Reconstructing the world of law and justice in biblical Israel
We cannot responsibly think about the application of biblical law in a contemporary context without first giving proper thought to how it applied in biblical Israel. So, how did biblical law apply in the context of biblical Israel, based on what we can learn from the biblical texts?
In Write That They May Judge? Applying written law in biblical Israel I explore how the biblical laws – which were written down – functioned practically in a culture where most legal practice was oral and communitybased. Scholars generally ignore this and so project onto the biblical texts modern presuppositions that locate legal authority in the written word. This book chapter, in Write That They May Read, shows how these assumptions produce false readings of the biblical laws. Instead, I argue that although biblical law is presented for us, as readers, exclusively in written form, it still retains marks of its interaction with an oral-based culture. It is these interiorised narratives, dominant images and social stereotypes that determine its meaning and shape its judgments.
In Law and Wisdom Literature I challenge the dichotomy in biblical studies which generally sees Law and Wisdom as separate, even opposed, categories. This has the unfortunate effect of distorting our understanding of the traditions of both Law and Wisdom, as well as the more unified biblical tradition as a whole. This book chapter, in the Oxford Handbook of Wisdom and the Bible, challenges the common modern assumption that biblical law functioned like modern statutory law, based on precise written rules and literal interpretation. Instead, it shows that biblical law worked through narrative, social knowledge, and shared cultural assumptions, much like wisdom literature. In this way, biblical law and wisdom are not opposing traditions but are deeply interconnected. Although law offers authoritative norms, wisdom literature explores the complex lived reality in which those norms must operate. Texts like Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes acknowledge ambiguity, moral tension, and the limits of human understanding; features that written law alone cannot fully address. Wisdom equips people to navigate situations where legal rules are opentextured or where no explicit law applies.
The book chapter emphasises that wisdom literature reinforces the key legal values of justice, righteousness, honesty and protection of the vulnerable but does so through observation, reflection, and character formation. Law and wisdom thus represent two complementary modes of divine instruction. Law provides the framework of covenant life while wisdom trains individuals to internalise that framework, exercising judgment in ways that sustain right relationships and which uphold the moral order envisioned by the law. All of this means that a paradigm shift is now needed to an approach that sees Law and Wisdom as complementary. This will change not only our understanding of biblical law but also our understanding of wisdom because law has hitherto been excluded, by definition. A paradigm shift in the relationship between Law and Wisdom thus becomes central to our understanding of both.
In The Operation of Law and Wisdom in Biblical Israel I seek to make a further contribution to understanding the relationship between the concepts of Law and Wisdom in the Hebrew Bible by attempting to reconstruct how the two operated conceptually and functionally in biblical Israel. This squarely addresses the central problem identified by scholars, namely, that we do not know how law worked in biblical Israel. This book chapter, in What Has Wisdom to do with Law? Expanding Conceptions of Wisdom and Law in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism, re-examines the relationship between Law and Wisdom from two main perspectives, jurisprudential and adjudicatory. This approach reveals significant continuity between law and wisdom: both rely on culturally embedded knowledge, images, and moral intuition. It argues that daytoday adjudication in biblical Israel required wisdom rather than mechanical ruleapplication. Judges were chosen for their character and discernment; written law was sparse, opentextured, and often orally mediated. Hard cases demanded creative, contextsensitive judgment, as demonstrated by the wise woman of Tekoa and Nathan’s parable to David. The chapter concludes that law assumes the social knowledge that is presented, or advocated, in the Hebrew Bible as wisdom. Law and wisdom operate together as complementary genres for interpreting human experience, forming a unified tradition rather than separate domains. Wisdom literature does not replace law with moral relativism or pragmatic advice; instead, it provides the ethical and interpretative understanding needed to apply the law faithfully.
An important question when thinking about biblical law is its relationship to natural law. In Natural Law and Biblical Law I explore this question through the prism of Psalm 19 which addresses both what may be termed ‘natural law’ and ‘biblical law’ and brings them into dialogue. Although scholars have long puzzled over what connects the Psalmist’s movement from cosmos (in the first part) to law (in the second part) – with some claiming it is a deliberate riddle – I argue that the connections were obvious to the Psalmist. The book chapter, in Research Handbook on Natural Law Theory, proposes that one way of reading the psalm is to bring to mind the foundational biblical narrative in which the God who is Creator of the heavens and the earth is also the deity who calls Israel into covenant relationship with himself. This is mirrored by the transition from the use of ‘El’ to denote God as generally known Creator to the personal ‘YHWH’ of Israel’s salvation history. ‘Natural law’ and ‘biblical law’ are thus as distinct from each other as these two names of God; at the same time, however, they are as closely connected. Natural law and biblical law are related but not equivalent forms of revelation, because God is known more accurately and intimately through Torah than the natural world.
In Imagining Biblical Law, for the University of Queensland Law Journal, I invite the question: how do we imagine biblical law? This article challenges negative cultural presuppositions concerning biblical law and argues, counter-intuitively, that the better we understand biblical law, the better we will understand modern law. That said, the task of imagining biblical law is too important to be left to lawyers. It is also too important to be left to theologians. This is because the better we understand law, the better we understand biblical law. This is not always how biblical law has been understood; nevertheless, it is part of how it needs to be understood and the study of law helps us to do that. Consequently, there is a valuable conversation to be had between biblical law and modern law. When we do this, we discover that biblical law becomes less strange and that modern law becomes less familiar. We will find there is more in biblical law than we first realised, and there are aspects of modern law that we see in a different light.
I set out in more detail how this paradigmatic approach to law and to biblical law (derived from Bernard Jackson’s seminal work on “wisdom-laws” operates in a series of closely-worked examples. In Exodus and Asylum: Uncovering the Relationship between Biblical Law and Narrative, for the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, I demonstrate how cases of altar asylum in Exodus make better sense when read as narrative stereotypes rather than as modern statutes.
In Flight of the Fugitives: Rethinking the relationship between biblical law (Exod. 21:12-14) and the Davidic Succession Narrative (1 Kings 1-2), for the Journal of Biblical Literature, I show how this reading helps to account for instances where a narrative based on law does not appear to coincide with the wording of the laws themselves. Finally, since the biblical laws do not cover most cases that are likely to have come up, this way of reading biblical law provides us with indications of how biblical law may have been used when the paradigm cases apparently run out.
I address this subject in A ‘missing case’ in the biblical laws of homicide and asylum?, for Vetus Testamentum.
By trying to reconstruct how law and justice was actually practiced and reasoned about in biblical Israel, based on the biblical texts, rather than projecting modern assumptions about law and legal reasoning onto the Bible, we can better understand some of the most difficult biblical legal texts.
One example includes the execution of the man who gathers wood on the Sabbath; a text that is often relied upon by those who wish to portray biblical law as petty and unreasonably vengeful. Scholars have long struggled to understand why this seemingly trivial offence warranted such severe punishment. In ‘What Shall We Do with the Sabbath-Gatherer?’ A Narrative Approach to a ‘Hard Case’ in Biblical Law (Numbers 15:32-36), for Vetus Testamentum, I argue that previous explanations fail because they impose modern legal assumptions onto biblical law. The article shows that biblical law operates through narrative and visual cognition rather than literal semantic interpretation. Laws function as “pictures” evoking typical scenarios, not modern rules. The paradigm case of Sabbath-breaking here concerns food production, specifically gathering and processing manna. Numbers 15:32-36 posed a difficulty because gathering sticks was sufficiently removed from the paradigm of food production to create uncertainty about whether Sabbath laws applied, hence the need for divine resolution. The severity of the punishment reflects the narrative evocation of “gathering” (the same Hebrew verb used for gathering straw in Egypt) and recalls Israel’s total servitude under Pharaoh. Since the Sabbath – unique in the ancient Near East for its seven-day cycle – signified Israel’s liberation from Egypt, the wood-gatherer’s actions in turn signified rejection of God’s lordship over Israel. This made his act one of covenant rebellion that attracted the ultimate penalty of exclusion from the community.
Another case is the biblical food laws. These are widely seen as one of the great enigmas of biblical law. In At Wisdom’s Table: How Narrative Shapes the Biblical Food Laws and their Social Function I argue that, as is the case elsewhere, these laws also need to be read narratively and not semantically. The article contends that the biblical food laws focus on typical situations and images evoked by legal language. In keeping with my approach to biblical law elsewhere, I argue that they function through shared social knowledge in high-context societies where much information remains implicit. Again, as I have argued is the case elsewhere, the biblical food laws operate through a series of paradigm cases and binary oppositions. These reflect social knowledge which is in turn informed by the physical environment and husbandry practices of biblical Israel. This influences the categorisation of clean and unclean animals and helps to explain why these categories appear obvious and “natural.”
The paradigm case of “clean” animals (split hooves + chewing cud) reflects familiar herbivorous livestock. This creates an implicit paradigm of “unclean” animals (i.e. those that lack either characteristic). Hard cases like camels (which chew the cud but have no hooves) reinforce the rule that both elements are required. These paradigms reflect practical engagement with their environment, with herbivores being seen as the norm. Carnivorous animals are labelled “unclean” as their traits oppose the normative herbivorous paradigm. Wild animals are contrasted with domesticated ones, echoing social practices such as herding. As far as aquatic creatures are concerned, “clean” fish have fins and scales; the typical fish most familiar to ancient Israelites. Creatures lacking these features are classified as “unclean”. The laws assume that audiences can extrapolate from these paradigms without exhaustive lists. With birds, no explicit paradigm is given. Instead, lists of unclean birds (eagles, vultures and bats) implicitly define clean birds by contrast (i.e. those with feathers, that fly, and eat typical food for birds including berries and insects). Finally, regarding insects, “clean” insects fly whilst “unclean” ones crawl on the ground. Locusts are permitted as an exception, reflecting social knowledge about protein sources during plagues.
In sum, the biblical food laws are best understood as pragmatic, narrative-based paradigms that reflect social knowledge and practical wisdom. They use binary oppositions and characteristic traits to construct categories. The laws are designed for easy memorisation and application, balancing nutritional, cultural, and material considerations. The unfolding pedagogical presentation enables the audience to infer rules and apply them independently. The result is a highly effective method of transmitting a complex body of knowledge of what to eat and what to avoid, simply and practically
Reconstructing the world of law and justice in biblical Israel remains an ongoing project.