The Art of Biblical Law

This article draws upon Robert Alter's insights into biblical narrative to challenge the strict dichotomies between " law" and "narrative" in the Hebrew Bible, demonstrating that both genres share many rhetorical techniques, and providing a template of narrative vision and legal praxis intertwined. It provides close readings of one " juridical parable" (Nathan's condemnation of David) and one narrativized, "casuistic" law (the imperative to return lost property) in the Hebrew Bible, concluding that the genres " law" and " literature" are modern categories perhaps misapplied to the Hebrew Bible; Alter's observations about how biblical literature works may be both broadened and tested by including biblical law as an integral part of biblical literature.