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The Sinai-Type Covenant. Preamble--I am Yahweh your God Historical Prologue--who brought you out of the land of Egypt (very brief) Stipulations--10 commandments (comprehensive, ordered) Witnesses? Blessings and Curses--? Deposit and Periodic Reading--?. Types of law. Apodictic
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The Sinai-Type Covenant • Preamble--I am Yahweh your God • Historical Prologue--who brought you out of the land of Egypt (very brief) • Stipulations--10 commandments (comprehensive, ordered) • Witnesses? • Blessings and Curses--? • Deposit and Periodic Reading--?
Types of law • Apodictic • You shall not…. • Cursed be the one who…. • X shall be put to death • Casuistic
Ancient Near Eastern Laws • Ur-Nammu (Sumerian) 21 c • Eshnunna 20c • Lipit Ishtar 19c • Hammurabi 18c • Hittite laws 15 • Middle Assyrian Laws 14c
Law Codes in the OT • Covenant Code Exodus 21-23 (pre monarchy) • Deuteronomic Code Deuteronomy 12-26 (7th c.) • Holiness Code Leviticus 17-26 (+/- 600) • Priestly code (scattered throughout Exodus-Numbers; exile and later)
Date of Covenant Code • No commerce • No central judiciary • No class distinctions • Settled life; not nomadic or urban. • Older than D, H, P; relatively early, but in land
Laws on slavery • 6 years service; 7th year free. men only? • Why would master give a wife to a male slave? Altruism? • Protection for female slaves--they cannot be sold to foreign people • changes in Deuteronomy • Men and women freed • presents given at time of emancipation • slave brought to door (not before God)
The Goring Ox • When and why is the owner liable? • Note classism in Babylonian laws--different punishment for free man, slave, aristocrat • Why is there no claim possible in CH 250 (ox without previous history of goring); cf. Exod 21:28 (ox stoned)
Do not boil a kid in mother’s milk • Effect on Jewish diet • close nurturing connection of mother animal and young animal • mixing of life and death? (beestings = first milk given by a cow after calving) • Canaanite practice?
Law of Talion • a replacement for fine and/or unlimited retribution (for its time a tremendous reform) • Jesus reverses it--turn the other cheek (Matt 5:38-42) • Rabbis abrogated it since body parts of different people are not equal