Social injustice and biblical law: The case of widows, strangers, and orphans in the Deuteronomic code

Deut 14:22--29; 16:9--12, 13--15; 24:17--18, 19--22; and 26:12--15 purport to govern behavior toward widows, strangers, and orphans, a category of vulnerable, underclass persons in ancient Israelite society. The fact that these laws prescribe public assistance and protective services for this category of individuals implies that the dilemma of these types of persons was a social problem in the biblical communities, and that ameliorating the circumstances of these individuals was a significant concern of these codes. It, therefore, appears that the literary innovations in these legal sanctions established and legitimized a new public assistance system, namely, a new welfare program which ameliorated the circumstances of these socially weak, but politically useful persons.; This dissertation is a social-scientific analysis of ancient Israelite society which examines the interplay between a layer of law and social subgroups in the biblical community. Particularly, this study applies Critical Theory to the legal sanctions in Deut 14:22--29; 16:9--12, 13--15; 24:17--18, 19--22; and 26:12--15. Critical Theory about law is a relatively recent sociolegal theoretical framework which examines regulations with a concern for the realities of social life in communities which are ethnically heterogeneous and economically and politically asymmetric. Thus, Critical Theory about legal injunctions brings questions about class, inequality, oppression, and concealed sociopolitical interests to the forefront in the debate on the role that law plays in human communities.; The present study argues that the laws represented in the text in fact exacerbated the plight of widows, strangers, and orphans, while aiding officials in the Yahweh-alone cult in the establishment and legitimization of a public relief program which guaranteed their material endowment, positioning these intellectual elites to stave off potential uprisings by local peasant farmers in the North during the ninth century BCE.