THE NARRATIVE QUANDARY: CASES OF LAW IN LITERATURE

2004 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela Barmash
Keyword(s):  
Legal History ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Narrative Art ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law In Literature ◽  
Shape Characters

AbstractNarrative texts that address legal matters in the Hebrew Bible must be approached with caution. An author has freedom to create and shape characters and events, and the law that is touched upon in such narratives is subject to the needs of narrative art. Can such texts be used to reconstruct legal history? I will examine three approaches to law in literature, and I will argue that the literary texts in the Bible are critical to the study of biblical law because they reflect essentials of legal practice omitted from legal texts. They exhibit what is perceived to be the inadequacies of a legal system and what type of problems arose in putting the law in practice. They address issues of justice and governance that are omitted in legal tetxs.

scholarly journals Does the Christian worldview provide a place for the law of attraction? (Part 2): An apologetic evaluation of the way the Bible is used in promoting this idea

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dani�l J. Maritz ◽  
Henk G. Stoker
Keyword(s):  
Word Of God ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Word Of Faith ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Christian Worldview ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law Of Attraction ◽  
Positive Confession ◽  
The Church

This article investigates the biblical motivation that is given for the secular idea of the so-called spiritual law of attraction to become part of Christian doctrine. In 2010 Pastor At Boshoff of the Christian Revival Church (CRC) preached two sermons on the law of attraction in which he claimed it as a powerful principle in the Word of God. According to him this biblical �law� provides human beings with physical manifestations of their thoughts and words. The idea to create one�s own favourable future through the law of attraction flows from a New Age worldview and is similar to the positive confession doctrine taught by popular Word of Faith teachers. Boshoff�s claim regarding the law of attraction cannot be deduced from the key Scripture passages he uses, which reflects an unfounded use of Scripture to promote this idea.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article challenges the secular infiltration of the Law of Attraction in the church. This is important since the so-called Law of Attraction was preached by Pastor A. Boshoff of the CRC. Many of his listeners embrace his teaching although it reflects a poor exposition and application of Scripture.

Creation Theology and Monotheism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maren R. Niehoff
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Creation Theology ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Four Books ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Law ◽  
Detailed Interpretation

This chapter focuses on Philo's creation theology and monotheism. Philo plays an important role in the emergence of a monotheistic creed among Second Temple Jews. Probably coining the term “polytheistic doctrine,” Philo grounds his argument in the biblical creation account. The creation is so central to his approach that he opens the Exposition of the Law with a special treatise devoted to it, which is followed by the biographies of the patriarchs and four books on biblical law. Most notably, Philo presents the creation as one of the three overall categories of the Bible, next to the historical narratives and the laws. Thus, one biblical chapter, Genesis, receives exceptional emphasis, much beyond its original place, and becomes a source of theological principles. The chapter then examines whether and, if so, how Philo's detailed interpretation of the creation was inspired by Roman discourses.

The Vikuaḥ of R. Yeḥiel of Paris: A Paraphrase

1984 ◽  
pp. 153-162
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Law ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Law

This chapter explores the Vikuaḥ of Rabbi Yeḥiel of Paris, wherein he argued for the importance and authority of the Talmud. Rabbi Yeḥiel said he believes in all the laws contained in it, which were deduced by the rabbis from Scripture. It is called Talmud (teaching), because of the text ‘you shall teach them to your sons’. However, the Talmud also contains Aggadah, that is, figurative, poetic passages to appeal to men’s hearts. If these passages seem extraordinary, there are many similar passages in Scripture itself. Moreover, Rabbi Yeḥiel argues that without the Talmud, one would not be able to understand passages in the Bible which appear to contradict each other. Where the Biblical law is brief and scattered as in the laws of the Sabbath, the Talmud gives full explanations, gathered into one tractate; otherwise, it would be impossible to understand the law.

Law and Narrative

2019 ◽  
pp. 216-232
Author(s):  
Assnat Bartor
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Research Domains ◽  
Common Combination

The relationship between law and narrative in the Bible is a wide topic that touches on various research domains concerning ancient Near Eastern literature in general and the Bible in particular. It deals with the common combination between literary genres, with the unique model of the Pentateuch and its rhetorical, historiographical, national, and theological roles. It also relates to the intensive presence throughout biblical literature of legal issues as well as tendentious references to the laws of the Pentateuch and enables an acquaintance with the poetics of biblical laws. The “Law and Literature” school, one of the most influential contemporary schools in the study of the law, together with the framework of biblical studies and of biblical law, constitutes a methodological framework for a narrative reading of the pentateuchal laws and for the examination of the variety of connections existing between biblical law and biblical narrative.

The Role of Women in Pursuing Scottish Criminal Actions, 1580–1650

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-250
Author(s):  
Stephanie Dropuljic
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
The Law ◽  
Role Of Women

This article examines the role of women in raising criminal actions of homicide before the central criminal court, in early modern Scotland. In doing so, it highlights the two main forms of standing women held; pursing an action for homicide alone and as part of a wider group of kin and family. The evidence presented therein challenges our current understanding of the role of women in the pursuit of crime and contributes to an under-researched area of Scots criminal legal history, gender and the law.

„Rzymski” Żyd – nieznana twórczość Romana Brandstaettera

2012 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-61
Author(s):  
Dariusz Konrad Sikorski
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Role Model ◽  
The Self ◽  
Polish Literature ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Law

Summary After 1946, ie. after embracing Christianity, Roman Brandstaetter would often point to the Biblical Jonah as a role model for both his life and his artistic endeavour. In the interwar period, when he was a columnist of Nowy Głos, a New York Polish-Jewish periodical, he used the penname Romanus. The ‘Roman’ Jew appears to have treated his columns as a form of an artistic and civic ‘investigation’ into scandalous cases of breaking the law, destruction of cultural values and violation of social norms. Although it his was hardly ‘a new voice’ with the potential to change the course of history, he did become an intransigent defender of free speech. Brought up on the Bible and the best traditions of Polish literature and culture, Brandstaetter, the self-appointed disciple of Adam Mickiewicz, could not but stand up to the challenge of anti-Semitic aggression.

The Laws of Hammurabi

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela Barmash
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Intellectual Tradition ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
Copernican Revolution ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law

The Laws of Hammurabi is one of the earliest law codes, dating from the eighteenth century BCE Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq). It is the culmination of a tradition in which scribes would demonstrate their legal flair by composing statutes on a repertoire of traditional cases, articulating what they deemed just and fair. The book describes how the scribe of the Laws of Hammurabi advanced beyond earlier scribes in composing statutes that manifest systematization and implicit legal principles. The scribe inserted the statutes into the structure of a royal inscription, skillfully reshaping the genre. This approach allowed the king to use the law code to demonstrate that Hammurabi had fulfilled the mandate to guarantee justice enjoined upon him by the gods, affirming his authority as king. This tradition of scribal improvisation on a set of traditional cases continued outside of Mesopotamia, influencing biblical law and the law of the Hittite Empire and perhaps shaping Greek and Roman law. The Laws of Hammurabi is also a witness to the start of another stream of intellectual tradition. It became a classic text and the subject of formal commentaries, marking a Copernican revolution in intellectual culture.

Text-Critical Issues in Ezra-Nehemiah and 1 Esdras

2020 ◽  
pp. 63-78
Author(s):  
Lisbeth S. Fried
Keyword(s):  
Persian Empire ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Archaeological Methods ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
The Law

Ezra-Nehemiah and 1 Esdras are the books of the Bible that describe the return to Judah under the Persians, so it is important to understand what in their portrayal is accurate, and what can be assigned to the imagination of the writers. Text-critical, historical-critical, and archaeological methods enable us to disentangle these elements. They confirm returns to Judah under Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes I, a temple rebuilt under Cyrus and Darius, and a rebuilt wall around Jerusalem under Artaxerxes. We may confirm as well that a man named Ezra was an official in the Persian Empire who served as the “eyes and ears of the King,” but that he did not bring either the Torah or Torah-law to Judah, and there was no law-reading ceremony. The law-reading ceremony, currently described in Nehemiah 8, was written in the Maccabean period, perhaps to emphasize to their Seleucid overlords that even the Persians had supported Judean traditions.

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