Deuteronomy Essay

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The text from Deuteronomy, chapters 10-11 describes a ‘love’ which is inherent in the origin of an ancient covenant. The modern-day West understands covenant as a strong agreement between two parties. It is comparable to a legal promise or a binding contract. Although this modern understanding originates from the ancient world, the ancient Near Eastern would have known covenantal agreements to be much deeper. Along with this, love in modern Western custom is typically an expression of emotion and response toward another person or object. It is fitting that love would not occur in the realm of legal contracts. Therefore, it may be difficult for the modern-day West to understand the inherency of love within covenant agreement. The Ancient Near …show more content…

For nearly a millennium Israel drew from the socio-cultural-political influences around them. Specifically, one can see that Assyria’s rule made a significant impact as to the curses written in Deuteronomy. Israel viewed the laws of Deuteronomy through their own socio-historical lenses, according to what they knew about treaties and agreements. Dating the ‘Book of the Law’ The story of King Josiah (640-609 BCE) pronounces “a book of the law” which depicts some written form of Deuteronomy, including chapters 10 and 11. (2 Ki 22:8, NRSV) The finding of this major portion of the book dates to 621 BCE. Given the contemporaneous socio-cultural understanding of suzerain treaty, amongst other evidences, one can presume that this section of Deuteronomy dates to the eighth or seventh century. After the fall of Samaria (722 BCE), the exiled northern tribes became heavily influenced by Assyrian socio-political powers. The following chapters of the book of Deuteronomy (chapters 12-26) might have been completed according to the reforms of King Josiah after finding the portion of older text. So it is quite likely that the writings of chapters four through eleven of Deuteronomy (Moses first speech) date between 800 and 722 BCE. Defining “Love the LORD your God” from Chapters

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