In this study, Calum Carmichael offers a new assessment of the Joseph story from the perspective of the biblical laws in Leviticus 1-10. These sacrificial laws, he argues, respond to the many problems in the first Israelite family. Understanding how ancient lawgivers thought about Joseph's and his brothers' troubling behavior leads to a greater appreciation of this complicated tale. The study of the laws in Leviticus 1-10 in relation to the Joseph story provides evidence that all biblical laws, over 400, constitute commentary on issues in the biblical narratives. They do not, as commonly thought, directly reflect the societal concerns in ancient Israelite times. Through close reading and analysis, Carmichael reveals how biblical narrators and lawgivers found distinctive and subtle ways of evaluating a single development in a narrative from multiple perspectives. Thus, the sacrificial laws addressing idolatry, keeping silent about a known offense, confessing wrongdoing, and seeking
If we look to the Bible for historical accounts of ancient life, we make a profound error. So contends Calum Carmichael in this original and incisive reading of some of the Hebrew Bible and New Testa
In this work Calum Carmichael—a legal scholar who applies a literary approach to the study of the Bible—shows how each law and each narrative in Numbers, the least researched book in the Pentateuch, r
This Companion volume offers a sweeping survey of the Bible as a work of literature and its impact on Western writing. Underscoring the sophistication of the biblical writers' thinking in diverse areas of thought, it demonstrates how the Bible relates to many types of knowledge and its immense contribution to education through the ages. The volume emphasizes selected texts chosen from different books of the Bible and from later Western writers inspired by it. Individual essays, each written specially for this book, examine topics such as the gruesome wonders of apocalyptic texts, the erotic content of the Song of Songs, and Jesus' and Paul's language and reasoning, as well as Shakespeare's reflections on repentance in King Lear, Milton's genius in writing Paradise Lost, the social necessity of individual virtue in Shelley's poetry, and the mythic status of Melville's Moby Dick in the United States and the Western world in general.
This Companion volume offers a sweeping survey of the Bible as a work of literature and its impact on Western writing. Underscoring the sophistication of the biblical writers' thinking in diverse areas of thought, it demonstrates how the Bible relates to many types of knowledge and its immense contribution to education through the ages. The volume emphasizes selected texts chosen from different books of the Bible and from later Western writers inspired by it. Individual essays, each written specially for this book, examine topics such as the gruesome wonders of apocalyptic texts, the erotic content of the Song of Songs, and Jesus' and Paul's language and reasoning, as well as Shakespeare's reflections on repentance in King Lear, Milton's genius in writing Paradise Lost, the social necessity of individual virtue in Shelley's poetry, and the mythic status of Melville's Moby Dick in the United States and the Western world in general.
David Daube (1909–1999) was a world renowned biblical law scholar. He was a fellow at All Souls College at Oxford, and emeritus professor of law at Oxford as well as emeritus professor of la
David Daube (1909-1999) was known for his unique and sophisticated research on Roman law, biblical law, Jewish law, and medical ethics. In his second set of Gifford Lectures presented in April and May