Sunday Sermonette: Law and Order

So God is dictating a detailed legal code to Moses. At this point in the fictitious history, it seems to be looking forward. It is more suitable to the settled people the Hebrews will become than the nomads of Genesis. We haven ' t been told anything about life in Goshen, but the people were not evidently self-governing. Currently, the people are camped out in the desert subsisting on manna. Moses was judging disputes, apparently based on his personal intuitions, until Jethro dropped in to suggest he delegate, at which point presumably his delegates made it up as they went along. So now we ' re finally getting the statutes.Where all this came from is not definitely known, but as we ' ve mentioned many times Exodus was written down in the 6th Century BCE. The so-called Covenant Code we are now readingresembles the Code of Hammurabi, and other legal systems of the region in the first Millennium.  The general idea seems to be that the Covenant Code of Exodus was created by adding instructions regarding worship to the more general Canaanite legal system. The authors of Exodus set it at this point in the story to embed it securely in God ' s covenant with the Israelites. Anyway, here ' s Chapter 22. Unfortunately, the text of the RSV that I find on-line is garbled at the beginning. It omits some material and transposes verse 4.[a] When someone steals an ox or a sheep, and slaughters it or sells it, the thief shall pay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.[b] The th...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs