Rewriting the Torah: Literary Revision in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation (Forschunmgen Zum Alten Testament)

Jeffrey Stackert explores literary correspondences among the pentateuchal legal corpora and especially the relationships between similar laws in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation (Lev 17-26). Through an analysis of the pentateuchal laws on asylum, seventh-year release, manumission, and tithes, he argues that the Holiness Legislation depends upon both the Covenant Collection and Deuteronomy.

The author also elucidates the compositional logic of the Holiness legislators, showing that these authors employ a method of literary revision in which they reconceptualize source material according to their own ideological biases. In the end, the Holiness Legislation proves to be a "super law" that collects and distills the Priestly and non-Priestly laws that precede it. By accommodating, reformulating, and incorporating various viewpoints from these sources, the Holiness authors create a work that is intended to supersede them all.