Synopsis: The remarkable discovery of ancient Near Eastern law
collections or "codes," beginning with the Laws of Hammurabi and
followed by many other collections in decades following, opened a new
window upon biblical law. This volume seeks to examine within a single
study all of the biblical laws that are similar in content with ancient
Near Eastern laws from Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, and Hatti. The book
also examines a small but important group of early rabbinic laws from
postbiblical times that exhibit significant similarities with laws found
in the ancient Near Eastern collections or "codes." This later group of
laws, although absent from the Bible, are nevertheless of comparable
antiquity. The presentation focuses on the actual law statements
preserved in these ancient law "codes." The discussion then adds
narratives, records, and reports of legal actions from ancient sources
outside the laws-all of which relate to the formal law statements. The
discourse is non-polemical in tone and does not seek to revisit all
theories and interpretations. The format allows readers, including those
who are new to the subject of biblical law, to engage the primary
sources on their own. Endorsements: "This book's intriguing thesis is
that there are many 'remainders' of ancient near eastern law that
survive in the late antique legal literature of rabbinic Judaism (the
Mishnah and the two Talmuds) . . . Greengus uniquely shows how this
influence may be discovered in rabbinic legal materials that lack
explicit biblical models and antecedents. A fascinating read for all
those interested in the history of law and intercultural influences."
-Richard S. Sarason Professor of Rabbinic Literature and Thought Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati "Samuel Greengus
analyzes an important group of biblical laws with all the legal and
linguistic resources discovered in the past century . . . This book will
prove indispensable for readers who seek to understand the meaning of
biblical laws in their original cultural context and in the course of
their ongoing application in postbiblical times." -Jeffrey H. Tigay
Emeritus Ellis Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and Literatures
University of Pennsylvania "Greengus presents a comprehensive discussion
of biblical law in relation to the entire spectrum of law in the ancient
Near East, the Greco-Roman world, and Rabbinic Judaism. Written for the
general reader as well as the specialist, this volume opens the biblical
laws to a broad range of readers from a variety of fields." -Marvin A.
Sweeney Claremont Lincoln University and Claremont School of Theology
Academy for Jewish Religion California Author Biography: Samuel Greengus
is Julian Morgenstern Emeritus Professor of Bible and Near Eastern
Literature at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in
Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the author of Old Babylonian Tablets from
Ishchali and Vicinity (1979) and Studies in Ishchali Documents (1986).
