Description: A foundational law promoting worship of the God of the Exodus (the Decalogue's First Commandment) has little meaning without a government policy permitting such worship. Robert Kimball Shinkoskey discusses policies in the Bible which enact freedom of religion for prophets and other dissidents who work to restore worship of the God of their ancestors. In the process, he challenges the theological idea of the cessation of prophecy. New revelation from God is necessary to rescue ancient Israel from backsliding and restore her to a place of security and tranquility in a Mediterranean...

Description: An inevitable feature of democratic governments is the tendency of their chief executives to pursue domestic policies and foreign wars without the consent of the people. America's own presidents have studiously ignored Congress and the states and have begun to act like all-powerful kings. U.S. presidents make wild promises to get elected, use temporary crises to expand personal power, publish propaganda to divert attention away from their actions, pass out benefits to favored sections of the population in order to get re-elected, and suppress segments of the population who...

Description:
Early literary man learned that free speech and free labor were frequently suppressed or obliterated by powerful governments in the Near Eastern world. This is the source of the Bibles passionate interest in liberation from political and economic repression. Moses and his people in Egypt, for example, experienced the rapid disintegration of their traditional right to religious liberty and self-directed labor. They attempted to rectify the situation at Sinai and in Canaan. Mesopotamians and Egyptians, Greeks, Sicilians, and Romans labored against tyranny as well. Robert Kimball...

For 2,000 years Western culture has leaned heavily on the Ten Commandments for guidance in religion, ethics, and morality. The author, drawing upon modern Biblical science, demonstrates that those laws were designed for an entirely different purpose--to provide alternatives to repressive policies Israel reeled under in Egypt. The Decalogue is a political document designed to limit government intrusion into private lives. Its precepts deal with matters like political parties and intellectual freedom, central banking and taxation, occupational choice, free economy, humane working conditions,...