ordeals

• crime detection by poison, fire, and pain

70:10.5It was very early be­lieved that ghosts ad­min­is­tered jus­tice through the med­i­cine men and priests; this con­sti­tuted these or­ders the first crime de­tec­tors and of­fi­cers of the law. Their early meth­ods of de­tect­ing crime con­sisted in con­duct­ing or­deals of poi­son, fire, and pain. These sav­age or­deals were noth­ing more than crude tech­niques of ar­bi­tra­tion; they did not nec­es­sar­ily set­tle a dis­pute justly. For ex­am­ple: When poi­son was ad­min­is­tered, if the ac­cused vom­ited, he was in­no­cent.

70:10.6The Old Tes­ta­ment re­cords one of these or­deals, a mar­i­tal guilt test: If a man sus­pected his wife of be­ing un­true to him, he took her to the priest and stated his sus­pi­cions, af­ter which the priest would pre­pare a con­coc­tion con­sist­ing of holy wa­ter and sweep­ings from the tem­ple floor. Af­ter due cer­e­mony, in­clud­ing threat­en­ing curses, the ac­cused wife was made to drink the nasty po­tion. If she was guilty, “the wa­ter that causes the curse shall en­ter into her and be­come bit­ter, and her belly shall swell, and her thighs shall rot, and the woman shall be ac­cursed among her peo­ple.” If, by any chance, any woman could quaff this filthy draught and not show symp­toms of phys­i­cal ill­ness, she was ac­quit­ted of the charges made by her jeal­ous hus­band.

70:10.7These atro­cious meth­ods of crime de­tec­tion were prac­ticed by al­most all the evolv­ing tribes at one time or an­other. Du­el­ing is a mod­ern sur­vival of the trial by or­deal.

• believed to interpret spirit messages

87:5.9The in­ten­tion and will of the spir­its were stud­ied by means of omens, or­a­cles, and signs. And these spirit mes­sages were in­ter­preted by div­ina­tion, sooth­say­ing, magic, or­deals, and as­trol­ogy. The whole cult was a scheme de­signed to pla­cate, sat­isfy, and buy off the spir­its through this dis­guised bribery.

• Jesus denounced belief in

150:3.1210. He ex­posed and de­nounced their be­lief in spells, or­deals, be­witch­ing, curs­ing, signs, man­drakes, knot­ted cords, and all other forms of ig­no­rant and en­slav­ing su­per­sti­tion.