The Genesis Of Justice: Ten Stories Of Biblical Injustice That Led To The Ten Commandments And Modern Morality And Law (2001) - Plot & Excerpts
Warning: Yeshivish aheadKfiratastic!It's hard to rate this book, because do I rate it on a scale of how much is it kfira, or how interesting it is, or how compelling an argument it makes, or what? It's interesting and readable and, well... On a kfira scale--one being VaYoel Moshe (kidding! Just kidding!) and ten being, say, the New Testament--this is about a six. Really, this book didn't need to be kfira. It was mostly just the first 3-4 chapters, and the book would still have worked without them. The argument made in this book about the development of Biblical justice could have been made without including the idea of an imperfect God. (But then again, Dershowitz isn't Orthodox, and he wasn't trying to write an Orthodox book, and so I can't really judge the book on an Orthodox scale.)As an aside, I have to admit, the man knows his sources. He quotes Rashi, Rambam, Ramban, Ibn Ezra, the Bavli, Midrash Rabba, rishonim, achronim, etc. like they're going out of style. However, he seems to deliberately misinterpret Rav Kook on the akeida--in order to disagree with the misinterpreted point. Which bothers me. (Basically, Rav Kook is saying that the akeida is distinguished from the Molech practice of child-sacrifice. Dershowitz says, But if Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son then it's the same thing! Deliberately missing the point: That the akeida is a lesson and that it's fairly significant that God stopped it from happening, in order to show that child-sacrifice is wrong, something that in a idolatrous civilization doesn't go without saying and needed to be stated explicitly.)On a chapter-by-chapter level, the questions he brings up are interesting, but the answers are not quite as interesting. He says in the introduction that he doesn't use the multiple authorship theory when it comes to this book, because if you're trying to answer kushyot on the text, saying that the two stories were written by different authors isn't a satisfying answer and it doesn't add anything. Okay, but asking "How could such-and-such have done this" and answering "Such-and-such shouldn't have done this" is also not such an interesting answer. It all ties together eventually, which is kind of interesting. Kfira, but interesting. (I.e. kfiratastic!)
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