Social Justice in the Ancient Near East and the People of the Bible by Leon Epsztein

Social Justice in the Ancient Near East and the People of the Bible by Leon Epsztein

This book is one of a series of supplementary volumes published alongside the Jerusalem Bible in France and intended to provide a general introduction to the world in which the Bible is set; the series includes such famous titles as Jeremias' Jerusalem in the time of Jesus and de Vaux's Ancient Israel. It is an exhaustive study of the legal and sociological background of texts dealing with social justice, first in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and then in pre-exilic Israel. The author is a specialist in modern ethics, but has made himself thoroughly familiar with the relevant secondary literature. The book also contains an excellent bibliography on social ethics in ancient Israel and its environment, and a valuable historical survey of the development of scholarly study in this field, up to and including recent Marxist interpretations. The orientation of the book is basically sociological, which makes it a valuable corrective to an excessively theological view of biblical ethics, and anchors the ethical teaching of the biblical writers firmly in social reality. Why Israel should be the society where a call for social justice should be expressed so keenly in law and prophets is a fascinating historical and sociological question, and the author's answer is interesting and controversial. Welcoming the French edition in the Journal of Jewish Studies, John Barton said that an English edition would be invaluable as a student textbook in a surprisingly neglected field. Here it is.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780334023340
ISBN 10	0334023343
Title	Social Justice in the Ancient Near East and the People of the Bible
Author	Leon Epsztein
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	SCM Press
Year published	2012-11-07
Number of pages	192
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.