Chiasmus Resources

Making sense of those texts conventionally described as "biblical law" is no innocent matter: inevitably, we draw upon models of law, legal history, religious belief and practice, and much more, in any account we may give of the material. Methodological discussion which makes us more aware of these models, and offers a criticism of them, is therefore to be welcomed. It is in this spirit that I approach what I term below "Westbrook's revisionism," and in particular a recent article in which my friend Raymond Westbrook has launched a direct attack on the appropriateness of literary-historical methods in the study of what is generally regarded as the oldest biblical law collection, the "Covenant Code"' (which commences in Exodus 21:1,2 almost immediately after the account of the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai).