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3 - Reading Biblical Literature from a Legal and Political Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2020

By
Geoffrey P. Miller
Edited by
Calum Carmichael
Calum Carmichael
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

The Bible’s Primary History – the great history of the Israelite people extending from Genesis to Second Kings – contains within it a remarkable set of ideas about government and law. The work touches on nearly all of the great themes of political theory in the modern era – the necessity of government, the problem of anarchy, the moral basis of obligation, the distinguishing features of good and bad leaders, and the analysis of optimal government structure and design. Associated with these political ideas is a remarkably insightful exploration of the basic problems of jurisprudence: the nature of law, the justifications for constitutions, and the articulation of specific legal norms in legislations and principles of customary law.

Keywords

Primary Historypropertycontractspolitical theorystate of natureleadershipanarchyobligationjurisprudenceconstitutions
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to the Bible and Literature , pp. 48 - 62
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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References

Further Reading

Carmichael, Calum, The Spirit of Biblical Law (Athens, GA, 1996).Google Scholar
Levinson, Bernard, Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel (Cambridge, 2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Geoffrey P., Ways of a King: Legal and Political Ideas in the Bible (Göttingen, 2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrow, William S., An Introduction to Biblical Law (Grand Rapids, MI, 2017).Google Scholar
Rawls, John, Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA, 1971).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watts, James W., Reading Law: The Rhetorical Shaping of the Pentateuch (London, 1999).Google Scholar

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