Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Foreword by Samuel Greengus 1. Introduction 2. Cuneiform Law 3. Cuneiform Prologues and Epilogues to Legal Collections 4. The Problem of Prologue and Epilogue to the Book of the Covenant and Leading Features of Biblical Law 5. Annotations to the Laws of the Book of the Covenant 6. Summary Appendix I. Verse Arrangement of the Laws of the Book of the Covenant Appendix II. Cuneiform and Biblical Legal Formulations Bibliography Index of Sources

These two ideas are fundamental to the message of the Bible, and yet they are shockingly misunderstood and misapplied. Some take a literal approach to biblical law and adopt customs that make no sense in the modern world. Others think that the law has become irrelevant or, even worse, that it has been abolished and nailed to the cross. They hold this belief in spite of the plain statement by Jesus that the written law would remain as long as heaven and earth last. This suggests that we need to find a new way of looking at biblical law, one that makes sense, that actually helps make life work in the 21st century. Law is about understanding God and his purpose for man. Covenant is closely related because it is about knowing God, personally, intimately, and about being in a relationship with him. Nothing is more central to the Christian relationship with God than the covenant we have with Jesus. In this covenant, you actually carry his name-you are family, with all the rights, privileges and obligations of a brother or a son. Law & Covenant will untangle mysteries and bring simple, understandable insights. Ronald Dart will take you deeper into the Word of God than you've gone before-to a higher logic of the law. He will add an interesting worldview that will make it hard for you to put this book down.

The now familiar new perspective asserts that the covenantal nomism characteristic of second-temple Judaism softened the Mosaic law s requirement of perfect obedience. Because of God s gracious covenant with Israel, manifested in election and the provision of atoning sacrifices, one could be righteous under the law despite occasional failures to obey the law perfectly. This view concludes that Paul, as a first-century Jew, could not have been troubled by the law s stringent demands, because it was generally understood that the gracious framework of the covenant provided a way of dealing with occasional lapses. Consequently, it is claimed, Paul s problem with the law must have to do with its misuse as a means of enforcing ethnic boundaries and excluding Gentile believers. However, as Das demonstrates in this book, whenever the gracious framework of covenantal nomism is called into question, the law s demands take on central importance. Das traces this development in a number of second-temple Jewish works and especially in the writings of Paul. Covenantal nomism is probably an apt characterization of Paul s opponents, and indeed of Paul s past life; thus he can assert that formerly he was blameless under the law. But now Paul sees God s grace as active only in Christ. He emphatically denies that God will show special grace in his judgment of Jews; to do so would be favoritism. Similarly, Paul sees no atoning benefit to the sacrificial system. In effect, Paul is no longer a covenantal nomist. Since the gracious framework of the covenant has collapsed, all that remains for Paul is the law, with its oppressive requirement of perfect obedience and ethnic exclusivism. Contra the "newperspective," the "works of the law" should not be construed so narrowly as only the law's ethnic exclusivity. Christ is "the end" of the law in general, both in the sense that he is the goal to which the law always pointed, and in that he is the sole agent of God's grace apart from which the law's demands would be impossible.

A study of Paul's theology in the Bible, focusing on his view of the old covenant God made with Israel and the new covenant Jesus announced at the Last Supper.

These two ideas are fundamental to the message of the Bible, and yet they are shockingly misunderstood and misapplied. Some take a literal approach to biblical law and adopt customs that make no sense in the modern world. Others think that the law has become irrelevant or, even worse, that it has been abolished and nailed to the cross. They hold this belief in spite of the plain statement by Jesus that the written law would remain as long as heaven and earth last. This suggests that we need to find a new way of looking at biblical law, one that makes sense, that actually helps make life work in the 21st century. Law is about understanding God and his purpose for man. Covenant is closely related because it is about knowing God, personally, intimately, and about being in a relationship with him. Nothing is more central to the Christian relationship with God than the covenant we have with Jesus. In this covenant, you actually carry his name-you are family, with all the rights, privileges and obligations of a brother or a son. Law & Covenant will untangle mysteries and bring simple, understandable insights. Ronald Dart will take you deeper into the Word of God than you've gone before-to a higher logic of the law. He will add an interesting worldview that will make it hard for you to put this book down.

Is the Mosaic covenant in some sense a republication of the covenant of works? What is the nature of its demand for obedience, since sinful man is unable to obey as God requires? How in turn was the law to drive Israel to Jesus? This book explores these issues pertaining to the doctrine of republication--once a staple in Reformed theology--a doctrine with far-reaching implications for Paul's theology, our relationship to Old Testament law, justification, and more.