"Law and the Bible" Part 5

Chapter 5 of "Law and the Bible: Justice, Mercy and Legal Institutions" (IVPress 2013) was co-written by Roger P. Alford and Leslie M. Alford. The Alfords move from torah to Wisdom in their chapter titled The Law of Life: Law in the Wisdom Literature. With a few notable exceptions, their slice of the Bible's Wisdom literature--Proverbs, Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon(!)--regularly receives short shrift when considering a biblical take on the themes of law and justice. More than any other selection of this book so far, Chapter 5 takes seriously the insights of scholars outside the Evangelical tradition. I believe this is valuable because sometimes scholars steeped in conservative American Evangelicalism or in a serious Confessional tradition operate from an unduly defensive posture. Appropriately responding to the longstanding "downgrade" of orthodoxy in American Christianity, some Evangelicals fail to take into account the legitimate observations about the meaning of biblical texts from those who don't share important starting places like its inerrancy.

Enough meandering. The Alfords begin by refusing to level the messages of each of the Wisdom books. The thrust of each book is not identical. Proverbs assimilates the biblical teachings of law and the natural order of justice; the "torah" Psalms (1, 19, and 119) present a covenantal model of Davidic kings whose success depends on fidelity to torah; Job addresses the apparent paradox between the injustices experienced by the righteous and a just God; Ecclesiastes provides room to breath for those whose experience of the world is injustice compounded by corruption; and Song of Solomon "a relational model in which the law is fulfilled in love."

But the varying trajectories are not left alone as if there was no coherent view of law in the Wisdom texts. Summarizing their materials the Alfords conclude with three "take-away" points for the implications of these texts on contemporary civil law:

1. Wisdom literature reinforces the importance of the civil law; and
2. Wisdom literature in unwavering in its commitment to the idea of divinely inspried natural law applicable to all societies at all times; but
3. Civil law does not hold out an immediate solution to the pervasive problem of injustice in the world. Good law is a necessary but not sufficient condition of justice. Law abiding rulers are equally necessary (and commonly absent). Thus, "there is a future promise that God will judge the unjust ruler."

All in all, Chapter 5 represents a fine contribution to the unfolding witness to the themes of God, justice, and law.