We think of law as rules whose words are binding, used by the courts in the adjudication of disputes. Bernard S. Jackson explains that early biblical law was significantly different, and that many of the laws in the Covenant Code in Exodus should be viewed as "wisdom-laws." By this term, he means "self-executing" rules, the provisions of which permit their application without recourse to the law-courts or similar institutions. They thus conform to two tenets of the "wisdom tradition": that judicial dispute should be avoided, and that the law is a type of teaching, or "wisdom."
We think of law as rules whose words are binding, used by the courts in the adjudication of disputes. Bernard S. Jackson explains that early biblical ...
This book explains and illustrates a variety of semiotic issues in the study of biblical law. Commencing with a review of relevant literature in linguistics, philosophy, semiotics and psychology, it examines biblical law in terms of its users, its medium and its message. It criticizes our use of the notion of 'literal meaning', at the level of both words and sentences, preferring to see meaning constructed by the narrative images that the language evokes. These images may come from either social experience or cultural narratives. Speech performance is important, both in the negotiation of...
This book explains and illustrates a variety of semiotic issues in the study of biblical law. Commencing with a review of relevant literature in li...
