Here is the entire quote:
It’s not this law that he got from the Bible. A natural law is one that anyone with reasoning faculties can know. His conception of natural law comes from the Bible.
I’ve already noted most of the ideas of the Constitution come from John Locke. Here is a plainer explanation.
The American revolutionary generation drew many of its ideas from the English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704). Often credited as a founder of modern “liberal” thought, Locke pioneered the ideas of natural law, social contract, religious toleration, and the right to revolution that proved essential to both the American Revolution and the U.S. Constitution that followed.
Correction: Locke quotes the Old Testament 80 times in the First Treatise.
I recently read Locke’s treatises and letter on toleration and was a bit surprised on how reliant it was on Judeo-Christian ideas and the Bible itself.
Anyway, I saw this review of Leiter’s book and thought you might be interested:
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I will grant that many of Locke’s interpretations are based on Reformation ideas of the primacy of the individual conscience, in opposition to the Catholic teaching of the supremacy of the Church.
He was just underpinning his idea with literary backing using what he had at hand in a situation with almost total “Judeo-Christian” monopolization of philosophy for centuries. I don’t suppose anyone was just sitting around letting people kill them or laughing about it until they read Cain and Abel 
More likely they’d come away with the idea that a capricious overlord could shaft you and you’d better just buckle up and take it. That’s exactly the antithesis of “We the People” so Locke clearly had a lot more going on when he came up with his ideas.
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Yes, he called “popery” slavery. But his stand toward Catholics softened after his time in France, in which he learned that Catholic priests were some of the best people he’s met.
In contrast, he called atheism a “crime” and “madness”, but never mentioned atheism in his political writings.
Thanks for sharing the review. Nuovo makes some good points that we should discuss here.
Actually that’s not true. As @MikeN1 mentioned, enlightenment thinkers had access to Greek writings and cited them abundantly.
Locke’s point was that the people know they had the right to kill Cain even before God gave the injunction not to kill.
God gave everyone the ability to reason, enabling them a way to know natural law. That is why “we hold these truths to be self-evident.”
Another direct quote of Locke:
After the case has been put thus it necessarily follows that above ourselves there exists another more powerful and wiser agent who at his will can bring us into the world, maintain us, and take us away. Hence, having inferred this on the evidence of the senses, reason lays down that there must be some superior power to which we are rightly subject…it appears clearly that with sense perception showing the way, reason can lead us to the knowledge of the lawmaker or some superior power to which we are necessarily subject.
Actually, no. The Romans’ conception of natural freedom is that you have the right to defend yourself and your property from attack.
Locke was innovative in that he
defines individual natural freedom in terms of political power. Hence, rather than lead to a defense of absolutism as it did for many of his predecessors and contemporaries, it leads Locke to the advocacy of limited government and inviolable individual rights.
(p. 125)
His appeal to Genesis was to illustrate the the people collectively were trying to kill Cain.
All Men Are Created Equal
According to Locke:
For Men being all the Workmanship of one Omnipotent, and infinitely wise Maker; All the servants of one Sovereign Master, sent into the World by his order about his business . . . And being furnished with like Faculties, sharing all in one Community of Nature, there cannot be supposed any such Subordination among us.
In refuting those who advocate for monarchy, Locke showed that man in Genesis 1:28 refers to all people, and not just Adam.
- That by this Grant, 1 Gen 28. God gave no immediate power to Adam over Men, over his children, over those of his own species, and so he was not made ruler, or monarch by this charter.
- That by this Grant God gave him not private dominion over the inferior creatures, but right in common with all mankind; so neither was he monarch, upon the account of the property here given him
I actually disagree with his exegesis of Genesis here. There are a lot of motifs in the Adam story that, in the Ancient Near East, indicated that Adam was a king. For example, like Hammurabi, he was commanded to glorify God through agricultural work,
And the enlightenment thinkers were at the forefront of that new project at the time. They certainly did refer to Greek writers, but theology-based studies had maintained a hold on the academy for a long time, so as a writer seeking to convince people of ideas, he would certainly want to draw on familiar examples like the one you showed, even if they weren’t essential, which that example does not seem to be at all. I’d be interested in what else there was though.
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There were a lot of thinkers at the time who didn’t reference the Bible much or at all.
Leiter argues that with atheism, Locke’s argument for equality would break down.
The world is not just the Romans with their own particular social system. That people might kill a murderer is just simple fairness. I’m interested in what else there was though, maybe I’ll look for the book!
Fair point, but it still wouldn’t be surprising anyone at the time did based on their own “Judeo-Christian” education and experience as well as their audience. We’d have to see what he drew from those ideas.
What a shocker 
How would that work? I certainly can’t see it from that example.
Greek philosophy had just as much of a stranglehold on Western thought at the time as Christianity. Even Christianity (classical theism more specifically) is Greek-philosophy infused. Then Machiavelli came along…
“Judeo-Christian” is dumb word made up after WWII.
Jews often say, “Only Christians say ‘Judeo-Christian.’” Not entirely true, but still.
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So they had relatively limited learning to work from, and not surprising he would reference the Bible. We’d have to see what links were made. Not impressed so far. And your characterization of one of the author’s conclusions seems like a red flag. I may still check it out though.
I’m glad to hear you say that. It was used above.
Which one?
It’s one thing to argue that Locke based his ideas on the Old Testament–I’m skeptical, but interested. It’s another thing altogether to say that an argument for human equality would break down under atheism. I’m still willing to listen, but I don’t see how it could be possible.
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It looks like Pascal’s Wager at the start. The last part is an argument against atheism certainly, but I don’t see an argument for equality. It seems quite the opposite 
I wonder if he fleshed it out more.
I posted his, “Without God there’s no basis for moral laws,” argument earlier. Then it logically follows,
Clearly, if Locke believed that if God and the law he wills for humanity are the basis for equality among humankind, the atheist destroys that very foundation.