Blasphemy: Verbal Offense Against the Sacred, From Moses to Salman Rushdie - Paperback

by Leonard W. Levy (Author)

Leonard Levy traces the varied meanings of blasphemy throughout Western law. He argues that while past sanctions against the crime have inhibited all manner of cultural, political, scientific, and literary expression, we also pay a price for our extraordinary expansion of the scope of permissible speech. We have become, he charges, not only a free society but one that is 'numb' to outrage.

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This book is about the suppression of freedom of expression in the religious belief and experience; it is also about an inchmeal progression in the scope of freedom of expression.