Definition
In English law, Scripture refers specifically to the canonical books of the Old and New Testament — the Bible — and carries legal significance primarily in the context of offenses against religion. The term did not define an affirmative right or grant but instead anchored a category of criminal liability: the willful scoffing at, ridiculing, or exposing to contempt of Scripture was a punishable offense at common law and under statutes in England, subject to fine and imprisonment.
The legal use of the term is thus essentially definitional rather than operative — it marks the protected object in blasphemy and allied offenses, not a freestanding legal concept with its own doctrinal structure.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The foundational text of a given religion, or a text considered especially holy.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Anything written; a writing; a document; an inscription — but also, by eminence, the books of the Old and New Testament; the Bible.
Webster's 1913 is instructive here because it preserves both an older, broader secular sense (any written document) and the dominant religious sense. In legal usage, the term is narrowed further still: Scripture in English law means specifically the Christian canon — the Old and New Testament — not religious texts generally. A researcher encountering the term in historical legal sources should not read it as encompassing the Quran, the Torah standing alone, or other religious writings, regardless of broader common usage.
Common Confusion
The broad Webster's definition — Scripture as any written document — has no foothold in English legal usage by the period covered by Rapalje & Lawrence. Confusion can arise when researchers encounter early legal texts where "scripture" appears in the general Latin-derived sense of "a writing" (from scribere). In post-medieval English legal sources, however, the term is almost uniformly the religious referent. Context usually resolves the ambiguity, but early chancery and ecclesiastical records may require care.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research significance of Scripture as a legal term is its role in defining the scope of blasphemy at common law in England. Rapalje & Lawrence cite Stephens' Commentaries for the proposition that profane scoffing at Scripture is criminally punishable — this reflects the well-established common law offense of blasphemous libel, which treated attacks on the Christian scriptures as an attack on the foundations of civil society and public order, not merely on religious sentiment.
Researchers working in historical English criminal law should note:
First, the offense was not merely holding heterodox beliefs but expressing contempt publicly. The line between protected theological dispute and criminal ridicule was contested throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.
Second, the protection attached to Scripture as Christian scripture. English law did not extend equivalent protection to other religious texts as a matter of blasphemy doctrine. This asymmetry matters for researchers comparing English and colonial American legal treatments of religious offense.
Third, the term will appear in ecclesiastical court records as well as common law proceedings. Jurisdiction over offenses touching Scripture shifted over time between ecclesiastical and secular courts, and researchers should track which forum is operative in a given source.
Fourth, American jurisdictions that inherited English common law blasphemy principles largely mapped them onto Christianity and Christian scriptures, though constitutional developments — particularly post-incorporation First Amendment doctrine — rendered blasphemy prosecutions largely defunct in the United States by the mid-20th century. Historical American sources using Scripture in this legal context should be read against that arc.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence's entry is brief but accurate for its period. It identifies Scripture as the canonical Old and New Testament and immediately pivots to the criminal consequence — scoffing and exposing Scripture to contempt is punishable — citing Stephens' Commentaries (4th volume, 7th edition). This framing is consistent with the common law treatment of blasphemous libel as articulated by Blackstone and later commentators: Scripture was the object whose public contempt constituted the offense.
What Rapalje & Lawrence do not address is the evolution of the offense itself. By the late 19th century, English courts had begun distinguishing between calm doctrinal denial — which courts were becoming reluctant to prosecute — and intemperate, scurrilous attack on Scripture, with criminal liability increasingly reserved for the latter. This doctrinal narrowing is invisible in the dictionary entry but essential context for reading cases from the period.
Webster's 1913 adds historical depth by preserving the older secular sense of "scripture" as any writing, including Chaucer's usage. This confirms that the legal narrowing to canonical Christian texts was intentional and developed, not simply inherited from common usage without modification.
Jurisdictional Note
In England, blasphemy as a common law offense targeting Scripture remained technically on the books until the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 abolished it. In the United States, blasphemy statutes existed in many states but faced progressive constitutional erosion; First Amendment doctrine now bars their enforcement. Colonial-era American legal sources may use Scripture in the English common law sense, but the constitutional framework diverged sharply from the English model after independence.