Mosaic covenant

The Mosaic covenant, named for the biblical figure Moses, is also known as the "Sinaitic covenant" after Mount Sinai, the place where God gave the law to Moses, according to the Hebrew Bible (the Jewish Tanakh or the Christian Old Testament). Judaism teaches that the Abrahamic covenant established a relationship between the one and only God and Abraham and his descendants. The Mosaic covenant is seen as a renewal of that earlier covenant, but it is the latter covenant from which Israel traces its origin. The covenant at Sinai provided the civil, social, and religious laws that shaped the new nation. Mosaic law later influenced Christianity, which has its origins in Judaism, and has stirred controversy within the Christian church since its founding.

Brief History

Judaism and various branches of Christianity may differ in interpretation of the Mosaic covenant, but they all begin with the same narrative told in Exodus 19–24. Three months after God delivered the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, Moses makes his first journey up Mount Sinai, where God defines the basic condition and relationship of the covenant. If the people obey, they will be God’s "treasured possession . . . a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exod. 19:5–6, New International Version).

When Moses delivers the message, the people agree to do as God said. Three days later, after the people have consecrated themselves, they approach Mount Sinai to hear God himself deliver the next part of the covenant from the smoke-shrouded mountain. The Decalogue (Exod. 20:1–17), also known as the Ten Commandments, is only a part of the covenant that God gives Moses. The full covenant includes hundreds of ordinances that cover such topics as the treatment of slaves and paid laborers, violence in the community, diet, and property laws, as well as establishing the Sabbath and a sabbatical year and a calendar of religious rituals. Once again, when Moses reports the words of God to the people, they affirm their agreement to the covenant: "Everything the Lord has said we will do" (Exod. 24:3). Moses then writes down all that God has spoken to him and seals the covenant with the blood of sacrificed bulls.

God calls Moses to return to the mountain to receive the two tablets of stone on which God has written the Decalogue. Moses spends forty days on the mountain, during which God gives him specific instructions for building the tabernacle and plans for the priesthood, among other matters (Exod. 25–31). Before Moses returns to the people with the further message from God and the tablets, which are essentially a type of covenant document, the people have broken the covenant by building a golden calf and inaugurating a new holy day. God warns Moses, "They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them" (Exod. 32:8), and Moses petitions God to withhold destruction, reminding him of the Abrahamic covenant.

When Moses sees what the people have done, he angrily smashes the stone tablets, signifying the broken covenant. However, the covenant is renewed (Exod. 34:10). Some scholars conclude that the pronoun in "he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments" (Exod. 34:28) refers to Moses, but the broad consensus among theologians is that the pronoun refers to God writing the Decalogue on the second pair of tablets as on the first. God commands that Moses place the second tablets within the ark of the covenant (Exod. 40), and this resides first in a tent in the wilderness and is eventually housed in the Temple in Jerusalem.

Overview

Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century CE, Higher Criticism, as promoted by German theologians, argued that the books of the Pentateuch (Torah), traditionally ascribed to Moses, were the result of oral tradition written and modified over centuries. Linguist Julius Wellhausen developed the documentary hypothesis that proposed multiple narrative structures—primarily identified by two names for God, Jehovah and Elohim—as the oldest portion of Hebrew scripture, with the laws and rituals of Exodus and Deuteronomy additions from a much later period in Jewish history, placing the Mosaic covenant as late as the seventh century BCE. Wellhausen further argued that the covenant relationship, rather than a divinely instituted bond between God and his people, was a treaty of sorts that resulted from the work of eighth-century prophets. Shocking at first, the documentary hypothesis gradually gained credence and won acceptance not merely from secular scholars but also among theologians. Likewise, Wellhausen’s theory that the Israelites were actually a heterogeneous group and that the covenant helped unify them has been widely accepted as well.

Modern scholars have observed that the Mosaic covenant is written similarly to the suzerainty treaties used among the ancient Hittites and Assyrians between a king and his vassals, and the legal process in which a covenant bound a conquered nation to a king who possessed absolute authority over them might have been familiar to the ancient Israelites. In 1954, biblical scholar George E. Mendenhall presented newly discovered archeological documents dating to about 1450–1200 BCE that revealed the strategies ancient Mesopotamian and Hittite rulers had used to exert their power over vassal nations. He then argued that the Israelites would have been familiar with these covenants and that God had used them in shaping the covenant made with Israel at Sinai.

Biblical scholars also acknowledge that the Decalogue has common ground with older legal inscriptions such as the Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1780 BCE) or even the code of Ur-Nammu (ca. 2050 BCE). But the Mosaic covenant is demonstrably different—foremost in its focus on monotheism and, to a lesser degree, in its greater concern for social justice.

Regardless of when and how the Mosaic covenant came to be, it has had a lasting impact on Jewish religious thought and subsequently on Christianity. Christian theologians have been divided on the role of the Mosaic covenant in Christianity since the founding of the early church as an offshoot of the Jewish faith. Many Christians teach that the Mosaic covenant as part of the old covenant has been rendered "obsolete" by the "new covenant" through Jesus Christ (Hebrews 8:13, 6). Others point to Jesus’s statement that he did not "come to abolish the Law or the Prophets . . . but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17) and his insistence on a higher standard of morality than that of the Jewish legalists of the day (Matt. 5:20). The latter see the Mosaic covenant as an ethical guide for Christians to follow.

Bibliography

Barrick, William D. "The Mosaic Covenant." Master’s Seminary Journal 10.2 (1999): 213–32. Web. 19 Aug. 2016.

Berman, Joshua. "What Is This Thing Called Law? The Jewish Legal Tradition and Its Discontents." Mosaic. Bee.Ideas, 1 Dec. 2013. Web. 19 Aug. 2016.

Kennard, Douglas Welker. Biblical Covenantalism in Torah: Judaism, Covenant Nomism, and Atonement. Vol. 1 of Biblical Covenantalism: Engagement with Judaism, Law, Atonement, the New Perspective, and Kingdom Hope. 3 vols. Eugene: Wipf, 2015. Print.

Mendenhall, George E. "Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition." Biblical Archaeologist 17.3 (1954): 49–76. PDF file.

Meyer, Jason C. The End of the Law: Mosaic Covenant in Pauline Theology. Nashville: B&H, 2009. Print.

Rapoport, David C. "Moses, Charisma, and Covenant." Western Political Quarterly 32.2 (1979): 123–43. PDF file.

Routledge, Robin. Old Testament Theology: A Thematic Approach. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2008. Print.

VanDrunen, David. Divine Covenants and Moral Order: A Biblical Theology of Natural Law. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014. Print.