The Principle
Anti-blasphemy laws - statutes criminalizing speech or expression that insults or defames God, sacred scriptures, or religious figures - represent one of the oldest categories of law in human history. From ancient Israelite codes prescribing death for the blasphemer to 21st-century legislation in Pakistan, Iran, and Germany, the prohibition on attacking the divine name has proven one of the most durable legal inheritances of the biblical tradition and one of the most contested.
Biblical Foundation
The Third Commandment (Exodus 20:7) commands: 'You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.' This is not merely an ethical injunction but the seed of a legal prohibition: the divine name carries a sanctity the community is obligated to enforce. Leviticus 24:10-16 narrates the case of a man who blasphemed the divine name during a fight and records God's verdict: 'Anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him.' This prescription - death for blasphemy, carried out by the whole community - became the model for subsequent law.
Exodus 22:28 adds a related prohibition: 'Do not blaspheme God or curse the ruler of your people' - a text that linked blasphemy to political sedition in societies where the king ruled by divine appointment, generating laws that served both religious and political functions.
The New Testament adds complexity. Stephen is convicted of blasphemy before the Sanhedrin (Acts 6:11-13) and Jesus himself is charged with blasphemy for claiming divine authority (Mark 14:64) - cases that early Christian writers treated as warnings about the abuse of blasphemy charges to suppress inconvenient truth. The martyr tradition embedded in Christianity a permanent skepticism about blasphemy prosecutions as instruments of persecution.
Historical Transmission
Roman law developed the concept of maiestas - lese-majesty, injury to imperial majesty - which became intertwined with blasphemy against the gods in the late empire, particularly after Constantine. Medieval canon law elaborated extensive prohibitions on heresy and blasphemy, and secular rulers cooperated in enforcement through inquisitorial proceedings. The English common law offense of blasphemous libel was recognized by courts in the 17th century and codified under Charles II, with the rationale being both theological (the honor of God) and social (public religion as the foundation of civil order).
The Scottish Blasphemy Act of 1661 prescribed death; the English law, though rarely enforced in the 18th century, remained on the books until 2008. The last successful prosecution in England for blasphemous libel was Whitehouse v. Gay News (1977), brought against a poem depicting Jesus in a sexual context. The offense was abolished by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008.
Key Champions
The most significant recent institutional defender of blasphemy laws has been the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which pushed the UN Human Rights Council to adopt resolutions against 'defamation of religion' between 2005 and 2011 - a secularized reformulation of the blasphemy concept that was ultimately abandoned in the face of Western opposition.
On the opposing side, the Enlightenment produced a powerful anti-blasphemy tradition. Voltaire argued that prosecuting blasphemy was incompatible with a free society. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (1859) treated blasphemy prosecutions as model cases of the tyranny of prevailing opinion. The civil liberties tradition that eventually secured the repeal of blasphemy laws in Western democracies was partly driven by dissenting Christian traditions - Quakers, Baptists, Unitarians - that had themselves suffered under such laws.
Modern Application
Over 70 nations retain blasphemy laws in some form. Pakistan's Penal Code Sections 295-B and 295-C provide for life imprisonment and death respectively for blasphemy against the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad - laws that have generated hundreds of prosecutions and multiple extrajudicial killings. Ireland abolished its blasphemy law only in 2018 after a public referendum. Germany's Penal Code Section 166 prohibits disturbing public peace through defamation of religious beliefs.
The United States has never enacted federal blasphemy legislation, partly because of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause and partly because of the influential disestablishment tradition of Roger Williams and Thomas Jefferson, who argued that God did not need human law to defend his honor.
Scholarly Debate
Legal scholars disagree sharply about the relationship between blasphemy law and free speech. Jeremy Waldron's The Harm in Hate Speech (2012) argues that some forms of speech cause dignitary harm to religious communities that the law may legitimately address - providing a secular rationale for blasphemy-adjacent regulations. Against this, Brian Leiter's Why Tolerate Religion? (2013) argues that religion should receive no special legal protection beyond what any other system of belief receives. The theological debate mirrors the legal one: whether the honor of God is something human law can or should protect, or whether - as many Reformers argued - God is perfectly capable of defending his own honor without human legal assistance.
Comparative Perspective
Blasphemy law illustrates a deep tension in Western legal culture between protecting religious communities from contemptuous attack and the liberal tradition of free expression that emerged partly from dissenting Christian communities. The Reformation emphasis on conscience and the right to read Scripture generated communities willing to criticize dominant religious institutions -- communities that suffered under blasphemy laws and eventually produced the civil liberties tradition that dismantled them. Contemporary debates about hate speech laws and religious defamation codes reflect the same tension: how to distinguish protected criticism from legally harmful contempt in pluralistic societies where the prophetic tradition itself (Amos, Jeremiah, Jesus) insisted on the right to challenge powerful religious establishments. The biblical tradition thus provides resources for both sides of the contemporary blasphemy debate. The question of whether religious sensibilities deserve special legal protection over and above the protections available to all groups from targeted hatred is ultimately a constitutional question with deep theological roots. The Reformation insight that Scripture must be open to examination and criticism, even critical examination by hostile interlocutors, provides theological grounds for resisting blasphemy law that are as biblical as the original Levitical prohibition. Modern courts have generally resolved this tension in favor of free expression while permitting content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions that protect religious services from targeted disruption. The legacy of blasphemy law is thus paradoxically twofold: it shaped the free speech tradition partly through the resistance it generated.