Altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte: Gesammelte Studien.

• Author: Zahn, Molly M.
• Position: Book review

Altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte: Gesammelte Studien. By ECKART OTTO. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift ftir Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte, vol. 8. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2008. Pp. vii + 662. [euro]98.

This volume presents twenty-five previously published studies pertaining to various aspects of the legal history of the ancient Near East (ANE). Several essays focus on legal issues in specific ANE societies or on individual texts. Most, however, focus on comparison of legal texts and practices from multiple historical and geographical settings, especially that of ancient Israel and Judah in relation to the cuneiform traditions of ancient Mesopotamia. A number of studies examine aspects of the transmission of biblical law, from the assembly of the individual legal corpora through the redaction of the Hexateuch and Pentateuch and on into the late Second Temple period and beyond, and two studies reflect on the influence of biblical law on modern political thought and the possible continued relevance of biblical law to modern ethics.

Throughout these studies, Otto makes the case for a particular understanding of the nature and function of legal texts in the ANE and in the Hebrew Bible. Two elements of his approach are especially significant. The first is his emphasis on the role of Fortschreibung in the composition and redaction of the legal corpora of both ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Judah. Cuneiform law collections are neither the product of a single compositional moment nor haphazard collections of laws of diverse origins. Rather, smaller collections of laws were assembled, revised, and supplemented by skilled redactors and, once compiled, in turn served as the basis for subsequent legal reforms (see, e.g., p. 105). In the same way, the biblical legal corpora came into being through critical Fortschreibung of their predecessors and of other ancient Near Eastern texts (see, e.g., p. 464).

Second, and related, is Otto's view of the setting in which ANE legal texts originated. Compilations of law do not constitute "codes" in the sense of representing prescriptions to be applied in actual legal proceedings: following Landsberger, Otto notes that such a directly practical function is ntled out by the fact that major legal texts like the Laws of Hammurabi (LH) are not cited as the basis for judicial decisions in court records (p. 83). Instead, legal texts were the production of scribal schools, and served in the...