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

This volume offers a synchronic, literary reading of the final form of the laws of Exodus 20.22-23.19 (commonly, though inaccurately labelled "The Book of the Covenant"), in contrast with primarily source- and form-critical approaches commonly utilized in the past. The work seeks to demonstrate that this literary unit is much more coherent, more integrated into its narrative context, less in need of the positing of corruptions, secondary insertions, rearrangements or the like than has usually been recognized. The approach instead seeks to find authorial purpose in each case where scholars have often posited scribal misadventure, "seams" between sources, disorder, contradiction, or corruption.

The foundation for all scholarly study in biblical law is the shared assumption that the Covenant Code, as contained in Exodus 20:23-22:33 is the oldest code of laws in the Hebrew Bible, and that all other laws are later revisions of that code. The author of this text strikes that foundation.