Cheerful Charlie

Hard to say really. Exodus, Leviiticus, and numbers lay out the laws of Moses supposedly given to Israel by God.

Psalms and Proverbs lay out that we should be righteous and have moral duties.

The prophets, especially Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah also lay out our moral duties to be righteous, to not believe in other Gods especially, and to be merciful and just and honest.

The Gospels by contrast have very little about law and justice.
Jesus in Matthew 5 tells us not a jot nor tittle of the law will pass away as long as heaven and earth have not passed away.

Matthew 25 30-45 lays out our duties to the poor, the sick,the naked the hungry.

We are to obey the 10 commandments and sell all we have.

We are not to divorce our wives except for adultery.

Jesus really gives us little more, and little law, but warns those that do not act on his commands are in danger of eternel torment. He cares little about law, much about rigteousness and helping the poor and downtrodden, see Matthew 25 again. He condemns the sterile legalisms of the Pharisees.

Since he sees the world ending soon as we know it and a new heavenly order to be established (Matthew 16, 24-5) he gives us no elaborate laws.
There is no need to.

In the Laws of Moses, much of that is mainly elaborate rules for sacrifices and ritual matters. By contrast, marriage is almost not mentioned at all, only 8 times for example by comparison. Don't marry Canaanites and the problems of married slaves.

The quotes you want are scattered around and you'd need some sort of search program, a freeby is Bible time/Sword.

Read Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Not how ritual orientated it is and the long instructions for building of the tabernacle and dress of priests, and how to deal with leprosy. Ritual cleansing of sin.

Read Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah. Note the main theme, Israel has abandoned
honest treatment of the poor and powerless, and they have abandoned the convenent to worship God alone. Israel must suffer for that and change its way.

Cheerful Charlie

makerowner

You could also look at some of the Pauline works and their rejection of the Law. I'd have to look it up, but I think Romans discusses this to some extent.

OneInFundieville

I really like that theme.

A couple more are:

- In-group justice vs. human justice. Torah is written with the assumption that of course it is written for the ancient Israelite culture/in-group/"race" as well as with variance by gender. Now we presuppose universality of humans/homo sapiences (albeit with some age-based qualifications). The historical strong, arbitrary dividing *line* was between one in-group and another. Now the strong dividing *line* is between one species and another. (It ain't called humanism for nothing.)

- Collective justice vs. individual justice. OT is about cities being punished, descendants being punished, families being punished, etc. Sin is much more a collective violation of the law against YHWH than it is an individual violation against YHWH. Today, we have a very strong Western sense of individuality and consider it quite wrong to punish one for the trespasses of another.

Anyhow, there are a couple ideas.

Another interesting topic would be thoughtcrime.

makerowner

Another point to think about is the parallelism between the crime and the punishment: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed" Gen. 9:6 RSV
"The third angel poured his bowl into the rivers and the fountains of water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel of water say, 'Just art thou in these thy judgments, thou who art and wast, O Holy One. For men have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink. It is their due!' And I heard the altar cry, 'Yea, Lord God the Almighty,
true and just are thy judgments!' "Rev. 16:4-7 RSV

lee_merrill

An important point is that the laws in the Bible were not all at the boundary between sinning and not sinning--thus the place to look for "law and justice" would I think be in the prophetic books, where justice is a major theme, and the law is applied there and explained and exemplified.

Jeremiah 22:15-17 "Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?" declares the Lord. "But your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood and on oppression and extortion."

Roger Pearse

Don't do that. The bible is personal to a large number of people, and by treating it specifically in a way they disapprove of, you antagonise people before you start. Unless you want your paper to go unheard -- the "Springtime for Hitler" approach -- find another book. Try the Lord of the Rings, or else Tarzan or something.

Never start a thesis with people already thinking that you're a jerk. It's just common sense.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Dogfish

Maybe that's why no one here takes creationist seriously.

dog-on

Do Bible believers disapprove of what is written in the bible, or simply of those pointing it out?

Malachi151

You might get some ideas from my article on the Ten Commandments and American Law:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...mmandments.htm

Also, the "Laws of Moses" is a somewhat typical approach that you could take.

If you wanted to go farther out on a limb, and be more involved in true literature vs. lists of laws, then you may want to look at some of the later books of the prophets, such as Isiah, Amos, Hosea, Malachi, etc., that deal more with Justice than the do with Law per se.

It could be interesting to compare the concepts of economic justice in the Bible to the works of Marxism and Leninism, as they are very similar.

What you find in the Bible passages are admonishments against the wealthy and those who mistreat the poor, with the threat that God is going to kill, maim, and do grave and nasty harm against those who mistreat the poor.

An easy place to start is simply with the passages that talk about the poor:

http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/...=all&bookset=1

I wouldn't use the NIV, I'd use the NRSV, but this is just an easy website to use for searching.

Malachi151

Ah yes, that's the spirit of intellectual freedom that religion has always inspired...