An Emerging Account of Biblical Law: Common-Law Tradition in the Old and New Testaments (original) (raw)
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The Cambridge Companion to Law in the Hebrew Bible
2024
This Companion offers a comprehensive overview of the history, nature, and legacy of biblical law. Examining the debates that swirl around the nature of biblical law, it explores its historical context, the significance of its rules, and its influence on early Judaism and Christianity. The volume also interrogates key questions: Were the rules intended to function as ancient Israel's statutory law? Is there evidence to indicate that they served a different purpose? What is the relationship between this legal material and other parts of the Hebrew Bible? Most importantly, the book provides an in-depth look at the content of the Torah's laws, with individual essays on substantive, procedural, and ritual law. With contributions from an international team of experts, written specially for this volume, _The Cambridge Companion to Law in the Hebrew Bible_ provides an up-to-date look at scholarship on biblical law and outlines themes and topics for future research.
“Biblical Law and Rabbinic Literature.” Pages 283-99 in The Cambridge Companion to Law in the Hebrew Bible. Edited by Bruce Wells. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. , 2024
Introduction 1 bruce wells Part I The Historical Context of Biblical Law 1 Law in the Ancient Near East 15 sophie dé mare-lafont 2 Law in the Eastern Mediterranean 34 anselm c. hagedorn Part II The Biblical Legal Collections 3 The Nature of the Collections 55 bruce wells 4 The Origins of the Laws 76 sara j. milstein 5 The Narrative Context of the Collections 95 simeon chavel Part III The Biblical Laws 6 Substantive Law 117 sandra jacobs 7 Procedural Law 138 giovanna r. czander 8 Ritual Law 158 michael b. hundley Part IV Biblical Law and Other Scriptural Discourses 9 Law and Prophecy 181 reinhard achenbach vii
Law and the Bible: justice, mercy, and legal institutions
Choice Reviews Online, 2014
Each of the nine chapters of Law and the Bible is cowritten by a legal scholar and a theologian. The goal of these pairings is "to integrate different areas of human learning" and to ensure that the work addresses concerns that "legal scholars alone or theologians alone might miss" (15). With rare exceptions, the contents of each of the chapters should be fully accessible to the educated lay reader. Prior legal training is not required because, for all of the authors, the level of applicability of the biblical text stops well short of an agenda for the sorts of policies to which many Christians of varying political persuasions often put it. Each of the essays presumes facility with the biblical text and at least some awareness of hermeneutics and the history of biblical interpretation. Coming from the leading publisher in American Evangelicalism, these presumptions will generally be met among the readership of Law and the Bible. Drawing from the book of Genesis, the rst chapter of Law and the Bible, "The Biblical Foundations of Law: Creation, Fall and the Patriarchs," shows the strong inuence of the Reformed "two-kingdoms" approach of coauthor David VanDrunen, whose book Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought was previously reviewed in the Journal. 1 Whatever reservations might be had about some aspects of two-kingdoms theology need not keep one from drawing valuable insights from this chapter. Questions of authority (distinguished from power), the nature of "the good" (distinguished from desires), and the place of law both before and after the fall into sin are well displayed. The chapter is worth reading for its careful parsing of the creation account, analysis of the implications of sin, exegesis of the Noahic covenant, and attention to the contemporary signicance of patterns of patriarchal life. Chapter 2, "Law and Political Order: Israel's Constitutional History," largely follows the pattern of analysis seen in the rst chapter. Relying signicantly on the political-theological work of Oliver O'Donovan, law professor William Brewbaker and theologian V. Philips Long review topics such as holy war, Israel as a nation among the nations, the contemporary signicance of the mixed nature of its government, and the theo-political import of Israel's eventual exile. Brewbaker and Long accept the traditional dating and authorship of what Christians identify as the "historical books" of the Hebrew Scriptures. They do not, however, read them without nuance. The historical and cultural distance of the modern reader from the circumstances of ancient Israel is taken seriously. Thus, they caution that "the Old Testament has proven susceptible to misuse as a political sourcebook" if only because "Israel [had], during this period, a wide variety of political institutions and practices, none of which seem[ed] to have been adequate" (50). They ultimately argue that the questions of modern political theory-the relationships of individuals, associations, and the state-are simply absent from the biblical text, and that to derive specic answers to those questions from that text is therefore misguided. Instead, they conclude that the contemporary political signicance of these historical accounts lies in their fundamental teachings about a God whose providential control extends to the weal and woe of human activity generally and not the details of political or legal rules. The three subsequent chapters address specic application of the Torah, Wisdom literature, and the prophetic writings to contemporary state law. Here, one can observe an increasing variety of 1 C.
Journal of Law and Religion, 2014
Each of the nine chapters of Law and the Bible is cowritten by a legal scholar and a theologian. The goal of these pairings is "to integrate different areas of human learning" and to ensure that the work addresses concerns that "legal scholars alone or theologians alone might miss" (15). With rare exceptions, the contents of each of the chapters should be fully accessible to the educated lay reader. Prior legal training is not required because, for all of the authors, the level of applicability of the biblical text stops well short of an agenda for the sorts of policies to which many Christians of varying political persuasions often put it. Each of the essays presumes facility with the biblical text and at least some awareness of hermeneutics and the history of biblical interpretation. Coming from the leading publisher in American Evangelicalism, these presumptions will generally be met among the readership of Law and the Bible. Drawing from the book of Genesis, the rst chapter of Law and the Bible, "The Biblical Foundations of Law: Creation, Fall and the Patriarchs," shows the strong inuence of the Reformed "two-kingdoms" approach of coauthor David VanDrunen, whose book Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought was previously reviewed in the Journal. 1 Whatever reservations might be had about some aspects of two-kingdoms theology need not keep one from drawing valuable insights from this chapter. Questions of authority (distinguished from power), the nature of "the good" (distinguished from desires), and the place of law both before and after the fall into sin are well displayed. The chapter is worth reading for its careful parsing of the creation account, analysis of the implications of sin, exegesis of the Noahic covenant, and attention to the contemporary signicance of patterns of patriarchal life. Chapter 2, "Law and Political Order: Israel's Constitutional History," largely follows the pattern of analysis seen in the rst chapter. Relying signicantly on the political-theological work of Oliver O'Donovan, law professor William Brewbaker and theologian V. Philips Long review topics such as holy war, Israel as a nation among the nations, the contemporary signicance of the mixed nature of its government, and the theo-political import of Israel's eventual exile. Brewbaker and Long accept the traditional dating and authorship of what Christians identify as the "historical books" of the Hebrew Scriptures. They do not, however, read them without nuance. The historical and cultural distance of the modern reader from the circumstances of ancient Israel is taken seriously. Thus, they caution that "the Old Testament has proven susceptible to misuse as a political sourcebook" if only because "Israel [had], during this period, a wide variety of political institutions and practices, none of which seem[ed] to have been adequate" (50). They ultimately argue that the questions of modern political theory-the relationships of individuals, associations, and the state-are simply absent from the biblical text, and that to derive specic answers to those questions from that text is therefore misguided. Instead, they conclude that the contemporary political signicance of these historical accounts lies in their fundamental teachings about a God whose providential control extends to the weal and woe of human activity generally and not the details of political or legal rules. The three subsequent chapters address specic application of the Torah, Wisdom literature, and the prophetic writings to contemporary state law. Here, one can observe an increasing variety of 1 C.
Law and the Bible: Justice, Mercy and Legal Institutions (book review)
2014
Each of the nine chapters of Law and the Bible is cowritten by a legal scholar and a theologian. The goal of these pairings is "to integrate different areas of human learning" and to ensure that the work addresses concerns that "legal scholars alone or theologians alone might miss" (15). With rare exceptions, the contents of each of the chapters should be fully accessible to the educated lay reader. Prior legal training is not required because, for all of the authors, the level of applicability of the biblical text stops well short of an agenda for the sorts of policies to which many Christians of varying political persuasions often put it. Each of the essays presumes facility with the biblical text and at least some awareness of hermeneutics and the history of biblical interpretation. Coming from the leading publisher in American Evangelicalism, these presumptions will generally be met among the readership of Law and the Bible. Drawing from the book of Genesis, the rst chapter of Law and the Bible, "The Biblical Foundations of Law: Creation, Fall and the Patriarchs," shows the strong inuence of the Reformed "two-kingdoms" approach of coauthor David VanDrunen, whose book Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought was previously reviewed in the Journal. 1 Whatever reservations might be had about some aspects of two-kingdoms theology need not keep one from drawing valuable insights from this chapter. Questions of authority (distinguished from power), the nature of "the good" (distinguished from desires), and the place of law both before and after the fall into sin are well displayed. The chapter is worth reading for its careful parsing of the creation account, analysis of the implications of sin, exegesis of the Noahic covenant, and attention to the contemporary signicance of patterns of patriarchal life. Chapter 2, "Law and Political Order: Israel's Constitutional History," largely follows the pattern of analysis seen in the rst chapter. Relying signicantly on the political-theological work of Oliver O'Donovan, law professor William Brewbaker and theologian V. Philips Long review topics such as holy war, Israel as a nation among the nations, the contemporary signicance of the mixed nature of its government, and the theo-political import of Israel's eventual exile. Brewbaker and Long accept the traditional dating and authorship of what Christians identify as the "historical books" of the Hebrew Scriptures. They do not, however, read them without nuance. The historical and cultural distance of the modern reader from the circumstances of ancient Israel is taken seriously. Thus, they caution that "the Old Testament has proven susceptible to misuse as a political sourcebook" if only because "Israel [had], during this period, a wide variety of political institutions and practices, none of which seem[ed] to have been adequate" (50). They ultimately argue that the questions of modern political theory-the relationships of individuals, associations, and the state-are simply absent from the biblical text, and that to derive specic answers to those questions from that text is therefore misguided. Instead, they conclude that the contemporary political signicance of these historical accounts lies in their fundamental teachings about a God whose providential control extends to the weal and woe of human activity generally and not the details of political or legal rules. The three subsequent chapters address specic application of the Torah, Wisdom literature, and the prophetic writings to contemporary state law. Here, one can observe an increasing variety of 1 C.
Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History, 2007
This article draws upon Robert Alter's insights into biblical narrative to challenge the strict dichotomies between law and narrative in the Hebrew Bible, demonstrating that both genres share many rhetorical techniques, and providing a template of narrative vision and legal praxis ...
Old Testament Essays, 2020
Various laws were practised in ancient Israel. Although the present study will introduce briefly the concept of law as practised in Ancient Near East (ANE) in general, the project focuses particularly on ancient Israel as depicted by the Old Testament (OT) law traditions. The study seeks to investigate two main issues, namely: (1) formulation and implementation of the laws in ancient Israel, and (2) the application of the OT laws during the New Testament (NT) era and in Christendom. An attempt is made to respond to the following three research questions: (1) how were the OT laws formulated and implemented? (2) Were the OT laws the same as those practised by pagan nations or kings? (3) what is the NT/Christian view of the OT laws? In its entirety, the discourse will utilise two approaches, namely: (1) narrative inquiry, and (2) desk research.