The Nine Commandments: Uncovering a Hidden Pattern of Crime and Punishment in the Hebrew Bible - Softcover

Freedman, David Noel; Geoghegan, Jeffrey C.; Homan, Michael M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385499876 ISBN 13: 9780385499873

Publisher: Image Books, 2002

Synopsis

One of the great living biblical scholars revisits the Old Testament to identify radical new evidence of a previously unidentified and powerful message in the canon. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author

DAVID NOEL FREEDMAN has been General Editor and a contributing coauthor of the distinguished Anchor Bible series since its inception in 1956. He is currently a professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of California, San Diego, and lives in nearby La Jolla.

From the Inside Flap

controversial as Harold Bloom s The Book of J and Elaine Pagels s The Gnostic Gospels, David Noel Freedman delves into the Old Testament and reveals a pattern of defiance of the Covenant with God that inexorably led to the downfall of the nation of Israel, the destruction of the Temple, and the banishment of survivors from the Promised Land. Book by book, from Exodus to Kings, Freedman charts the violation of the first nine Commandments one by one from the sin of apostasy (the worship of the golden calf, Exodus 32) to murder (the death of a concubine, Judges 19:25 26) to false testimony (Jezebel s charges against her neighbor, Naboth, I Kings 21).

Because covetousness lies behind all the crimes committed, Freedman shows, each act implicitly breaks the Tenth Commandment as well. In a powerful and persuasive argument, Freedman asserts that this hidden trail of sins betrays the hand of a Master Weaver or Editor who has skillfully wove

Edition details

• Publisher: Image Books
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385499876
• ISBN 13: 9780385499873
• Binding: Paperback
• Editor: Beck Astrid B.