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Alan Dershowitz
"Violence, lust, deception, murder, incest, and vengeance: These are the subjects of the biggest -- and perhaps the juiciest -- bestseller of all time, the Book of Genesis. It's oft-told tales have inspired, cautioned, and challenged humankind for generations. But perhaps never before has anyone examined these stories from a modern legal perspective. Based on Alan Dershowitz's class at Harvard Law School, The Genesis of Justice shows how The Good Book is also a law book. According to Dershowitz, these seminal stories describe a people -- and a God -- struggling in a world before the invention of systematic rules, a primal place that predates our notions of fairness, honesty, and "rights." Yet here in Genesis we can see these concepts -- and the need for them and for their embodiment in a formal legal system--evolving in front of our eyes.
Using ten of the most intriguing biblical narratives and drawing on not only his own arguments but those of biblical commentators throughout the ages, Dershowitz evaluates the actions of biblical heroes, even God himself. And together with concluding discussions on "The Injustice of Genesis," he shows us how the flawed behavior of its flawed protagonists led to the Ten Commandments and a deeper, richer sense of justice than any mere code could ever provide. From the time he was a kid--and was nearly tossed out of Hebrew school for asking one pesky question after another--Dershowitz has wanted to turn these stories inside out. As a result, The Genesis of Justice is filled with humor and passion as well as erudition...which helps make these ancient and often seemingly impenetrable writings more understandable, relevant, and wonderfully alive."
Available in hardcover |
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