was in use. The discovery at Gezer of Assyrian contract-tablets (651 and 648 B.C.)—one relating to the sale of land by a certain Nethaniah—at least suggests the prevalence of Assyrian custom, and this is confirmed by the technical business methods illustrated in Jer. xxxii. Moreover, among the Jewish families settled in the 5th century B.C. in Egypt (Elephantine) and Babylonia (Nippur), the Babylonian-Assyrian principles are in vogue, and the presumption that they were not unfamiliar in Palestine is strengthened further by the otherwise unaccountable appearance of Babylonian-Assyrian elements later in the Talmudic law. The denunciations in the prophetical writings of gross injustice, oppression and maladministration seem to presuppose definite laws, which either were ignored or which fell with severity upon the poor and unfortunate. They point to a considerable amount of written law, which was evidently class-legislation of an oppressive character.[1] The Babylonian code is essentially class-legislation, and from the point of view of the idealism of the Old Testament prophets, which raises the rights of humanity above everything else, the steps which the code takes to safeguard the rights of property (slaves included therein) would naturally seem harsh. The code also regulates wages and prices, and shows a certain humanity towards debtors; and here any failure to carry out these laws would obviously be denounced. While the code, according to its own lights, aims Prophets and the Law. at strict justice rather than charity, the Old Testament has reforming aims, and the religious, legislative and social ideals are characterized by the insistence upon a lofty moral and ethical standard. These ideals are more religious than democratic. The appeal of the prophets, “is not for better institutions but for better men, not for the abolition of aristocratic privileges but for an honest and godly use of them.”[2] The writers have in view a people with individual and collective rights and responsibilities, united by feelings of the deepest loyalty and kindliness and by common adherence to their only God. There is a marked growth of refinement and of ideas of morality, and a condemnation of the shameless vice and oppression which went on amid a punctilious and splendid worship. It is extremely significant that between the teaching of the prophetical writings and the spirit of the Mosaic legislation there is an unmistakable bond. The Mosaic law, in its reforming aspect, is characterized by the denunciation of heathenism and heathenish usages which belong to the old religion. There is an insistence upon individual responsibility (Deut. xxiv. 16; 2 Kings xiv. 6; cf. Jer. xxxi. 29 seq.; Ezek. xviii., xxxiii.), the more noteworthy when one considers the tenacity of the savage talio and its retention, though with some modifications, in the Babylonian code. There is a tendency to mitigate slavery, and the law of fugitive slaves is a particularly instructive innovation (Deut. xxiii. 15 seq., subsequently confined to the slave from outside). Corporal punishment is kept within limits (xxv. 3), but its very existence points to state-life rather than to the desert. Some attempt is made to diminish the destructiveness of war (xx. 10-20), but the passage is a remarkable illustration of a barbarous age. The endeavour is also made to improve the monarchy of the future (xvii. 14 sqq.), but mainly on religious grounds, in order to diminish foreign intercourse. Noteworthy, again, is the appeal to religious and ethical considerations in order to prevent injustice to the widow and fatherless and to unhappy debtors; statutory laws are either unknown, or, more probably, are presupposed. The pentateuchal legislation as a Mosaic Code: Problems. whole is placed at the very beginning of Israelite national history. Amid constant periods of apostasy two epoch-making events stand out: (a) the rediscovery of the Book of the Law (Deuteronomy is meant) in the time of Josiah (2 Kings xxii.) followed by a reform of sundry religious abuses dating from the foundation of the temple, and (b) the promulgation by Ezra of the Law of Yahweh, the law of Moses (Ezra. vii. 10, 14; Neh. viii. 1), in the age of Nehemiah, at the very close of biblical history. This legislation, endorsing (in certain well-defined portions) priestly authority, excludes a monarchy and stands at the head of a lengthy development in the way of expansion and interpretation. Its true place in biblical history has been the problem of generations of scholars,[3] and the discovery (Dec. 1901-Jan. 1902) of the Babylonian code has brought new problems of relationship and of external influences. Although on various grounds there is a strong probability that the code of Khammurabi must have been known in Palestine at some period, the Old Testament does not manifest such traces of the influence as might have been expected. Pentateuchal law is relatively unprogressive, it is marked by a characteristic simplicity, and by a spirit of reform, and the persisting primitive social conditions implied do not harmonize with other internal and external data. The existence of other laws, however, is to be presupposed, and there appear to be cases where the Babylonian code lies in the background. An independent authority concludes that “the co-existing likeness and differences argue for an independent recension of ancient custom deeply influenced by Babylonian law.”[4] The questions are involved with the reforming spirit in biblical religion and history. On literary-historical grounds the Pentateuch in its present form is post-exilic, posterior to the old monarchies and to the ideals of the earlier prophetical writings. The laws are (a) partly contemporary collections (chiefly of a ritual and ceremonial character) and (b) partly collections of older and different origin, though now in post-exilic frames. The antiquity of certain principles and details is undeniable—as also in the Talmud—but since one must start from the organic connexions of the composite sources, the problems necessitate proper attention to the relation between the stages in the literary growth (working backwards) and the vicissitudes which culminate in the post-exilic age. The simplicity of the legislation (traditionally associated with Moab and Sinai and with Kadesh in South Palestine), the humanitarian and reforming spirit, the condemnation of abuses and customs are features which, in view of the background and scope of Deuteronomy, can hardly be severed from the internal events which connect Palestine of the Assyrian supremacy with the time of Nehemiah.[5]
The introduction, spread and prominence of the name Yahweh, the development of conceptions concerning his nature, his Character of O. T. History. supremacy over other gods and the lofty monotheism which denied a plurality of gods, are questions which, like the biblical legislative ideas, cannot be adequately examined within the narrow compass of the Old Testament alone.
The biblical history is a “canonical” history which looks back to the patriarchs, the exodus from Egypt, the law-giving and the covenant with Yahweh at Sinai, the conquest of Palestine by the Israelite tribes, the monarchy, the rival kingdoms, the fall and exile of the northern tribes, and, later, of the southern (Judah), and the reconstructions of Judah in the times of Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes. It is the first known example of continuous historical writing (Genesis to Kings, Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah), and represents a deliberate effort to go back from
- ↑ O. C. Whitehouse, Century Bible, on Isa. x. 1 seq.
- ↑ See W. R. Smith, Old Test. in the Jew. Church (London, 1892), pp. 348, 350 seq.
- ↑ See Bible: Old Test. Criticism; Jews, §§ 16, 23.
- ↑ C. H. W. Johns, Hastings’s Dict. Bible, v. 611 seq., who points out that the intrusion of priestly power into the law courts is a recrudescence under changed conditions of a state of things from which the Babylonian code shows an emancipation nearly complete. The view formerly maintained by the present writer (Laws of Moses and Code of Hammurabi, 1903, pp. 204 sqq., 279 seq., &c.) relied upon the difference between the exilic or post-exilic sources which unambiguously reflect Babylonian and related ideas, and the absence in other biblical sources of the features which an earlier comprehensive Babylonian influence would have produced, and it incorrectly assumed that the explanation might be found in the ordinary reconstructions of Israelite history. Cf. above, p. 182, n. 1.
- ↑ On the later history of the canonical law (Mishnah, Gemara, &c.) see Talmud. The Talmud embodies law, which is related to the Babylonian code not only in content but also sometimes in spirit; see L. N. Dembitz, Jew. Quart. Rev. xix. (1906), pp. 109 sqq. For the efforts of the Rabbis to improve the legal principles in Galilee in the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D., see A. Büchler, Publication No. 1, Jews' College, London. With the removal of Judaism from Palestine and internal social changes the archaic primitive law reappeared, now influenced, however, by Mahommedan legislation.
