LEGISLATING FOR JUSTICE - THE SOCIAL LEGISLATION OF THE COVENANT CODE AND DEUTERONOMY
Abstract
This paper strives to show that the basic concerns and social legislation of the deuteronomic movement can serve as a helpful model for the South African process of reconstruction and reform. Starting point is a consideration of the Book of the Covenant. Following Halbe and Crusemann the author claims that the document has to be dated to the late eighth, early seventh centuries. Two sources have been used by a redactor, Exodus 34:11-26, identified as a document of the resistance Yahweh-alone movement of the Northern Kingdom, and Exodus 21f, the law of the ruling class in Judah. In the dark years after the destruction of Samaria both groups combined and embarked on a process of reform with the intention of establishing greater justice, especially for the deprived and oppressed rural community. This process of reform is traced with regard to specific examples in the Book of the Covenant and in Deuteronomy.Downloads
Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this Journal.
This is an open access journal, and the authors and journal should be properly acknowledged, when works are cited.
Authors may use the publishers version for teaching purposes, in books, theses, dissertations, conferences and conference papers.
A copy of the authors’ publishers version may also be hosted on the following websites:
- Non-commercial personal webpage or blog.
- Institutional webpage.
- Authors Institutional Repository.
The following notice should accompany such a posting on the website: “This is an electronic version of an article published in Scriptura, Volume XXX, number XXX, pages XXX–XXX”, DOI. Authors should also supply a hyperlink to the original paper or indicate where the original paper (http://scriptura.journals.ac.za/pub) may be found.
Authors publishers version, affiliated with the Stellenbosch University will be automatically deposited in the University’s’ Institutional Repository SUNScholar.
Articles as a whole, may not be re-published with another journal.
The following license applies:
