MICAH FREER

Foundations of Biblical Justice: God's Holistic Ethic for Life in Community

ABSTRACT: This paper seeks to understand justice in the Pentateuch. The lack of integrative biblical scholarship and clarity necessitated drawing together formerly disparate areas of study to take a new look at how Scripture presents justice. Our exploration utilized legal, socio-contextual, ethical, narrative, and covenantal approaches to identify justice as an extension of God’s holy character, derived from His covenants with Israel, and holistic in its permeation through Israel’s social structures, groups, and laws. Justice is the overarching ethic that guides and regulates relationship among people and is understood and pursued according to the rubric of prescriptive, proscriptive, punitive, instructive, illustrative, and imaginative.

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