Description
In the thousand years before the rise of Islam, two radically diverse conceptions of what it means to say that a law is divine confronted one another with a force that reverberates to the present. What's Divine about Divine Law? untangles the classical and biblical roots of the Western idea of divine law and shows how early adherents to biblical tradition—Hellenistic Jewish writers such as Philo, the community at Qumran, Paul, and the talmudic rabbis—struggled to make sense of this conflicting legacy.
Christine Hayes shows that for the ancient Greeks, divine law was divine by virtue of its inherent qualities of intrinsic rationality, truth, universality, and immutability, while for the biblical authors, divine law was divine because it was grounded in revelation with no presumption of rationality, conformity to truth, universality, or immutability. Hayes describes the collision of these opposing conceptions in the Hellenistic period, and details competing attempts to resolve the resulting cognitive dissonance. She shows how Second Temple and Hellenistic Jewish writers, from the author of 1 Enoch to Philo of Alexandria, were engaged in a common project of bridging the gulf between classical and biblical notions of divine law, while Paul, in his letters to the early Christian church, sought to widen it. Hayes then delves into the literature of classical rabbinic Judaism to reveal how the talmudic rabbis took a third and scandalous path, insisting on a construct
Chapter
The Multidimensionality of Biblical Divine Law
The Multidimensionality of Biblical Divine Law
2 Greco-Roman Discourses of Law
2 Greco-Roman Discourses of Law
Discourses of Natural Law
Discourses of Natural Law
Discourse 1: Natural Law and Truth—Logos and Realism
Discourse 1: Natural Law and Truth—Logos and Realism
Discourse 2: Natural Law and Cosmopolitanism
Discourse 2: Natural Law and Cosmopolitanism
Discourses of Human Positive Law
Discourses of Human Positive Law
Discourse 3: Law and Virtue—the Inadequacy of Positive Law
Discourse 3: Law and Virtue—the Inadequacy of Positive Law
Discourse 4: The Flexible, Unwritten, “Living Law” vs. the Inflexible, Written, “Dead Letter”
Discourse 4: The Flexible, Unwritten, “Living Law” vs. the Inflexible, Written, “Dead Letter”
Discourse 5: The Opposition of Phusis and Nomos?
Discourse 5: The Opposition of Phusis and Nomos?
Discourse 6: Positive Law in Need of a Savior
Discourse 6: Positive Law in Need of a Savior
Discourse 7: In Praise of Written Law—the Mark of the Free, Civilized Man
Discourse 7: In Praise of Written Law—the Mark of the Free, Civilized Man
Additional Literary and Legal Practices: The Juxtaposition of Divine and Human Law
Additional Literary and Legal Practices: The Juxtaposition of Divine and Human Law
(8) Divine Law as a Standard for the Evaluation of Human Law
(8) Divine Law as a Standard for the Evaluation of Human Law
(9) In the Trenches—Juristic Theory vs. Juristic Practice
(9) In the Trenches—Juristic Theory vs. Juristic Practice
(10) Magistrates and the Equitable Adjustment of Roman Civil Law
(10) Magistrates and the Equitable Adjustment of Roman Civil Law
Part II Mosaic Law in the Light of Greco-Roman Discourses of Law to the End of the First Century CE
Part II Mosaic Law in the Light of Greco-Roman Discourses of Law to the End of the First Century CE
3 Bridging the Gap: Divine Law in Hellenistic and Second Temple Jewish Sources
3 Bridging the Gap: Divine Law in Hellenistic and Second Temple Jewish Sources
The Correlation of Torah and Wisdom and the Mutual Transfer of Properties: Sirach, 1 Enoch, and Qumran
The Correlation of Torah and Wisdom and the Mutual Transfer of Properties: Sirach, 1 Enoch, and Qumran
The Correlation of Torah and Reason and the Transfer of Properties: Aristeas, 4 Maccabees, and Philo
The Correlation of Torah and Reason and the Transfer of Properties: Aristeas, 4 Maccabees, and Philo
Strategies for Negotiating Universalism and Particularism
Strategies for Negotiating Universalism and Particularism
Esoteric vs. Exoteric Wisdom: Law’s Narrative in Sirach, 1 Enoch, Qumran, and Philo
Esoteric vs. Exoteric Wisdom: Law’s Narrative in Sirach, 1 Enoch, Qumran, and Philo
Genealogical Definition of Jewish Identity: Circumcision and the Law
Genealogical Definition of Jewish Identity: Circumcision and the Law
Paul’s Discourse of Ambivalence regarding the Mosiac Law
Paul’s Discourse of Ambivalence regarding the Mosiac Law
Part III The Rabbinic Construction of Divine Law
Part III The Rabbinic Construction of Divine Law
5 The “Truth” about Torah
5 The “Truth” about Torah
Measure 2: Judicial Truth—Human Compromise and Divine Judgment
Measure 2: Judicial Truth—Human Compromise and Divine Judgment
Measure 3: Ontological Truth—Realism vs. Nominalism
Measure 3: Ontological Truth—Realism vs. Nominalism
Rabbinic Self-Awareness: The Motif of Mockery
Rabbinic Self-Awareness: The Motif of Mockery
6 The (Ir)rationality of Torah
6 The (Ir)rationality of Torah
Making the Case for the Law’s Irrationality
Making the Case for the Law’s Irrationality
Response 1: Conceding and Transvaluing the Premise
Response 1: Conceding and Transvaluing the Premise
Response 2: Disowning the Premise
Response 2: Disowning the Premise
Response 3: Denying the Premise—Rationalist Apologetics
Response 3: Denying the Premise—Rationalist Apologetics
Ta’amei ha-Mitzvot/Ta’amei Torah
Ta’amei ha-Mitzvot/Ta’amei Torah
Response 4: Splitting the Difference—an Acute Sense of Audience
Response 4: Splitting the Difference—an Acute Sense of Audience
7 The Flexibility of Torah
7 The Flexibility of Torah
Legislative Mechanisms of Change—a Rhetoric of Disclosure?
Legislative Mechanisms of Change—a Rhetoric of Disclosure?
Uprooting Torah Law in Light of the Praetorian Edict
Uprooting Torah Law in Light of the Praetorian Edict
Nonlegislative Mechanisms of Change—a Rhetoric of Concealment?
Nonlegislative Mechanisms of Change—a Rhetoric of Concealment?
Modification of the Law—Internal Values
Modification of the Law—Internal Values
Modification of the Law—External Values
Modification of the Law—External Values
Moral Critique and Phronesis
Moral Critique and Phronesis
8 Natural Law in Rabbinic Sources?
8 Natural Law in Rabbinic Sources?
Normativity before the Law
Normativity before the Law
Sinaitic Law Begins at Sinai
Sinaitic Law Begins at Sinai
Accounting for Diverse Rabbinic Views on Pre-Sinai Normativity
Accounting for Diverse Rabbinic Views on Pre-Sinai Normativity
Are the Noahide Laws Invariable, Universal, Rational, and Embedded in Nature?
Are the Noahide Laws Invariable, Universal, Rational, and Embedded in Nature?
Writing the Next Chapters
Writing the Next Chapters
What's Divine about Divine Law?
：Early Perspectives
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