"Re-Lecturing" of Deutoronomy (Chapter 12-26) in the Post-Exilic Period

Joy Joseph

ISBN 978-3-931216-48-1
342 Seiten, Erscheinungsjahr: 1997
Preis: 40.00 €
"Re-Lecturing" of Deutoronomy (Chapter 12-26) in the Post-Exilic Period

A comparison of the Book of Deuteronomy, chapters 12-26, with the collection of injunctions and prohibitions in the Book of the Covenant - which has long been recognised in the biblical critical research as the oldest biblical legal corpus - may pose a number of issues related to the question of the literary history of the Deuteronomic legal texts. In the literary forms and style and in the content of the texts, the Deuteronomic legal texts differ strikingly from this old legal code, even in the parallel passages.

The purpose of this study is to propose a possible history of the homilectic shaping of the Deuteronomy's law book. This study suggests that an elaborate redactional work of "re-lecturing" of the biblical traditions would have taken place in the initial law book of Deuteronomy - which would correspond to the legal texts in the Book of the Covenant in the literary form and style - sometime during the period of Ezra and Nehemiah. And this elaborate redaction would have transformed the initial Deuteronomic legal texts into a collection of preachings of law for the congregation of Israel.