Divine Covenants and Moral Order (Emory University Studies in Law and Religion) by David VanDrunen

Divine Covenants and Moral Order (Emory University Studies in Law and Religion) by David VanDrunen

Author:David VanDrunen [VanDrunen, David]
Language: eng
Format: azw
Tags: LAW069000 Law / Natural Law
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Published: 2014-05-13T16:00:00+00:00


Similarities to and Differences from Other Ancient Near Eastern Law

First, I survey some of the similarities and differences between the CC and ANE legal texts, particularly the LH. In the end, I identify more differences than similarities, and the differences, I believe, are ultimately more important. But the similarities, hardly insignificant, are in many respects theologically profound.

The scholarly literature often remarks that the CC is part of a long ANE legal tradition.7 This does not prejudge the question of what the CC does with older material, but simply recognizes that the CC shares many characteristic features with other ANE legal collections. The CC could not be mistaken for a legal code of a twenty-first-century American state. It uses forms, language, and cases familiar to its time and place in history. Even where the OT texts promulgate law in ways that reflect a critical posture toward the ANE legal tradition, comments Raymond Westbrook, “they continue to share its basic concepts and assumptions.”8 As Tremper Longman puts it, “The true and wise God of the Bible articulated his will in a manner that was recognizable to his people. . . . The uniqueness of biblical law is not based on the fact that its ethic and formulation cannot be found elsewhere.”9

A first similarity between the CC and the LH is that they recognize the same basic civil law categories. With respect to fundamental moral questions, the CC and the LH are in agreement: disrespect for proper authority, murder, adultery, theft, and lying are wrong and should be redressed. The Decalogue almost immediately precedes the CC in the text of Exodus, and it may well be proper to read the CC as applications of the Decalogue to Israel’s unique historical situation.10 The LH does not address the issues raised in the first four commandments, but it generally embraces the commandments of the so-called second table.11 There are, to be sure, important differences between the CC and LH as to what exactly constitutes each of these moral offenses, how they should be punished, and perhaps even the order in which they are considered.12 And the second table itself bears marks of Israel’s unique relationship to God (e.g., “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you”—Exod. 20:12). But the CC and LH hold in common generally that the offenses included in the second table should be discouraged through civil penalties. With other ANE codes, the LH recognized that, at some level, protection of legitimate authority, life, marriage, and property was essential for a well-ordered society.

A second similarity between the CC and the LH involves how these offenses are punished: both bodies of law embrace the lex talionis. Again several qualifications are in order. For example, the CC and LH do not always identify the nature of a particular harm in the same way, and thus sometimes differ on what the proportionate penalty should be.13 Also, it is not certain that



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.