Pragmatism, Utopia and Dystopia in Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy - Outside the Box - Diana V. Edelman
Philippe Guillaume [+]
University of Berne
Philippe Guillaume is Lecturer at the University of Berne. His latest publications are A History of Biblical Israel co-authored with Ernst Axel Knauf (Equinox, 2016) and Deuteronomy in the Making, Studies in the Production of Debarim, edited with Diana Edelman, Benedetta Rossi and Kåre Berge (De Gruyter, 2021).
Description
The oft-repeated view of Deuteronomy’s humanitarianism consequently gave rise to the the notion that some of its laws are devoid of practical application and depict instead a utopia. building upon the demonstration of the economic realism of Deuteronomy’s laws in chapter 6 in this volume, this chapter nevertheless identifies some utopian as well as dystopian elements, ascribing them to different groups.