Law and narrative in Exodus 19-24

Abstract

"James Watts writes, “Lawyers and judges do not usually read law books from beginning to end like novels. Instead, laws are collected, compared, harmonized, codified, and in general arranged systematically so as to preclude the necessity of ever having to read the whole code through from start to finish.”1 As Watts goes on to note, this is exactly how the regulations of the Pentateuch often have been read by traditional Jewish and Christian readers as well as modern critical scholars. The laws of the Pentateuch have regularly been analyzed by themselves without much consideration to the narrative context in which they are embedded.2 Without denying the usefulness of attempts to systemize biblical regulations, this paper stresses the need to read the laws contextually within their narrative and legal-literary frameworks and vice versa"