Making a Case: The Practical Roots of Biblical Law

217 Pages·2021·14.947 MB·English

by  Sara J. Milstein

Making a Case

Making a Case
The Practical Roots of Biblical Law
SARA J. MILSTEIN
1
1
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2021942376
ISBN 978– 0– 19– 091180– 5
DOI: 10.1093/ oso/ 9780190911805.001.0001
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America
For my parents, with love

CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations xv
Introduction 1
1. Th e Role of Legal Texts in Mesopotamian Scribal Education 20
2. H ebrew Legal Fictions and the Development of Deuteronomy 53
3. E choes of Contracts in the Hebrew Legal Fictions 90
4. E xodus 21– 22: Old Law Collection or Scribal Exercise? 117
5. Th e Distinct Nature of “Biblical Law” 152
Appendix 159
Bibliography 171
Index of Authors 187
Index of Subjects 191

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure I.1 The famous diorite stela with the Laws of Hammurabi,
dating to the early second millennium BCE. Now
housed in Musée du Louvre, Paris, France.
Photo credit © RMN- Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY 8
Figure 1.1 The reverse of NBC 7800, an OB tablet preserving eighteen
model contracts of various types. Courtesy of the Yale
Babylonian Collection; photograph by Klaus Wagensonner 25
Figure 1.2 A fictional court case involving an inheritance dispute
that a man brought against his nephews (YBC 9839).
Courtesy of the Yale Babylonian Collection;
photograph by Klaus Wagensonner 29
Figure 1.3 A copy of the “Nippur Homicide Trial” (A30240,
joined to Penn Museum UM 55-21-436), a Sumerian
fictional case. Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the
University of Chicago and the Penn Museum;
photograph by Susanne Paulus 33
Figure 1.4 The obverse and reverse of Middle Bronze Age
Fragment A of Hazor 18. Courtesy of the Israel
Exploration Society; photographs by Wayne Horowitz 42
Figure 4.1 Friedrich Delitzsch (1850- 1922), Professor of Assyriology
at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin and
Director of the Royal Museum’s Ancient Near East
Department, whose lectures on “Babel und Bibel”
provoked international controversy. Courtesy of
Wikimedia Commons 120