. The reason this case is mentioned here is that while Islam does not actually have a doctrine on blasphemy, the popular understanding of Rushdie's offense was that he had committed the crime. The Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran rendered a nonbinding decision, called a fatwa, that the book indicated Rushdie's apostasy and proclaimed that the author should die. Popular media interpreted the fatwa as a death sentence. Rushdie was forced to live in seclusion. Even now, after Khomeini's death, some consider the death proclamation still in effect, though it has been officially lifted.

Blasphemy has had different meanings at different times. The threat of punishment for this offense has been used by many majorities to silence dissenting voices and to maintain stability in both church and state.