Covenant Code

For other meanings of 'Book of the Covenant', see Book of the Covenant (disambiguation).

The Covenant Code, or Book of the Covenant, is the name given by academics to a text appearing in the Torah, at Exodus 20:22–23:19; or, more strictly, the term Covenant Code may be applied to Exodus 21:1–22:16.[1] Biblically, the text is the second of the law codes said to have been given to Moses by God at Mount Sinai. This legal text provides a small but substantive proportion of the mitzvot (religious duties) within the Torah, and hence is a source of Jewish Law.

  1. ^ Raymond Westbrook, "What is the Covenant Code?" in Theory and Method in Biblical and Cuneiform Law: Revision, Interpolation and Development, ed. B.M. Levinson (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 15–36