Anyone know of any books that could help me understand the Jewish law?

[WoundedIcon]

I was just wondering if there are any books or articles that can help me appreciate the OT law. I tend to have a lot of issues and doubts about it because it's so different than what I'm used to as a 21st century westerner. I struggle with the stonings and stuff especially. I understand the issues on slavery (it was servitude not chattel slavery) but I still don't get the stoning stuff. I just wish that someday I could say along with the Psalmist that I love His Law. So, that being said, any books or articles? I'm looking for things that focus on reading it in the context of Ancient Near Eastern literature, or theological typology, and especially commentary on how it was actually practiced. I've confessed blasphemy before --- would they have actually stoned me or was it just a warning as to the gravity of the crime? I can't get the whole Sharia law thing out of my head when I think about it. I want to understand how it's different. I know it doesn't apply to me today, but this is causing me doubts about God's goodness and such.

[COPLAND 3]

Here is what St. Thmas Aquinas wrote about it in the Summa Theologica http://www.mmaload.com/serious-mma-v...o--t56498.html

[Crumpy]

There are a couple questions in the original post.

I've read commentaries on the Torah from the Jewish Publication Society which discuss the commands embedded there.

I mean, "the law" is a very large topic in Judaism. so, you may want to look into those sources for their direct take on the laws themselves.

The Jews boast and Jesus condemned how the Jews erected a 'fence' around the Torah -- these are other regulations set up so that you don't come close to violating one of the actual commands of the Torah.

One aspect of Judaism is its actual emphasis on the commands of the law. There are many commands that can conflict with each other and with common sense. so, the Talmud ("study of the Torah") discusses such things, such as what work is forbidden on the Sabbath. the work that is forbidden falls into two groups, the things that are elsewhere forbidden in the Torah on the Sabbath, and then there are things inferred from the command to observe the Sabbath and not work. Food must be prepared a day ahead, etc.

There are lots of books available on this. There is no central authority in Judaism. So, different groups of Jews will interpret the laws variously.

As for the goodness of God: You should read and study the Bible (and commentaries perhaps) to convince yourself of the mercy of God. There should be no doubt about that in your mind.

The stonings come up in the discussion of the justice of God. The stonings should, first, impress you about how serious it is to commit sin. The flood of Noah's time was a punishment; the drowning of the Egyptians in the sea was a judgment of God. They are demonstrations of the actual enactments of God's justice towards those who violate the privilege of their God-given free will.

How would anybody take the commands seriously, if they didn't know of the various punishments, and then actually have them acted out?

The command to stone the disobedient son was never carried out. It was judged by the Jews as never actually coming up in any instance. It's purpose was to teach the importance of obedience to parents.

We should be as deadly serious about the punishments that await those who have sinned, in the final judgment at the end of time. It's nothing to be uncertain about, and certainly nothing to cause doubt about the goodness of God. Final consideration: we've been warned.

[peace2u2]

Originally Posted by WoundedIcon

I was just wondering if there are any books or articles that can help me appreciate the OT law.

I found a copy of The Talmud by H. Poland at my library last year. The Talmud is a collection of early Biblical discussions. There are comments from the teachers who devoted their lives to the study of Scripture.

Full description for The Talmud The Book Depository.com
The Talmud is one of the most important holy books of the Hebrew religion and of the world. No English translation of the book existed until the author presented this work. To this day, very little of the actual text seems available in English -- although we find many interpretive commentaries on what it is supposed to mean. The Talmud has a reputation for being long and difficult to digest, but Polano has taken what he believes to be the best material and put it into extremely readable form. As far as holy books of the world are concerned, it is on par with The Koran, The Bhagavad-Gita and, of course, The Bible, in importance. This clearly written edition will allow many to experience The Talmud who may have otherwise not had the chance.

Hope this helps.

[Pug]

Books such as this are very good:



It will have the Hebrew on top and the commentary below and the book is read backwards, so that the Hebrew goes forward, but what is the most helpful are the excursus and such (an excursus is an essay on a topic in the book). I like Jacob Milgrom alot (the author of the book pictured). He also does the Anchor Bible Leviticus book. That might be too, too, though.

Reading things like this will help you appreciate OT laws.

[chosen people]

Originally Posted by WoundedIcon

I was just wondering if there are any books or articles that can help me appreciate the OT law. I tend to have a lot of issues and doubts about it because it's so different than what I'm used to as a 21st century westerner. I struggle with the stonings and stuff especially. I understand the issues on slavery (it was servitude not chattel slavery) but I still don't get the stoning stuff. I just wish that someday I could say along with the Psalmist that I love His Law. So, that being said, any books or articles? I'm looking for things that focus on reading it in the context of Ancient Near Eastern literature, or theological typology, and especially commentary on how it was actually practiced. I've confessed blasphemy before --- would they have actually stoned me or was it just a warning as to the gravity of the crime? I can't get the whole Sharia law thing out of my head when I think about it. I want to understand how it's different. I know it doesn't apply to me today, but this is causing me doubts about God's goodness and such.

See if you can find a copy of "The Principles of Jewish Law" by Professor Menachem Elon at your local University library or try to look up specific topics if you have access to the Encyclopedia Judaica

For general Torah commentary try the series "Unlocking the Torah Text" by Shmuel Goldin (the first three books are out and the fourth is soon to be published).

As for your question about "stoning stuff"

(Mishnah Makkot 1:10): "A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seven years is called destructive. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says: even once in seventy years. Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Tarfon say: had we been in the Sanhedrin none would ever have been put to death. Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel says: they would have multiplied shedders of blood in Israel."

We see from the above that the Rabbis were not comfortable with and did not wish to impose the death penalty for any offense. This is line with the over riding principle in Judaism of the sanctity of life, of the rights of the individual including the rights of the accused.

, In order to impose the death penalty Jewish law requires:
1) A Sanhedrin trial consisting of 23 Judges
2) 2 witnesses to testify that they witnessed the act for which the accused is charged
3) that the witnesses warned the accused that if he carried out the act he would be executed
4) that the accused acknowledged the warning and stated his willingness to commit the act despite being aware of the consequences
5) the confession of the accused is not admissible as evidence nor is circumstantial evidence

So we see why no imposition of the death penalty - it became a matter of Divine punishment between God and the offender as opposed to judicial punishment. By the end of the Second Temple period - Capital judicial punishment, for all intense and purposes, becomes a thing of the past in Judaism.

Even before these developments - when the penalty of stoning was still being occasionally imposed in the unusual case where two witnesses did in fact exist - it quickly was taken out of the hands of the general public - a stoning place was created where the two witnesses would throw the condemned on to stones - the height was such that it would bring quick death without mutilation of the body.


Needless to say the Jewish State of Israel cancelled the British mandate death penalty. It exists on the books only for the crime of treason during wartime and for for Nazi war crimes. The single execution ever carried out in Israel was of the Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann on May 31, 1962.

[Zooey]

I have been told that the laws of surrounding countries, in the ancient world, went far, far beyond the Jewish laws in what was allowable, and that the law in the Jewish Scripture/OT was actually meant to be the MOST that was allowable under divine law.
The timeline of these things--when you see when these penalties were set up, it was an immensely brutal & violent period. The laws in the Bible were set to mitigate that, NOT to impose more severe laws.

But I defer to our Jewish members for more about this subject.....

[WoundedIcon]

Okay, thank you guys. And for the Jewish individual I have one more question --- what should we make of the laws about rape and captive wives? How do the Jews see them? This is probably the one thing really truly giving me a hang up right now. I know that the Law wasn't meant to be the absolute ideal -- it was adapted for what they could handle at that time -- but I'm just having a hard time understanding the treatment of women. I also know that the Law was a lot kinder toward them than other Near Eastern law codes... I just don't know how to interpret them. But since I've seen from the proper understanding of other "troubling" laws, the interpretation will most likely be agreeable and thus I'll have faith that this will be as well. Actually, isn't there Mosiac oral tradition? Does the Catholic Church say there is true OT oral tradition? Maybe that will help.

[Mintaka]

A lot of ancient laws that sound unjust to us are really occupied with making sure that somebody in a bad position had _some_ kind of rights given to them, and that people weren't killing each other all over town. There were others which were intended to make sure that if, say, someone decided to use X person in Y position, X person would gain the rights of someone who had come into Y position by choice.

So we see in the story of Dinah that, frankly, the ordinary Israelite thought rape should mean the death penalty for the rapist. And the problem was that a raped woman still needed to have some way to live, yet most men of her time would refuse to marry her. (Jewish scholars tend to think that Dinah actually ended up marrying somebody down in Egypt, or that the rape resulted in a child and that her descendants come into the story of Joseph marrying Asenath -- but if so, you can see that they didn't want to talk about it in the Bible much.)

So many cultures had this idea of making the rapist marry the woman who was raped, so that he would have to support her and her potential child. (And so that the raped girl's family could keep him close and make him work for them, but were not allowed to kill him.) In some places, she had the right to stay with her parents or go somewhere else safe, and just get the money and services. Other places actually did make the woman live with her rapist as a wife, all in the name of community peace and quiet. I don't know how it worked in ancient Israel.

[Zooey]

As far as the laws on rape....You do realize that the provision requiring the rapist to marry the victim did not mean that she was forced to live with him?
On the contrary, what it actually meant, was that he was required to provide for her for her entire life, the same as he provided for the wife/wives that he lived with....She was legally entitled to a living wage & had a home to live in--without her attacker being there with her.
In other words, a rapist was either going to be executed--or else, he was going to be required to provide for anything his victim needed, in order to make a life for herself.
Since, as has been said, the times they were living in kept many men from offereing marriage to a rape victim, she had a guaranteed lifetime home & income, regardless of her marital status...Actually a pretty enlightened idea for those days.

[WoundedIcon]

Originally Posted by Zooey

As far as the laws on rape....You do realize that the provision requiring the rapist to marry the victim did not mean that she was forced to live with him?
On the contrary, what it actually meant, was that he was required to provide for her for her entire life, the same as he provided for the wife/wives that he lived with....She was legally entitled to a living wage & had a home to live in--without her attacker being there with her.
In other words, a rapist was either going to be executed--or else, he was going to be required to provide for anything his victim needed, in order to make a life for herself.
Since, as has been said, the times they were living in kept many men from offereing marriage to a rape victim, she had a guaranteed lifetime home & income, regardless of her marital status...Actually a pretty enlightened idea for those days.

You're right. When you put it that way it's actually very enlightened.

[Crumpy]

Came back here to see what has happened.

If you check out artscroll.com, you will see a lot of Jewish books on the law, if you can wade through the Hebrew words.

The Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds are "studies" of the Torah, which includes discussion of the law and interpretations of the law.

Note: There is no single authoritative interpretation of any text of scripture in Judaism. There's a lot written on the whole Torah, but it's like an open-ended assembly or amalgam of comments over time. you have to sort it out and see if all the discussion applies to your situation.

There's a hebrew word molokah (or something like that) which is taken to mean servile work, which is forbidden on the sabbath. But, no one knows for sure what that word means. It's meaning is derived by a study of all the things which are explicitly forbidden on the sabbath. So, a discussion of that subject, of what is forbidden on the Sabbath, contains these assumptions.

Good news, bad news. I have just such a Jewish book that lists and discusses all the 613 commands of the Torah, but I can't find it right now, after a quick search. But, such does exist. Will be back if I can locate it.