The Book of the Covenant Page 1 of 20 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 26 December 2019 Print Publication Date: Nov 2019 Subject: Religion, Literary and Textual Studies Online Publication Date: Nov 2019 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199392667.013.14 The Book of the Covenant Cynthia Edenburg The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law Edited by Pamela Barmash Abstract and Keywords The Book of the Covenant is widely considered the earliest collection of biblical law, with origins going back to the period of the monarchy. However, scholars are divided on many questions, such as whether the Book of the Covenant comprises all of Exodus 20:22–24:1 or only discrete sections of this block; the degree of the Book of the Covenant’s literary unity; and the purpose of the original collection and its social and historical setting. This chapter provides an overview of the problems, and discusses directions for future re search. Keywords: Book of the Covenant, biblical law, Sinai pericope, Ancient Near Eastern law, casuistic laws, apodictic laws, mishpatim, instructions, homicide, debt slavery, if-you formulation, legal revision, Laws of Hammurabi THE Book of the Covenant (or Covenant Code, or CC) derives its name from Exodus 24:7, where it is reported that Moses “took the Book of the Covenant and read it aloud to the people.” This term is self-referential just as “these words” in Deuteronomy 31:1, which Moses spoke to all of Israel, comprise the instruction (tōrȃh) that Moses wrote down “in a book” (Deut. 31:9, 24). In the context of Deuteronomy the “the words” and “the instruc tion” supposedly comprised the body of deuteronomic law spoken by Moses. By contrast, the object of reference in Exodus 24:7 is less clear. According to Exodus 24:4, Moses wrote down “all the words of Yahweh” (dibrê yhwh). Thus, one would expect that these words in written form constitute “the Book of the Covenant,” and that they comprise the covenant obligations that bind Israel to YHWH (cf. Exod. 19:5). However, Exodus 24:3 dis tinguishes between “all of YHWH’s words” and “all of the rules” (kol hamišpāṭim), and Moses conveyed both to the people orally. This distinction is also borne out by the fact that both the Decalogue and the mišpāṭim are headed by separate introductions (Exod. 20:1 “God spoke all these words,” 21:1 “These are the rules you will set before them”). Since Exodus 24:4 echoes the wording of the introduction to the Decalogue, it implies that the Decalogue comprises the “Book of the Covenant” that was set down in writing. By contrast, the text as it stands does not make the same claim for the rules (mišpāṭim), which are only pronounced orally (Exod. 21:1, 24:3).