Calum M. Carmichael's Approach to the Laws of Deuteronomy

Abstract

In three books and numerous articles, Calum M. Carmichael argues for a radical transformation in the way the laws of Deuteronomy are to be understood. His most recent work,Law and Narrative in the Bible, maintains that the legal corpus of Deuteronomy, far from being “law,” rather constitutes “literature,” in which the Deuteronomistic historian reflects upon the full range of pre-exilic Israelite narrative, Genesis through 2 Kings. In the course of this argument, Carmichael makes fundamental assertions about the composition of Deuteronomy, the history of Israelite literature, and the history of interpretation. Carmichel introduces his work as an attempt “to overturn longstanding views on material that has always been in center stage in the study of the Bible” and as “radical in its results.” His work has already generated a series of further studies of narrative allusion and drafting techniques in Deuteronomy that presuppose his arguments.