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Joshua Berman

Ancient Hermeneutics and the Legal Structure of the Book of Ruth

This study claims that the book of Ruth constitutes a legal homily whose plot unfolds according to the sequential order of the legal materials found in Deuteronomy 24,16–25,10, and is a commentary upon them. Ancient Near Eastern law codes, such as that of Hammurabi, exhibit the organising principle of associative concatenation or linking of different legal material. Through this reading strategy, the order of those laws in Deuteronomy may be understood as an organic unit. The author of Ruth transposed these laws into a sequence of legal themes that form the structure of his plot.

Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, Walter de Gruyter

Print ISSN: 0044-2526
Volume: 119, 03/2007
Pages: 22 - 38

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