Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
What's So Divine about Divine Law?
Part I—Two Conceptions of Divine Law
Parts II and III—Three Responses
Part II—Mosaic Law in the Light of Greco-Roman Discourses of Law: Ancient Jewish Responses to the End of the First Century CE
Part III—The Rabbinic Construction of Divine Law
Part I Biblical and Greco-Roman Discourses of Divine Law
Introduction
1 Biblical Discourses of Divine Law
Introduction
Discourses of the Law
Discourse 1: Divine Law as an Expression of Divine Will
Discourse 2: Divine Law as an Expression of Divine Reason
Discourse 3: Divine Law and Historical Narrative
The Multidimensionality of Biblical Divine Law
2 Greco-Roman Discourses of Law
Discourses of Natural Law
Discourse 1: Natural Law and Truth—Logos and Realism
Discourse 2: Natural Law and Cosmopolitanism
Discourses of Human 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 5: The Opposition of Phusis and Nomos?
Discourse 6: Positive Law in Need of a Savior
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
(8) Divine Law as a Standard for the Evaluation of Human Law
(9) In the Trenches—Juristic Theory vs. Juristic Practice
(10) Magistrates and the Equitable Adjustment of Roman Civil Law
Conclusion
Part II Mosaic Law in the Light of Greco-Roman Discourses of Law to the End of the First Century CE
Introduction
3 Bridging the Gap: Divine Law in Hellenistic and Second Temple Jewish Sources
Bridging the Gap
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
Strategies for Negotiating Universalism and Particularism
Esoteric vs. Exoteric Wisdom: Law’s Narrative in Sirach, 1 Enoch, Qumran, and Philo
Conclusion
4 Minding the Gap: Paul
Paul and the Law
Genealogical Definition of Jewish Identity: Circumcision and the Law
Paul’s Discourse of Ambivalence regarding the Mosiac Law
Conclusion
Part III The Rabbinic Construction of Divine Law
Introduction
5 The "Truth" about Torah
What Is Truth?
Measures of Authenticity
Measure 1: Formal Truth
Measure 2: Judicial Truth—Human Compromise and Divine Judgment
Measure 3: Ontological Truth—Realism vs. Nominalism
The Gaze of the Other
Rabbinic Self-Awareness: The Motif of Mockery
Conclusion
6 The (Ir)rationality of Torah
Making the Case for the Law's Irrationality
Response 1: Conceding and Transvaluing the Premise
Response 2: Disowning the Premise
Response 3: Denying the Premise—Rationalist Apologetics
Ta'amei ha-Mitzvot/Ta'amei Torah
Response 4: Splitting the Difference—an Acute Sense of Audience
Conclusion
7 The Flexibility of Torah
Legislative Mechanisms of Change—a Rhetoric of Disclosure?
Uprooting Torah Law
Uprooting Torah Law in Light of the Praetorian Edict
Nonlegislative Mechanisms of Change—a Rhetoric of Concealment?
Modification of the Law—Internal Values
Modification of the Law—External Values
Moral Critique and Phronesis
Conclusion
8 Natural Law in Rabbinic Sources?
Normativity before the Law
Law Precedes Sinai
Sinaitic Law Begins at Sinai
Accounting for Diverse Rabbinic Views on Pre-Sinai Normativity
The Noahide Laws
Are the Noahide Laws Invariable, Universal, Rational, and Embedded in Nature?
Conclusion
Writing the Next Chapters
Bibliography
Index of Primary Sources
General Index
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