The Law of your God and the Law of the King (Ezr 7:26): The Torah of Moses as an accreditation paper of the Jewish community in the time of Ezra?
2008
Abstract
Two and half decades ago the hypothesis of the imperial authorisation of the Jewish Torah has been presented by Swiss scholar Peter Frei. According to the hypothesis the general framework for the emergence of the Jewish Torah was the practice of Persian empire to collect and promulgate local legal collections of subdued nations as parts of Persian imperial law.
The suggestion provoked several waves of discussion. Taking the discussion into consideration, the basic idea of the hypothesis, according to which the shape and structure of the Torah does mirror external political and ideological circumstances of the post exilic Jewish community, seems to be quite helpful in attempts to grasp the general thrust of Pentateuch.