Making a Case
The Practical Roots of Biblical Law
- Publisher's listprice GBP 78.00
-
35 217 Ft (33 540 Ft + 5% VAT)
The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.
- Discount 10% (cc. 3 522 Ft off)
- Discounted price 31 695 Ft (30 186 Ft + 5% VAT)
Subcribe now and take benefit of a favourable price.
Subscribe
35 217 Ft
Availability
printed on demand
Why don't you give exact delivery time?
Delivery time is estimated on our previous experiences. We give estimations only, because we order from outside Hungary, and the delivery time mainly depends on how quickly the publisher supplies the book. Faster or slower deliveries both happen, but we do our best to supply as quickly as possible.
Product details:
- Publisher OUP USA
- Date of Publication 26 October 2021
- ISBN 9780190911805
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages216 pages
- Size 239x163x20 mm
- Weight 454 g
- Language English 132
Categories
Short description:
Making a Case: The Practical Roots of Biblical Law challenges the long-held notion that Israelite and Judahite scribes either made use of "old" law collections or set out to produce law collections in the Near Eastern sense of the genre. Sara J. Milstein instead proposes that what we call "biblical law" is closer in form and function to another, oft-neglected Mesopotamian genre: legal-pedagogical texts. During their education, Mesopotamian scribes studied a variety of legal-oriented school texts: sample contracts, fictional cases, sequences of non-canonical law, and legal phrasebooks. When Exodus 20-23 and Deuteronomy 12-26 are viewed in the context of these legal-pedagogical texts from Mesopotamia, their practical roots in comparable (lost) legal exercises begin to emerge.
MoreLong description:
Outside of the Bible, all of the known Near Eastern law collections were produced in the third to second millennia BCE, in cuneiform on clay tablets, and in major cities in Mesopotamia and in the Hittite Empire. None of the major sites in Syria that have yielded cuneiform tablets has borne even a fragment of a law collection, even though several have produced ample legal documentation. Excavations at Nuzi have also turned up numerous legal documents, but again, no law collection. Even Egypt has not yielded a collection of laws. As such, the biblical texts that scholars regularly identify as law collections represent the only "western," non-cuneiform expressions of the genre in the ancient Near East, produced by societies not known for their political clout, and separated in time from "other" collections by centuries.
Making a Case: The Practical Roots of Biblical Law challenges the long-held notion that Israelite and Judahite scribes either made use of "old" law collections or set out to produce law collections in the Near Eastern sense of the genre. Instead, what we call "biblical law" is closer in form and function to another, oft-neglected Mesopotamian genre: legal-pedagogical texts. During their education, Mesopotamian scribes studied a variety of legal-oriented school texts, including sample contracts, fictional cases, short sequences of laws, and legal phrasebooks. When biblical law is viewed in the context of these legal-pedagogical texts from Mesopotamia, its practical roots in a set of comparable legal exercises begin to emerge.
This stimulating volume contains many original insights, and it will hopefully lead to further research on the pedagogical roots of biblical law.
Table of Contents:
Contents
Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Illustrations
Introduction
1. The Role of Legal Texts in Mesopotamian Scribal Education
2. Hebrew Legal Fictions and the Development of Deuteronomy
3. Echoes of Contracts in the Hebrew Legal Fictions
4. Exodus 21-22: Old Law Collection or Scribal Exercise?
5. The Distinct Nature of "Biblical Law"
Appendix
Works Cited
Index of Authors
Index of Subjects
