Using socio-anthropological theory and archaeological evidence, Knight argues that while the laws in the Hebrew Bible tend to reflect the interests of those in power, the majority of ancient Israelites--located in villages--developed their own unwritten customary laws to regulate behavior and resolve legal conflicts in their own communities. This book includes numerous examples from village, city, and cult. --from publisher description
The Old Testament law is foundational for our understanding of the Bible, but for many it remains some of the Old Testament's most foreign and exotic material. This book by a leading evangelical expert in biblical law helps readers understand Old Testament law, how it functioned in the Old Testament, and how it is (and is not) instructive for contemporary Christians. The author explicates the often confusing legal system of ancient Israel, differentiates between time-bound cultural aspects of Israelite law and universally applicable aspects of the divine value system, and shows the ethical relevance of Old Testament law for Christians today.
"An emerging field of study that explores the Hispanic minority in the United States, Latino Studies is enriched by an interdisciplinary perspective. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, demographers, linguists, as well as religion, ethnicity, and culture scholars, among others, bring a varied, multifaceted approach to the understanding of a people whose roots are all over the Americas and whose permanent home is north of the Rio Grande. Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies offers an authoritative, trustworthy, and up-to-date intellectual map to this ever-changing discipline."--Editorial page.
Informed, accessible textbook on law collections in the Pentateuch In this book William Morrow surveys four major law collections in Exodus-Deuteronomy and shows how they each enabled the people of Israel to create and sustain a community of faith. Treating biblical law as dynamic systems of thought facilitating ancient Israel's efforts at self-definition, Morrow describes four different social contexts that gave rise to biblical law: (1) Israel at the holy mountain (the Ten Commandments); (2) Israel in the village assembly (Exodus 20:22-23:19); (3) Israel in the courts of the Lord (priestly and holiness rules in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers); and (4) Israel in the city (Deuteronomy). Including forthright discussion of such controversial subjects as slavery, revenge, gender inequality, religious intolerance, and contradictions between bodies of biblical law, Morrow's study will help students and other serious readers make sense out of texts in the Pentateuch that are often seen as obscure.
Major innovations have occurred in the study of biblical law in recent decades. The legal material of the Pentateuch has received new interest with detailed studies of specific biblical passages. The comparison of biblical practice to ancient Near Eastern customs has received a new impetus with the concentration on texts from actual ancient legal transactions. The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law provides a state of the art analysis of the major questions, principles, and texts pertinent to biblical law. The thirty-three chapters, written by an international team of experts, deal with the concepts, significant texts, institutions, and procedures of biblical law; the intersection of law with religion, socio-economic circumstances, and politics; and the reinterpretation of biblical law in the emerging Jewish and Christian communities. The volume is intended to introduce non-specialists to the field as well as to stimulate new thinking among scholars working in biblical law.
In The Authority of Law in the Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism, Vroom identifies a development in the authority of written law that took place in early Judaism. Ever since Assyriologists began to recognize that the Mesopotamian law collections did not function as law codes do today—as a source of binding obligation—scholars have grappled with the question of when the Pentateuchal legal corpora came to be treated as legally binding. Vroom draws from legal theory to provide a theoretical framework for understanding the nature of legal authority, and develops a methodology for identifying instances in which legal texts were treated as binding law by ancient interpreters. This method is applied to a selection of legal-interpretive texts: Ezra-Nehemiah, Temple Scroll, the Qumran rule texts, and the Samaritan Pentateuch.
Dale Patrick examines the first five books of the Bible--the Pentateuch--the Law. He provides an effective method for studying and understanding this vital part of the canon. His introduction concentrates on the exposition of the major thrust of Old Testament Law: the Ten Commandments, the Book of the Covenant, the Deuteronomic Law, the Holiness Code, and the Priestly Law. Law--rules and regulations, concepts and principles, legal codes--written and unwritten. Patrick tackles important questions surrounding the formation of the Law. What is the Law? How was it formulated? What implications does the Law of the Israelites have for Christians today? Patrick's deft handling and answering of these questions results in a book that provides a means to understand the specific rules governing the concepts and principles of the written law so that we may grasp the unwritten law; i.e., the justice, righteousness, and holiness required by God. Patrick offers critical exposition in a format that makes a seemingly difficult and esoteric part of the Bible accessible to the reader. This introductory text serves as a springboard to further study.
This volume describes the lifecycle events and daily life activities experienced by girls and women in ancient Israel examining recent biblical scholarship and other textual evidence from the ancient Near East and Egypt including archaeological, iconographic and ethnographic data. From this Ebeling creates a detailed, accessible description of the lives of women living in the central highland villages of Iron Age I (ca. 1200-1000 BCE) Israel. The book opens with an introduction that provides a brief historical survey of Iron Age (ca. 1200-586 BCE) Israel, a discussion of the problems involved in using the Hebrew Bible as a source, a rationale for the project and a brief narrative of one woman's life in ancient Israel to put the events described in the book into context. It continues with seven thematic chapters that chronicle her life, focusing on the specific events, customs, crafts, technologies and other activities in which an Israelite female would have participated on a daily basis.