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Deuteronomy as Israel’s Ancient Constitution: Some Preliminary Reflections

April 2, 1992

This article has the dual purpose of indicating how contemporary political science can approach the study of an ancient constitutional text and the examination of Deuteronomy as such a constitution. Ancient constitutions are distinguished from modern ones by devoting as much or more attention to the moral and socio-economic bases of the polity as to the frame of government. Deuteronomy is a classical example of that kind of ancient constitution, designed to adapt the Torah-as-constitution presented in the first four books of the Pentateuch to the Jewish polity once the people are established in Eretz Israel. As such it is both a repetition of what has been presented before and a modification of earlier constitutional teachings.