The Torah as a place of refuge : biblical criminal law and the Book of Numbers - Cocco, Francesco, 1975- (Mohr Siebeck, 2016)
Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- The Law in the Bible and in the Ancient Near East -- "Biblical law ": ambiguities, problems and challenges of a definition -- "Does it make sense to speak of 'biblical law'?" : Epistemological problems -- Methodological difficulties : the problem of the sources -- Comparison with roman law -- Comparison with anglo-saxon law -- Juridical models of the 19th Century : between 'evolutionism' and 'diffusionism' -- The 'evolutionist' model -- The 'diffusionist' model -- The authority of the law and the law-text relationship -- The authority of the law according to the statutory model -- The authority of the law according to the customary model -- The law-text relationship in the two models -- The affirmation of statutory law in Europe -- The law of the ancient Near East -- The principal Mesopotamian juridical collections -- The juridical tradition of ancient Egypt -- General considerations on the legislative collections of the ANE -- Statutory Interpretation : the law of the ANE as positive or prescriptive law -- Customary interpretation of the laws of the ANE -- Elements of continuity between the laws of the ANE and biblical law -- Peculiar elements of biblical law compared with the laws of the ANE -- "What, then, is biblical law?" an attempt at synthesis -- Biblical Criminal Law and the Book of Numbers -- Criteria distinguishing 'civil law' and 'criminal law' in the biblical legislative texts -- The State of the art in recent literature -- A proposal to distinguish the norms based on the nature of conflict -- Criteria for the cataloguing and structuring of biblical laws -- Situational or 'external' criterion of cataloguing -- 'Internal' criterion of cataloguing of the laws -- The penal legislation in the book of Numbers -- The legislative texts of the book of Numbers : general considerations -- The general structure of the book of Numbers -- The Organisation of the legislative material of the book of Numbers -- "Repetition or Reformulation?" : the Curious Case of Num 35:9-34 -- The pericope in its literary context : demarcation and structure -- The beginning of the pericope -- The conclusion of the pericope -- The internal articolation of the pericope : a structural hypothesis -- Exegetical analysis of Num 35,9-34 -- Injunction to designate "cities of refuge" (vv. 10b-15) -- The meaning of ... -- The meaning of ... -- The meaning of ... and its specific function in Num 35,9-34 -- The meaning of the syntagma ... -- The interpretation of Num 35,12 and its consequences for the hermeneutics of the whole pericope -- The meaning of ... -- The meaning of ... and ... -- The conclusion of Num 35,15 -- Determination of the different examples of homicide and their regulation (vv. 16-29) -- The particularly wilful case, or malicious murder (vv. 16-21) -- The unintentional case, or manslaughter (vv. 22-23) -- The key function of Num 35,24 -- Procedure to be adopted in the case of homicide (vv. 24-29) -- Procedural clarifications and theologico-religious conclusion (vv. 30-34) -- Procedural clarifications (vv. 30-32) -- Theologico-religious conclusion (vv. 33-34) -- "From Law to Law" : understanding the novelty of Num 35,9-34 in the light of selected Biblical Criminal Laws -- Comparison with thematically related texts -- The case of homicide in the mishpat of Ex 21,12-14 -- The legislation in the cities of refuge in Deut 19,1-13 -- The relationship between Deut 19,1-13 and Deut 4,41-43 -- The internal structure of Deut 19,1-13 -- The introduction of the legislation on the cities of refuge (Deut 19,1-3) -- Purpose and demarcation of the area of the validity of the law (Deut 19,4-10) -- Regulation of the cases of murder (Deut 19,11-13) -- Summary considerations on the legislation of Deut 19,1-13 -- The legislation on the cities of refuge in Josh 20,1-9 -- The differences between the Hebrew and the Greek texts of Josh 20,1-9 -- The proposal of A. Rofé : the Greek text of LXXB is the archetype of Josh 20 -- The proposal of L. Schmidt : the Grundbestand of the Masoretic Text is the archetype of Josh 20 -- Conclusions on the interdependence of the four biblical texts analysed -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index of Biblical References (selective) -- Authors Index -- Subject Index.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 163-173) and indexes.
Keywords: Bible. -- Criticism, interpretation, etc; Criminal justice, Administration of -- Moral and ethical aspects; Burden of proof; Judgments, Criminal; Fair trial