LAW (EXODUS 20:22-23:19)
Notes
Transcript
BIG PICTURE SUMMARY OF 10 WORDS
GIFT GIVEN BY GOD TO HELP THEM LIVE OUT (FUNCTION) AS WHAT GOD HAS MADE THEM TO BE (HIS COVENANT COMMUNITY)
NOT GIVEN TO SAVE!!!
EXODUS 21-23 OR THE BOOK OF THE COVENANT IS A MESS TO MODERN SENSIBILITIES.
HERE WE FIND STATEMENTS REGARDING LIVESTOCK, SLAVERY, ALTER BUILDING AND IMMIGRATION. THE MORAL, ETHICAL, AND CEREMONIAL ARE JUMBLED TOGETHER WITH NO APPARENT ORGANIZATION AND ABSOLUTELY NO ATTEMPT OF COMPREHENSIVENESS. SO WE FIND:
25 If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it. 26 And you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it.’
THIS IS IMMIDEATELY FOLLOWED WITH:
1 “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. 2 When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing.
WHAT? INSTRUCTIONS ON SLAVERY?
IF GOD IS GIVING THE LAW TO CREATE HIS IDEAL SOCIETY....
SEVERAL VERSES LATER:
16 “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.
SOME OF IT, OF COURSE, IS EXTREMELY RELEVANT TO OUR DAILY LIVES.
LIKE:
28 “When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall not be liable.
35 “When one man’s ox butts another’s, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and share its price, and the dead beast also they shall share.
SOME OF IT IS EXTREME!
18 “You shall not permit a sorceress to live. 19 “Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death. 20 “Whoever sacrifices to any god, other than the Lord alone, shall be devoted to destruction.
SOME OF IT IS PROFOUND!
9 “You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
SO WHAT ARE WE TO MAKE OF THESE “LAWS”?
THE TORAH IS NOT LAW LIKE WE THINK OF LAW. THE TORAH IS AN ILLUSTRATIVE COMPENDIUM (DESCRIPTIVE) OF APPLICATION IN REAL-LIFE SITUATIONS OF THE PRINCIPLES LAID OUT IN THE 10 WORDS.
THE TORAH IS NOT LAW LIKE WE THINK OF LAW. THE TORAH IS AN ILLUSTRATIVE COMPENDIUM (DESCRIPTIVE) OF APPLICATION IN REAL-LIFE SITUATIONS OF THE PRINCIPLES LAID OUT IN THE 10 WORDS.
IT LITERALLY MEANS “DIRECTIONAL TEACHING OR GUIDANCE FOR WALKING ON THE PATH OF LIFE.” (KAISER) THE HEBREW VERBAL ROOT, YARAH, MEANS TO THROW OR TO SHOOT. THE IDEA OF THE WORD IS TO INFORM, INSTRUCT, DIRECT OR GUIDE.
THE BIBLE WAS WRITTEN FOR US BUT NOT TO US.
THE BIBLE WAS WRITTEN FOR US BUT NOT TO US.
WE CANNOT READ ANE “LAW” THE WAY WE CONCEIVE OF LAW.
FOR EXAMPLE HAMMURABI:
IN 1901 AT EXCAVATIONS AT SUSA DISCOVERED A STELE WITH 282 LEGAL SAYINGS THAT WAS CALLED THE CODE OF HAMMURABI. HAMMURABI WAS A BABYLONIAN KING AT THE TIME OF THE BIBLICAL PATRIARCHS. AT THE TOP IS A PICTURE OF SHAMASH, GOD OF JUSTICE SEATED ON A THRONE AND EXTENDING A ROD A RING TO HAMMURABI – THIS WAS INTERPRETED AS THE GOD GIVING THE LAW TO HAMMURABI.
FURTHER ANALYSIS FROM FURTHER DISCOVERIERS REVEALED THIS TO BE WRONG – IT WAS THE EXACT OPPOSITE. THE ROD AND RING WERE SYMBOLS OF SHAMASH’S AUTHORITY AND HE WAS DISPLAYING THEM. THE LAWS WERE HAMMURABI DISPLAYING THAT HE WAS EXECUTING JUSTICE IN HIS KINGDOM.
IF A SOCIETY IS TO BE GOVERNED BY LAW THE LAW MUST ADDRESS EVERY ASPECT OF SOCIETY.
IF A SOCIETY IS TO BE GOVERNED BY LAW THE LAW MUST ADDRESS EVERY ASPECT OF SOCIETY.
WE USE PRECEDENT TO CLASSIFY LEGAL SITUATIONS TO ALIGN WITH RULINGS OF THE PAST TO achieve A VIRTUAL COMPREHENSIVENESS. THE ANE DOESN’T EVEN TRY.
In our world judges make decisions based on precedents of legal rulings that have withstood scrutiny and based on legislation that has been enacted by a country’s legislative body. Rulings have to be documented and supported by evidence from the written records. In contrast, judges in the ancient world did not issue their verdicts by making reference to documents that had been produced for that purpose. Instead, they depended on custom and wisdom.
When we think of laws, we imagine a normative list of rules with accompanying consequences for breaking them. When a person goes to court, the lawyers, judge, and jury try to determine if the rule has actually been broken and to what extent the consequences should be applied. This system relies heavily on logical precision (both in the writing of the rules themselves and in the presentation of evidence) and precedent. We very specifically do not want the judge (or the jury) to apply their intuition about what they think constitutes “wrongness” and about what they feel should happen to this specific individual, so we force them to work within a series of methodological constraints (for example, juries are commanded to consider only evidence that the court has formally admitted and are deliberately isolated from any additional influence). People in the ancient world, however, did want the judge to apply his intuition about wrongness to the cases he judged and to consider each on its own merits. Our modern case law describes precedent that sets limits on what kinds of rulings the lawyers and the judges are allowed to make. Ancient legal wisdom instead tried to instruct the judge on what rightness and wrongness looked like so he (and it was usually a man) would be able to produce rightness and eliminate wrongness with his verdicts.
JOHN WALTON
IN THE ANE LEGAL CODES WERE GIVEN TO HELP THE KING/JUDGE HAVE WISDOM.
IN THE ANE LEGAL CODES WERE GIVEN TO HELP THE KING/JUDGE HAVE WISDOM.
WISDOM IS THE ABILITY TO PERCEIVE ORDER AND ESTABLISH IT.
Consequently, these lists of legal sayings do not tell us what laws were in force in society, much like proverbs do not tell us how everyone lived their lives in society.
4 Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. 5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.
SO WHAT DO WE DO WITH THESE “LAWS”?
STOP READING THE TORAH LIKE IT’S A MODERN LAW CODE. THIS MEANS STOP TRYING TO IMPOSE CATEGORIES (RITUAL, MORAL, SOCIAL) ONTO IT AND THEN CHERRY PICKING WHAT IS RELEVANT TODAY AND WHAT ISN’T.
STOP READING THE TORAH LIKE IT’S A MODERN LAW CODE. THIS MEANS STOP TRYING TO IMPOSE CATEGORIES (RITUAL, MORAL, SOCIAL) ONTO IT AND THEN CHERRY PICKING WHAT IS RELEVANT TODAY AND WHAT ISN’T.
Torah was not the revelation of a new society. It was revelation pertaining to how God’s chosen people were expected to participate in the plans and purposes of God by reflecting well the name of Yahweh, with whom they were identified. This called for integrity as people living in the society in which they lived, as they promoted an order that would be the envy of the nations around them and give honor to Yahweh, their covenant God.
JOHN WALTON
6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. 8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. 16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.