Using socio-anthropological theory and archaeological evidence, Knight argues that while the laws in the Hebrew Bible tend to reflect the interests of those in power, the majority of ancient Israelites--located in villages--developed their own unwritten customary laws to regulate behavior and resolve legal conflicts in their own communities. This book includes numerous examples from village, city, and cult. --from publisher description

While the expectations and circumstances of women’s lives in ancient Israel have received considerable attention in recent scholarship, to date little attention has been focused on the role of daughters in Hebrew narrative‒‒that is, of yet unmarried female members of the household, who are not yet mothers. Kimberly D. Russaw argues that daughters are more than foils for the males (fathers, brothers, etc.) in biblical narratives and that they often use particular tactics to navigate antagonistic systems of power in their worlds. Institutions and power structures favor the patriarch, sons inherit such privileges and benefits, and wives and mothers are ascribed special status because they ensure the patrilineal legacy by birthing sons; but daughters do not receive such social favor or standing. Instead of privileging daughters, systems and institutions control their bodies, restrict their access, and constrict their movement. Combining philological data, social-science models, and cross-cultural comparisons, Russaw examines the systems that constrict biblical daughters in their worlds and the strategies they employ when hostile social forces threaten their well-being.

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.

American Christians today, says Michael Barram, have a signifi­cant blind spot when it comes to economic matters in the Bible. In this book Barram reads biblical texts related to matters of money, wealth, and poverty through a missional lens, showing how they function to transform our economic reasoning. Barram searches for insight into God’s purposes for economic justice by exploring what it might look like to think and act in life-giving ways in the face of contemporary economic orthodoxies. The Bible repeatedly tells us how to treat the poor and marginalized, Barram says, and faithful Christians cannot but reflect carefully and concretely on such concerns. Written in an accessible style, this biblically rooted study reflects years of research and teaching on social and economic justice in the Bible and will prove useful for lay readers, preachers, teachers, students, and scholars.

The Bible proclaims a message of liberation. Though the Bible arose in an age when slavery and patriarchalism permeated society, the biblical authors sought to elevate the rights of slaves, the poor, and women. Their attempts to elevate the oppressed setin motion a trajectory of evolution, which we should still be advancing today. Critics of the Bible declare that it accepts slavery and the subordination of women, but they fail to understand the biblical texts in their historical context. For their age the biblical authors were advanced in their understanding of human rights, and the democratic values we hold today actually resulted from their early attempts to affirm the dignity and rights of slaves and women. It is equally important that we critique those spokespersons of the church who quote the Bible literally but have lost sight of its historical context so that they might still subordinate women today. Such spokespersons also declare that the Bible condemns homosexuality. But a closer reading of the text discerns that those few passages that address same-sex relations actually condemn rape, ritual prostitution, and master-slave relations. To use the Bible to condemn people is to misuse the Bible.