A Brief Book Summary from Books At a Glance
by Steve West
About the Author
James M. Todd III is a faculty member in the department of biblical and theological studies at College of the Ozarks.
Table of Contents
Introduction: What Do I Do with All These Laws?
1 Which Laws Are We Discussing?
2 What Are My Options? Approaches to the Old Covenant Laws
3 “In the Beginning,” Not “Thou Shalt Not”
4 The Rest of the Story (Part 1): Israel at Sinai
5 The Rest of the Story (Part 2): Before and After Sinai
6 “Thou Shalt Not Remove Them”: What About the Ten Commandments?
7 Does This Mean I Can Do Whatever I Want?
8 Why Should We Read the Laws?
9 Can I Have the Good News? The Hope of the Pentateuch
Conclusion: Back to the Beginning: The Law in the Early Church and the Contemporary Church
Appendix A: How Should Christians Use the Hebrew Bible to Address Homosexuality?
Appendix B: The Second Commandment and Images in Worship
Appendix C: Challenges to My Position
Summary
Chapter 1: Which Laws Are We Discussing?
It is important to use words that are clearly defined. The English word law does not fully capture the meaning of the Hebrew torah, which can refer to general instructions or particular rules. When we talk about obeying God’s laws or commands, we need to specify which ones we mean and avoid speaking in generalities. The first two commands in Scripture were given to Adam. The first was to be fruitful and multiply, while the second was not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There are many laws and commands God gave to specific people in specific circumstances which do not apply to everyone. This book will not focus on every command of God, but rather on the laws given to Israel on their way to the Promised Land (Exodus 20 through Deuteronomy). These laws were given to a specific people for a specific time.
In the ancient world, a covenant was a formalized agreement between parties. The old covenant is patterned after a suzerain-vassal treaty, and this helps us understand the significance of its laws. Biblically, the most common title for this covenant is simply “the law” (torah), but it is also referred to as the Mosaic covenant, the Sinai covenant, and the old covenant. The old covenant is not coextensive with the Hebrew Bible. It is commonly said that the old covenant contains 613 specific laws, and with that many laws, it is helpful to subdivide them into categories. It is possible to subdivide the laws according to the geographical location where they were given (with the first and largest grouping being given at Sinai). There are also traditional subdivisions, like the Ten Commandments, tabernacle instructions, the Covenant Code, Levitical laws, the Deuteronomic code, etc. (Some of these divisions can be subdivided in turn.) Laws can also be parsed according to their type (e.g., apodictic or casuistic, absolute prohibition or case law). The old covenant contained the laws that Israel was required to follow, so it is foundational for the unfolding of the rest of the Hebrew Bible. . . .
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