[German version]

I. Old Testament

A religious law in the sense of a legal system existing alongside profane law or even preceding it, cannot be reconstructed for the old Israel. At the centre of recent discussions is the question of the ‘theologizing’ or the ‘Jahvism’ of the law. This refers especially to the concept occurring in Exodus (Ex 20,1 ff.: Decalogue and book of the covenant) of a God  Jehova as a lawgiver who thus functionally occupies a domain which in the Old Orient was reserved for royalty…