Search -
Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation
Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation Author:Bernard M. Levinson This study argues that the authors of Deuteronomy--a corpus of laws purportedly given to Israel through Moses--radically transformed ancient Israelite religion and society. Their new vision, says author Bernard Levinson, was completely without precedent and included matters of worship, justice, political administration, family life, and theology... more ». In order to implement their radical program, the authors of the legal corpus faced a twofold task. They had not only to transform age-old popular institutions but also to justify their innovations in light of earlier biblical law, such as the Covenant Code (Exodus 21-23), that had a completely different religious orientation. Where their agenda and the conventions of the Covenant Code conflicted, Levinson shows, the authors of Deuteronomy appropriated the problematic laws in question and reworked them in order to erase the conflict and to further their own program. The authors of Deuteronomy employed the Covenant Code, in other words, not as a textual source but as a resource, in order to purchase the legitimacy and authority that their reform agenda otherwise lacked. The reuses of the older material lent their innovations the guise of continuity with the past and consistency with traditional law. They cast their departure from tradition as its reaffirmation. For this reason, Levinson concludes, Deuteronomy is, on one hand, among the most subversive texts in the Hebrew Bible and, on the other, the text that most loudly silences any hint of subversion.« less