"First, it is not unimportant that the legislative texts of the Old Testament are placed in the mouth of Moses and within the narrative framework of the sojourn at Sinai"
About this Quote
Paul Ricoeur draws attention to a decisive literary and theological choice: the Old Testament laws are voiced by Moses and set within the drama of Israel’s sojourn at Sinai. That placement ties legal material to a founding encounter, so that statutes do not appear as detached regulations but as covenantal speech born from revelation. The Mosaic voice marks a mediation of divine will; the Sinai frame situates command within memory, worship, and communal assent.
This setting transforms law into torah, instruction addressed to a people who have just been delivered. The preface to the commandments, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, turns obedience into a response to grace, fusing ethics with gratitude and identity. By embedding norms in story, the texts bind what to do to who we are. Law thus becomes narrative-anchored guidance, not a mere code.
Ricoeur’s point also has a canonical and redactional dimension. Diverse collections the Decalogue, Covenant Code, Priestly laws, Holiness Code are gathered under the sign of Sinai and the mouth of Moses. Even Deuteronomy, set on the plains of Moab, is framed as Moses’ speeches. This arrangement lends coherence and authority to disparate materials, inviting readers to hear all of it as a continuation of the Sinai address. The community in the story says, We will do and we will hear, modeling reception as both obedience and interpretation.
For Ricoeur, who emphasizes narrative identity, the choice matters because stories confer legitimacy and shape moral imagination. A law situated at a threshold moment in sacred time does more than regulate; it founds a people. The double negative not unimportant underscores that whatever the historical compositional layers, the final form’s staging carries interpretive weight: the authority of the law is inseparable from the memory of revelation and the figure who mediates it.
This setting transforms law into torah, instruction addressed to a people who have just been delivered. The preface to the commandments, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, turns obedience into a response to grace, fusing ethics with gratitude and identity. By embedding norms in story, the texts bind what to do to who we are. Law thus becomes narrative-anchored guidance, not a mere code.
Ricoeur’s point also has a canonical and redactional dimension. Diverse collections the Decalogue, Covenant Code, Priestly laws, Holiness Code are gathered under the sign of Sinai and the mouth of Moses. Even Deuteronomy, set on the plains of Moab, is framed as Moses’ speeches. This arrangement lends coherence and authority to disparate materials, inviting readers to hear all of it as a continuation of the Sinai address. The community in the story says, We will do and we will hear, modeling reception as both obedience and interpretation.
For Ricoeur, who emphasizes narrative identity, the choice matters because stories confer legitimacy and shape moral imagination. A law situated at a threshold moment in sacred time does more than regulate; it founds a people. The double negative not unimportant underscores that whatever the historical compositional layers, the final form’s staging carries interpretive weight: the authority of the law is inseparable from the memory of revelation and the figure who mediates it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Bible |
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