Introduction

Abstract

In part II, we examined Jewish writings to the end of the first century CE that navigate the incongruity between Greco-Roman and biblical conceptions of divine law. For the most part, these writings accept and work within the framework set by the Greco-Roman dichotomy of divine law vs. human law. Philo and Paul are two of the clearest examples of writers who employ this dichotomy and seek to assimilate Mosaic Law to one or the other of its terms. They arrive at radically different conclusions as to whether the Mosaic Law can be classified as divine law or positive human law, and they rely on different elements of biblical divine law discourse to support their particular classification. Philo identified the Mosaic Law with the divine natural law of Greco-Roman (primarily Stoic) tradition. Paul differentiated Mosaic Law from the universal law written on the heart....