The Spirit of Biblical Law (review)

Book Reviews , .' ,- ~. 97 and begetting by the Holy, Spirit. Yet, Visotzky also reminds us that attacks on Christianity in rabbinic literamre occur only rarely; they were far from a major priority on the rabbinic exegetical agenda, which was directed overwhelmingly to the fullest possible elucidation ofthe eternal covenant between God and the Jewish people. In Fathers of the World, Visotzky reveals the parallel worlds of patristic Christianity and rabbinic Judaism by elucidating through small but telling details their shared concerns and determined antagonisms. Models ofmethodological caution, these technical essays are not for novices in the field. Yet for those willing and able to work through their arguments, they constitute a significant contribution to our understanding of the namre of Jewish-Christian intellectual interactions in late antiquity and offer valuable guidance on how to study them. Judith R. Baskin Department of Judaic Studies State University ofNew York at Albany The Spirit of Biblical Law, by Calum Carmichael. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996. 238 pp. $35.00. It is the contention of Calum Carmichael that the legal and narrative portions of the Pentateuch reveal the existence ofa sophisticated, highly developed form of scribal art at some period in Israelite antiquity. He further concludes that this literary process includes all biblical laws, which were most likely produced around the time of the exile in 587 B.C.E. The process of formulating these biblical rules was filtered through the historical imagination ofthe Deuteronomic and Priestly lawgivers, who linked the laws to the history known to them. Carmichael admits that the biblical scribes may well have been acquainted with the Near Eastern legal tradition, but he states that in order for them to set out a distinctive body of Israelite rules, they scrutinized the problems and disputes that they found in their own national traditions about the patriarchs, about Moses, about the Judges, and about the kings. He thus concludes that it is therefore impossible for modem inquirers to undo this traditional/literary link and provide valid socio-historical reconstructions. The manner in which Carmichael makes his case is through examination ofseveral key narratives containing primary legal issues: the rules ofproper behavior in Leviticus 19; the rules against forbidden mixmres; incest taboos, particularly in Leviticus 18; the Decalogue as it relates to the Adam and Eve narrative and the story of the Golden Calf; the laws of talion; and legal situations involving life and death. He then turns to 98 SHOFAR Winter 1998 Vol. 16, No.2 narratives which contain elements of law: the death of Saul (1 Sam 31; 2 Sam 1); David's adultery (2 Sam 11); the provision of manna (Exod 16); the resolution of disputes in the Joseph narrative (Gen 37); and Moses' delegation of authority in Exod 18. The guiding assumption throughout Carmichael's work is that the biblical laws do not reflect the social history of the times when they were formulated (see p. 65), and "that the laws were not set down to govern society, even though some of them may in fact have done so" (p. 75). Using this as his premise removes Carmichael from the necessity to attach any historical context to legal formulation. Instead the laws become simple proverbial commentaries on the traditional stories of the nation and their ancestors. The concept of synchronic or diachronic legal development is immaterial in the face of such a concept-as is much of modem legal scholarship. Carmichael's attempt to connect the laws and narratives is based in part on linguistic links, but more especially on ''parallelism and identical sequence of topics between the narratives and the laws" (pp. 32-33). One example of this sequencing is found in Carmichael's discussion ofthe law offalse witness (Deut 19:16-19). He links it with the preceding law (Deut 19:14) prohibiting the removal ofa neighbor's boundary stone, and states that the "lawgiver" had the incident ofNaboth's vineyard (1 Kgs 21) in his mind when he placed these two laws together in the corpus. In this way, two laws that seemingly have no direct relationship are given purpose, and the original sense of their proximity is established. The conclusion is thus possible, according to...