Law From The Tigris To The Tiber Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle version is available to download in english. Read online anytime anywhere directly from your device. Click on the download button below to get a free pdf file of Law From The Tigris To The Tiber book. This book definitely worth reading, it is an incredibly well-written.
Law from the Tigris to the Tiber by Raymond Westbrook Pdf
Raymond Westbrook (1946–2009) was acknowledged by many as the world’s foremost expert on the legal systems of the ancient Near East and a leading scholar in the study of biblical and classical law. This collection brings together the 44 most important articles that Westbrook published in the 25 years following the completion of his Ph.D. at Yale University in 1982. The first volume, The Shared Tradition, contains 16 articles that lay out Westbrook’s theory of a common legal tradition that spanned the ancient world from Mesopotamia to Israel and even to Greece and Rome. The second volume, Cuneiform and Biblical Sources, provides 28 articles that demonstrate Westbrook’s unique method of legal analysis that he applied to the numerous texts he worked with as an Assyriologist and biblical scholar, from law codes to contracts to narratives. Each volume contains its own comprehensive bibliography, as well as subject, author, and text indexes. Together, they represent the life’s work of one of the most important legal historians of our era.
Fault, Responsibility, and Administrative Law in Late Babylonian Legal Texts by F. Rachel Magdalene,Cornelia Wunsch,Bruce Wells Pdf
This book presents a reassessment of the governmental systems of the Late Babylonian period—specifically those of the Neo-Babylonian and early Persian empires—and provides evidence demonstrating that these are among the first to have developed an early form of administrative law. The present study revolves around a particular expression that, in its most common form, reads ḫīṭu ša šarri išaddad and can be translated as “he will be guilty (of an offense) against the king.” The authors analyze ninety-six documents, thirty-two of which have not been previously published, discussing each text in detail, including the syntax of this clause and its legal consequences, which involve the delegation of responsibility in an administrative context. Placing these documents in their historical and institutional contexts, and drawing from the theories of Max Weber and S. N. Eisenstadt, the authors aim to show that the administrative bureaucracy underlying these documents was a more complex, systematized, and rational system than has previously been recognized. Accompanied by extensive indexes, as well as transcriptions and translations of each text analyzed here, this book breaks new ground in the study of ancient legal systems.
A Cultural History of Law in the Early Modern Age by Peter Goodrich Pdf
Opened up by the revival of Classical thought but riven by the violence of the Reformation and Counter Reformation, the terrain of Early Modern law was constantly shifting. The age of expansion saw unparalleled degrees of internal and external exploration and colonization, accompanied by the advance of science and the growing power of knowledge. A Cultural History of Law in the Early Modern Age, covering the period from 1500 to 1680, explores the war of jurisdictions and the slow and contested emergence of national legal traditions in continental Europe and in Britannia. Most particularly, the chapters examine the European quality of the Western legal traditions and seek to link the political project of Anglican common law, the mos britannicus, to its classical European language and context. Drawing upon a wealth of textual and visual sources, A Cultural History of Law in the Early Modern Age presents essays that examine key cultural case studies of the period on the themes of justice, constitution, codes, agreements, arguments, property and possession, wrongs, and the legal profession.
Laws in the Bible and in Early Rabbinic Collections by Samuel Greengus Pdf
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.
Outside of the Bible, all of the known Near Eastern law collections were produced in the third to second millennia BCE, in cuneiform on clay tablets, and in major cities in Mesopotamia and in the Hittite Empire. None of the major sites in Syria that have yielded cuneiform tablets has borne even a fragment of a law collection, even though several have produced ample legal documentation. Excavations at Nuzi have also turned up numerous legal documents, but again, no law collection. Even Egypt has not yielded a collection of laws. As such, the biblical texts that scholars regularly identify as law collections represent the only "western," non-cuneiform expressions of the genre in the ancient Near East, produced by societies not known for their political clout, and separated in time from "other" collections by centuries. Making a Case: The Practical Roots of Biblical Law challenges the long-held notion that Israelite and Judahite scribes either made use of "old" law collections or set out to produce law collections in the Near Eastern sense of the genre. Instead, what we call "biblical law" is closer in form and function to another, oft-neglected Mesopotamian genre: legal-pedagogical texts. During their education, Mesopotamian scribes studied a variety of legal-oriented school texts, including sample contracts, fictional cases, short sequences of laws, and legal phrasebooks. When biblical law is viewed in the context of these legal-pedagogical texts from Mesopotamia, its practical roots in a set of comparable legal exercises begin to emerge.
Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible by Russell E. Gmirkin Pdf
Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible for the first time compares the ancient law collections of the Ancient Near East, the Greeks and the Pentateuch to determine the legal antecedents for the biblical laws. Following on from his 2006 work, Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus, Gmirkin takes up his theory that the Pentateuch was written around 270 BCE using Greek sources found at the Great Library of Alexandria, and applies this to an examination of the biblical law codes. A striking number of legal parallels are found between the Pentateuch and Athenian laws, and specifically with those found in Plato's Laws of ca. 350 BCE. Constitutional features in biblical law, Athenian law, and Plato's Laws also contain close correspondences. Several genres of biblical law, including the Decalogue, are shown to have striking parallels with Greek legal collections, and the synthesis of narrative and legal content is shown to be compatible with Greek literature. All this evidence points to direct influence from Greek writings, especially Plato's Laws, on the biblical legal tradition. Finally, it is argued that the creation of the Hebrew Bible took place according to the program found in Plato's Laws for creating a legally authorized national ethical literature, reinforcing the importance of this specific Greek text to the authors of the Torah and Hebrew Bible in the early Hellenistic Era. This study offers a fascinating analysis of the background to the Pentateuch, and will be of interest not only to biblical scholars, but also to students of Plato, ancient law, and Hellenistic literary traditions.
A Cultural History of Law in Antiquity by Julen Etxabe Pdf
How should we talk about “the law” in a period so remote from our own and covering such a huge span of time and space? From the Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1750 BCE) to Justinian's Corpus Iuris Civilis (529-534 CE), A Cultural History of Law in Antiquity draws upon legal texts and non-textual forms (such as vase-painting, sculpture, and architecture) to uncover the diverse and rich legal traditions of societies ranging from the Ancient Near Eastern cities of Assyria and Babylon in Mesopotamia to the Ancient Israelites, and from Ancient Greece to Rome of the Archaic and Classical Periods. With a wealth of textual and visual sources, A Cultural History of Law in Antiquity presents essays that examine key cultural case studies of the period on the themes of justice, constitution, codes, agreements, arguments, property and possession, wrongs, and the legal profession.
The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law by Pamela Barmash Pdf
Major innovations have occurred in the study of biblical law in recent decades. The legal material of the Pentateuch has received new interest with detailed studies of specific biblical passages. The comparison of biblical practice to ancient Near Eastern customs has received a new impetus with the concentration on texts from actual ancient legal transactions. The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law provides a state of the art analysis of the major questions, principles, and texts pertinent to biblical law. The thirty-three chapters, written by an international team of experts, deal with the concepts, significant texts, institutions, and procedures of biblical law; the intersection of law with religion, socio-economic circumstances, and politics; and the reinterpretation of biblical law in the emerging Jewish and Christian communities. The volume is intended to introduce non-specialists to the field as well as to stimulate new thinking among scholars working in biblical law.
The Laws of the Imperialized by Chung Man Anna Lo Pdf
Being the first legal corpus in the biblical canon, Exodus 19–24 is a law collection that belonged to a people living under the shadow of empire. Using an integrated approach of postcolonial studies and historical-comparative analysis, this important study analyzes the relationship between the laws given to the Israelites on Mount Sinai and cuneiform law collections. Dr. Anna Lo skillfully integrates postcolonial understandings of the colonized people to explore how the similarities and differences reflect the imperialized authors’ wrestling with the imperial legal metanarrative and subjugation of their time. This investigation into the dynamic of acceptance, ambivalence, and resistance invites attention to this selection of Scripture as a work of conservative revolutionists. Dr. Lo’s thorough work provides an important way forward for scholars to consider responses of the imperialized to empires in the past as well as to reflect on their own response to hegemonic domination today.
Old Testament Law for Christians by Roy E. Gane Pdf
The Old Testament law is foundational for our understanding of the Bible, but for many it remains some of the Old Testament's most foreign and exotic material. This book by a leading evangelical expert in biblical law helps readers understand Old Testament law, how it functioned in the Old Testament, and how it is (and is not) instructive for contemporary Christians. The author explicates the often confusing legal system of ancient Israel, differentiates between time-bound cultural aspects of Israelite law and universally applicable aspects of the divine value system, and shows the ethical relevance of Old Testament law for Christians today.
Did the Old Testament Endorse Slavery? by Joshua Aaron Bowen Pdf
The God of the Old Testament commanded and endorsed many practices that we find morally reprehensible today. High on the list was the institution of slavery, which features prominently in several sections of the Hebrew Bible. Fathers could sell their daughters into slavery, masters could beat their slaves, creditors could carry off children for failure to repay a debt, and foreigners could be kept for life, passed down as inherited property. How are we to make sense of all of this from our modern point of view? Atheists and skeptics will often say that the God of the Old Testament was a moral monster for endorsing such atrocities. Christians will often respond that the slavery in the Hebrew Bible wasn’t as bad as we think, and was more like having a job or owning a credit card. While both sides of this debate are sincere in their positions, neither are ultimately correct. Our conclusions must derive from a thorough understanding of both the Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern contexts. This extensively revised and expanded second edition includes a wealth of information and analysis, including three additional chapters and two new appendices. Dr. Bowen thoroughly explores law collections of the ancient Near East, asking why they matter, and how they influence our understanding of slavery in the Old Testament. A comparative analysis of the legal provisions made for the treatment of slaves in the ancient world sheds extensive light on how slavery in the Old Testament should be viewed in relation to other ancient cultures, and an entire chapter explores biblical slavery after the Old Testament, through the New Testament, early church, and down to the antebellum south. This book will: Provide a detailed overview of slavery laws and practices in the Old Testament and the ancient Near East. Examine the significant – and highly controversial – passages in the Hebrew Bible that deal with slavery, including laws about beating your slave, taking foreign chattel slaves, and what to do if a slave runs away from their master. Answer the most challenging questions about slavery in the Old Testament, including, “Could you beat your slave within an inch of their life and get away with it?”, “Were slaves just property that had no human rights?”, and “Did the Old Testament really endorse slavery?” Consider how the biblical treatment of slaves changed from the Old to New Testament, and whether Old Testament slavery was substantially different to slavery in the American antebellum south.
Exploring the Composition of the Pentateuch by L. S. Baker Jr.,Kenneth Bergland,Felipe A. Masotti,A. Rahel Wells Pdf
For many years, the historical-critical quest for a reconstruction of the origin(s) and development of the Pentateuch or Hexateuch has been dominated by the documentary hypothesis, the heuristic power of which has produced a consensus so strong that an interpreter who did not operate within its framework was hardly regarded as a scholar. However, the relentless march of research on this topic has continued to yield new and refined analyses, data, methodological tools, and criticism. In this spirit, the contributions to this volume investigate new ideas about the composition of the Pentateuch arising from careful analysis of the biblical text against its ancient Near Eastern background. Covering a wide spectrum of topics and diverging perspectives, the chapters in this book are grouped into two parts. The first is primarily concerned with the history of scholarship and alternative approaches to the development of the Pentateuch. The second focuses on the exegesis of particular texts relevant to the composition of the Torah. The aim of the project is to foster investigation and collegial dialogue in a spirit of humility and frankness, without imposing uniformity. In addition to the editors, the contributors include Tiago Arrais, Richard E. Averbeck, John S. Bergsma, Joshua A. Berman, Daniel I. Block, Richard Davidson, Roy E. Gane, Duane A. Garrett, Richard S. Hess, Benjamin Kilchör, Michael LeFebvre, Jiří Moskala, and Christian Vogel.
Prescriptive law writings rarely mirror the ways a society practices law, a fact that raises special problems for the social and legal historian. Through close analysis of the laws of bailment (i.e., temporary safekeeping) in Exodus 22, Yael Landman probes the relationship of law in the biblical law collections and law-in-practice in ancient Israel and exposes a vision of divine justice at the heart of pentateuchal law. Landman further demonstrates that ancient Near Eastern bailment laws continue to influence postbiblical Jewish law. This book advances an approach to the study of biblical law that connects pentateuchal and ancient Near Eastern law collections, biblical narrative and prophecy, and Mesopotamian legal documents and joins philological and comparative analysis with humanistic legal approaches, in order to access how people thought about and practiced law in ancient Israel.
The Cambridge Comparative History of Ancient Law by Caroline Humfress,David Ibbetson,Patrick Olivelle Pdf
The Cambridge Comparative History of Ancient Law is the first of its kind in the field of comparative ancient legal history. Written collaboratively by a dedicated team of international experts, each chapter offers a new framing and understanding of key legal concepts, practices and historical contexts across five major legal traditions of the ancient world. Stretching chronologically across more than three and a half millennia, from the earliest, very fragmentary, proto-cuneiform tablets (3200–3000 BCE) to the Tang Code of 652 CE, the volume challenges earlier comparative histories of ancient law / societies, at the same time as opening up new areas for future scholarship across a wealth of surviving ancient Near Eastern, Indian, Chinese, Greek and Roman primary source evidence. Topics covered include 'law as text', legal science, inter-polity relations, law and the state, law and religion, legal procedure, personal status and the family, crime, property and contract.
