from the general understanding of law making that I have just sketched. But first I must set out some of the obstacles to our comprehension. There is widespread but not universal scholarly opinion that they are not the work of Moses.61 But, then there is no agreement as to the precise dating of the laws or the historical circumstances in which they were made. Or even if they were originally laws at all. It is by no means certain that they were the work of one leader at one time. It can be plausibly argued that they are a collection from various materials and were never established at one time. If so, can one reasonably talk of a common purpose? Again, in Exodus the account of them is immediately followed by judicial laws and by ceremonial laws, both ostensibly given to the Israelites by God through Moses. Should we see the Ten Commandments as one part of a trilogy? Again a rather different version of their origin is given in Deuteronomy. What are we to make of this? My approach will be to assume that there were standard - more than one, but connected - traditions about God giving laws to the Israelites. These traditions were formed into the accounts in Exodus and Deuteronomy. Those responsible for the final version of the traditions made choices, but they were limited in their options by the traditions themselves. III 61 For a brief introduction see C.J.H. Wright, ‘Ten Commandments,’ inThe International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 4, ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, (Grand Rapids, 1988), pp. 786 ff.; see also Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus (Philadelphia, 1974), pp. 385 ff.; Reuven Yaron, ‘The Evolution of Biblical Law,’ inLa formazione del diritto nel Vicino Oriente Antico(Rome, 1988), pp. 77 ff., especially pp. 90 ff.; Reuven Yaron, ‘Social Problems and Policies in the Ancient Near East,’ in Law, Politics, and Society in the Ancient Mediterranean World, edd. Baruch Halpern and Deborah W. Hobson (Sheffield, 1993), pp. 19ff.
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