We think of law as rules whose words are binding, used by the courts in the adjudication of disputes. Bernard S. Jackson explains that early biblical law was significantly different, and that many of the laws in the Covenant Code in Exodus should be viewed as `wisdom-laws'. By this term, he means `self-executing' rules, the provisions of which permit their application without recourse to the law-courts or similar institutions. They thus conform to two tenets of the `wisdom tradition': that judicial dispute should be avoided, and that the law is a type of teaching, or `wisdom'.

[A] significant contribution to the study of the Covenant Code, and Jackson is to be commended for his sophisticated and nuanced analysis. * Jeffery Stackert, Journal of Semitic Studies *
...a thoughtful, thought-provoking and immensely readable contribution to the Biblical law canon. * Lindsey Bell, The Journal of Jewish Studies *
Jackson has writing (a) a thorough legal and literary commentary on Exod 21-22 and sketched (b) a new theory of legal development in biblical Israel. * International Review of Biblical Studies *
This is a most valuable study, both for its fresh insights and for the critical questions which it inevitably raises. * G. I. Davies, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament *

Bernard S. Jackson is Alliance Professor of Modern Jewish Studies, University of Manchester.