1. The “type stories” of casuistic law may be seen as narrative to the extent that they relate consecutive events (“when” or “if … then”). They differ from the rest of biblical narrative in the prescriptive nature of their final clause, as well as in the possibility of their repeated occurance. For a general discussion of the types of Israelite law, see the classic essay by Alt, A., The Origins of Israelite Law, in Essays on Old Testament History and Religion 79–132 (1966)Google Scholar.

2. As will be seen later in this essay, biblical laws often refer to important events in the life of the community. Such references may be distinctive to Israelite law in the ancient near east. See Sonsino, R., Motive Clauses in Hebrew Law: Biblical Forms and Near Eastern Parallels (1979)Google Scholar.

3. Thus, while the basic form of apodictic law, unlike that of its casuistic counterpart, usually has little to do with narrative, such law still takes on a narrative aspect because of its setting in the larger narrative from Genesis to Deuteronomy. All biblical law is presented to the reader in the form of an address to the people given at a particular point in the larger story. This setting requires a different interpretation than would, say, a setting in a more purely legal document.

4. On reading conventions and their relation to genre and reader competence, see the chapter Literary Competence in Culler, J., Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of Literature 113–30 (1975)Google Scholar.

5. Unless otherwise noted, biblical quotations are from the Revised Standard Version. Verse references are to the Hebrew text.

6. For some interesting comments on the role of biblical law within covenant and narrative, see Ricoeur, P., Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation, in his Essays on Biblical Interpretation 81–85 (1980)Google Scholar.

7. For a recent statement of the view that the non-narrative material of the Bible gains its intelligibility from the narrative, see Hauerwas, S., A Community of Chararcter: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic 67, 91 (1981)Google Scholar.

8. How exactly the reader relates to the text is the concern of much modern literary theory. Recent theories which have focussed on the role of the reader include the psychological approach of Norman Holland, the reader response theories of Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser, and the alternate reader-oriented approach of Stanley Fish. Such critics would disagree as to how much ability the text has to influence the reader towards a certain reading.

9. The term “implied reader” is a reference to the work of Wolfgang Iser who sees the structures of the text as denoting a certain role for the reader in his or her processing of the text. See Iser, W., The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response 27–38 (1978)Google Scholar. The “invited reader” would perhaps be similar to the reader of Paul Ricoeur, a reader to whom the text makes a “nonviolent appeal.” See Ricoeur, Hermeneutic, supra note 6, at 117.

10. The sojourner (gēr) formula is found in Exod. 22:20, 23:9; Lev. 19:34; Deut. 10:19, 23:8. The RSV translates ger as stranger in the first three passages, while this essay uses sojourner consistently throughout.

11. The slave ('ebed) formula is found in Deut. 5:15, 15:15, 16:12, 24:18, 22. The RSV translates 'ebed as servant in Deut. 5:15, while this essay uses slave consistently throughout.

12. On the motive clause, see the pioneering study of Gemser, B., The Importance of the Motive Clause in Old Testament Law, Adhuc Loquitur: Collected Essays of Dr. B. Gemser 96–115 (van Selms, A. & van der Woude, A. eds. 1968)Google Scholar; originally in 1 Vetus Testa-Mentum Supp. 50–66 (1953)Google Scholar. See also the subsequent work of Uitti, R.W., Israel's Underprivileged and Gemser's Motive Clause, Soc. Bib. Lit. Abstracts and Seminar Papers 7–31 (1975)Google Scholar; Sonsino, Motive Clauses, supra note 2; Doron, P., “Motive Clauses in the Laws of Deuteronomy: Their Forms, Functions, and Contents,” 2 Hebrew Annual Review 61–77 (1978)Google Scholar; and Chirichigno, G., A Theological Investigation of Motivation in Old Testament Law, 24 J. of the Evangelical Theol. Soc. 303–14 (1981)Google Scholar. Gemser thought that the motive clause was unique to Israelite law, a view disputed by Sonsino, who does, however, acknowledge its relative scarcity and different character in the rest of the ancient near east. Both Uitti and Sonsino note the high percentage of motive clauses in Israel's “humanitarian” laws.

13. Gemser distinguished four types of motive clause: explanatory, ethical, religious, and historical. See Gemser, Motive Clause, supra note 12, at 103-10.

14. So apparently Exod. 22:20, 23:9, and Lev. 19:34, though even here there is a question of whether the addressees are more properly seen as former sojourners (in the sense that the original sons of Jacob were sojourners) or as former slaves.

15. Childs, B., Memory and Tradition in Israel 52–54 (1962)Google Scholar.

16. Id. at 55.

17. On the cultic credos, see von Rad, G., The Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch, in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays 1–78 (1966)Google Scholar.

18. For a general discussion of identification as part of the act of reading, see Jauss, H., Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics (1982)Google Scholar, especially the section Interaction Patterns of Identification with the Hero, 152-88. For a more explicitly psychological discussion of how such identification relates to a person's identity, see Holland, N., The Dynamics of Literary Response 262–80 (1975)Google Scholar. For Holland at least, the process of identification is fairly automatic upon one's reading of the text. The argument of this essay is that by specifying an identity, biblical laws work against such natural reading processes with respect to the narrative.

19. Again, this is not to deny the fact that one identifies in some way with the patriarchs. Such identification is obviously anticipated in the fact that Jacob is given the name Israel. Jacob may also possibly be implied in the sojourner formula, since he and his family were sojourners in Egypt. (This is also true to a certain extent of Abraham, though his sojourn there seems to be more specifically a foreshadowing of events to come.) Still, it seems likely that both the primary emphasis of the sojourner formula and the exclusive emphasis of the slave formula fall on the final Egyptian generation which was liberated by God. This means that the reader whose identity has been specified by the laws identifies with the patriarchs in a different way than he or she identifies with the Israel which comes into existence in Egypt.

20. For the latter broadening, see Deut. 24:17-18, 19-22.

21. On the concept of imitatio Dei as present in the Hebrew Bible, see Gulin, E., Die Nachfolge Gottes, 1 Studia Orientalia 39–44 (1925)Google Scholar; Schoeps, H., Von der Imitatio Dei zur Nachfolge Christi, Aus Fruhchristliche Zeit 286–90 (1950)Google Scholar; Tinsely, E., The Imitation of God in Christ: An Essay on the Biblical Basis of Christian Spirituality 31–64 (1960)Google Scholar; and Boer, W. de, The Imitation of Paul: An Exegetical Study 29–41 (1962)Google Scholar. De Boer's reservations about an overly broad conception of imitatio Dei (such as he finds in Tinsely) are well taken. It is at least debatable whether the expressions “walking in God's ways,” “walking after God,” and “following God” are equivalent to an imitatio Dei in the strictest sense, despite the fact that they have been taken in such a way in the past. Nevertheless, even De Boer is not able to completely deny that the concept of imitatio Dei does surface in certain of the laws cited in this essay. The case for the presence of such an imitatio is even stronger once one realizes that this move is not ruled out by the appeal to Israel's previous status (see De Boer on Deut. 10:18-19, Imitation 38-39) but is rather the necessary complement to such an appeal. In a similar vein, H. H. Rowley wrote: “Yahweh asks of men that they shall reflect His own character, so far as it can be reflected within the limitations of human life. … When the prophets denounced harshness and oppression and called for compassion for the unfortunate they were calling men to reflect the character which was uniquely expressed in God's deliverance of His people.” The Unity of the Bible at 25 (1953)Google Scholar.

22. Both the possibilities and problems of relating to the divine character are explored by Patrick, Dale in The Rendering of God in the Old Testament (1981)Google Scholar. That the incomparability of God does not rule out imitation may be seen in Labuschagne, C., The Incomparability of Yahweh in the Old Testament 152 (1966)Google Scholar.

23. Such a reader is assumed, even though in the present narrative setting the laws are given prior to the entrance into the promised land. For the recognition that this preland status of the law and the Pentateuch is theologically significant, see Sanders, J., Torah and Canon (1972)Google Scholar.

24. Thus, the traditional Haggadah states that “the Egyptians afflicted us … and we cried to the Lord the God of our fathers … and the Lord brought us forth from Egypt, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, and with signs and wonders.”

25. Midrash Sifre on Lev. 19:2

26. Sotah 14a of the Babylonian Talmud.

27. Buber, M., Imitatio Dei, in Israel and the World: Essays in a Time of Crisis 71 (1948)Google Scholar. Other modern discussions include Marmorstein, A., The Imitation of God (Imitatio Dei) in the Haggadah, in Studies in Jewish Theology 106–21 (Rabbinowitz, J. & Lew, M. eds. 1950)Google Scholar; Abrahams, I., Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospel (1924)Google Scholar; Schechter, S., Aspects of Rabbinic Theology 199–205 (1965)Google Scholar.

28. Sotah 14a. According to this passage, God clothed the naked in Gen. 3:21, visited the sick in Gen. 18:1, comforted mourners in Gen. 25:11, and buried the dead in Deut. 34:6. All of these are held up as models for human imitation.

29. Abrahams, supra note 27, at 141.

30. See generally Hauerwas, supra note 7; Character and the Christian Life: A Study in Theological Ethics (1975); Vision and Virtue: Essays in Christian Ethical Reflection (1974); Truthfulness and Tragedy: Further Investigations in Christian Ethics (1977); The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (1983) [hereinafter cited as Hauerwas, Peacable Kingdom].

31. Hauerwas, Peaceable Kingdom, supra note 30, at 33.

32. Id. at 77.

33. Hauerwas, Community, note 7 supra at 152.

34. Hauerwas, Peaceable Kingdom, supra note 29, at 67, 78. A similar dialectic of narrative and law is to be found in the work of another narrative theologian, George W. Stroup; see his The Promise of Narrative Theology: Recovering the Gospel in the Church 147–57 (1981)Google Scholar.

35. Hauerwas, Character and the Christian Life, supra note 30, at 3.

36. On the relationship of praxis and interpretation in liberation theology, see Goldingay, J., The Hermeneutics of Liberation Theology, 4-5 Horizons in Biblical Theology 133–62 (1982–1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37. Cone, J., God of the Oppressed 147–48 (1975)Google Scholar.

38. Thus, when Gutiérrez talks of solidarity—and identification—with the poor, he sees it in terms of an imitation of Christ. Cf. Gutiérrez, G., Liberation, Theology, and Proclamation: The Mystical and Political Dimension of The Christian Faith, new series 6 Concilium 64 (Geffre, C. & Gutierrez, G. eds. 1974)Google Scholar.

39. In commenting on Psalm 105, Miranda sees the law as the “indispensible prolongation, the complete realization” of God's great act of justice in the exodus. For Miranda, the justice initiated in the liberation from slavery could not be completely realized without laws. See Miranda, J., Marx and the Bible: A Critique of the Philosophy of Oppression 146–47 (1974)Google Scholar.

40. Cone, supra note 37, at 64; Miranda, supra note 39, at 148.

41. Auerbach, E., Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature 15 (1953)Google Scholar.