Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel | 
 enlarge | Author: Bernard M. Levinson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $75.00
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Sales Rank: 1657685
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 232
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 0521513448
Dewey Decimal Number: 296.3118
EAN: 9780521513449
ASIN: 0521513448
Publication Date: August 4, 2008
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Product Description
This book examines the doctrine of transgenerational punishment found in the Decalogue-that is, the idea that God punishes sinners vicariously and extends the punishment due them to three or four generations of their progeny. Though it was "God-given" law, the unfairness of punishing innocent people merely for being the children or grandchildren of wrongdoers was clearly recognized in ancient Israel. A series of inner-biblical and post-biblical responses to the rule demonstrates that later writers were able to criticize, reject, and replace this problematic doctrine with the alternative notion of individual retribution. From this perspective, the formative canon is the source of its own renewal: it fosters critical reflection upon the textual tradition and sponsors intellectual freedom. To support further study, this book includes a valuable bibliographical essay on the distinctive approach of inner-biblical exegesis showing the contributions of European, Israeli, and North American scholars. An earlier version of the volume appeared in French as L′Hermeneutique de l′innovation: Canon et exegese dans l′Israel biblique. This new Cambridge release represents a major revision and expansion of the French edition, nearly doubling its length with extensive new content. Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel opens new perspectives on current debates within the humanities about canonicity, textual authority, and authorship. Bernard M. Levinson holds the Berman Family Chair of Jewish Studies and Hebrew Bible at the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on biblical and cuneiform law, textual reinterpretation in the Second Temple period, and the relation of the Bible to Western intellectual history. His book Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (1997) won the 1999 Salo W. Baron Award for Best First Book in Literature and Thought from the American Academy for Jewish Research. He is also the author of "The Right Chorale" : Studies in Biblical Law and Interpretation (2008), and editor or coeditor of four volumes, most recently, The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance (2007). The interdisciplinary significance of his work has been recognized with appointments to both the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton) and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin/Berlin Institute for Advanced Study.
Book Description
This book examines how the Decalogue's concept of divine transgenerational punishment was reworked by later writers in ancient Israel, who proposed the alternative idea of individual retribution. Enriched by a bibliographical essay on inner-biblical exegesis, the volume opens new perspectives on current debates within the humanities about canonicity, textual authority, and authorship.
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