Studies in Biblical Law: From the Hebrew Bible to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

AuthorMathews, Victor H.

Seven of the eleven chapters in this volume have been published previously either in Hebrew or English between 1975 and 1994. The author states that there is no particular theme to the collection other than his own interest in certain topics. This is not entirely the case since nearly half the chapters deal with legal aspects of the "first-born." In fact, it appears that chapters 6-11 are expansions of the work found in his Ph.D. dissertation, The First-Born in Israel during the Biblical Period [Heb.] (Tel Aviv University, 1971), although some of this material was published as journal articles between 1975-77. Although the second section is thus more directed than the first, it has not been extensively updated.

The chapters discuss: (1) "double laws," tracing some aspects of the evolutionary process of legal development in the Bible; (2) the use of the "if he shall not" clause with regard to non-compliance with biblical law, the attached sanctions, and the continuation of the legal development of these laws; (3) laws concerning the poor, including economic considerations and adjustments in legal expectations for the poor; (4) the word "or" in biblical legal texts and its use as a syntactic pointer in later legal development; (5) laws from the Temple Scroll in comparison with biblical laws and other Second Temple documents, as well as laws involving the "first-born"; (6-9) laws which establish the sanctity of the "first-born" and the development of these laws over time; and (10-11) inheritance rights of the "first-born," including those of the heir to the monarchy.

The author has attempted to eliminate repetition in his discussion by cross-referencing his articles so that no text is dealt with extensively more than once. In...

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