Some Considerations on the Socio-Political Aspects of the Law-Codification in the Province of Yehud in the Persian Period

Abstract

The article juxtaposes the process of law codification that took place in Rome in the mid-5th century BCE under the so-called Law of the Twelve Tables and the codification of law that took place around the same time in Palestine, known as Deuteronomy. According to the reconstruction of events in Rome, the codification of laws involved an attempt to limit the judicial omnipotence of the elite, due to pressure from a new elite that sought to diminish the power of the old elite. The text asks whether analogous political mechanisms could have led to the codification of law in the form of Deuteronomy, and if so, how to define the group whose judicial omnipotence would be curtailed.