This post was originally written 1 August 2017 To navigate up to the Genesis index, see index-genesis.
Today, while reading Calum Carmichael’s, “Laws of Leviticus 19” in the Harvard Theological Review, I noticed something interesting, which I had never heard before. He was talking about Deuteronomy 24:16, which gives the legal principle that a son should not be killed for a crime committed by his father, nor vice versa. Carmichael says, among other interesting things, “The deuteronomistic redactor formulated the first part of the rule in reaction to the incident in Genesis 34 of a father being killed for the offense of a son, the only incident of its kind in biblical literature” (p. 242).
I knew the story well, but I had not realized it was the only incident of its kind in biblical literature.
This is not the first time I’ve learned something interesting from Calum Carmichael. During a research project on Romani people, also known (sometimes pejoratively) as Gypsies, I got my hands on a fascinating edited book of essays called Gypsy Law, in which Carmichael had contributed a chapter comparing Romani and biblical law. It’s worth reading, especially Carmichael’s chapter.
For an example of how Carmichael relates narrative and legal material in the Bible, see his lecture, “Judging Joseph in Light of Biblical Law.”