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 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 Character of O. T. History. 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.
