The connections - and disconnections - between religion and law are often assumed but rarely grasped. Justice and Compassion presents in a delightfully accessible form a multitude of common elements between western law and biblical sources. Richard Hiers crafts a carefully nuanced approach in a field too frequently known for its dogmatism rather than its doctrines and insights. His frames of reference open the door to new insights into enduring truths. -- Frank S. Alexander, Emory University School of Law, Atlanta, GA, USA. Justice and Compassion in Biblical Law is an enlightening book. Hiers' project is to examine Biblical law through the lens of contemporary American law. By so doing, Hiers not only makes clear many central elements of the Biblical legal system but also reveals some of the core values animating both legal systems. Whether one's goal is to better understand ancient Biblical law or to gain a new light on contemporary legal and social discourse, readers of Justice and Compassion in Biblical Law will be richly rewarded. -- Jonathan R. Cohen, Levin College of Law, University of Florida, USA. Richard Hiers' Justice and Compassion in Biblical Law offers an extraordinarily thorough analysis of Old Testament legal texts, organized around the categories of civil law, criminal law, and social welfare legislation. Employing a methodology that analyzes biblical legal texts according to their likely development over time, Hiers assesses these texts in light of western/American categories of legal thought. In so doing, he shows that these oft-neglected materials not only have considerable moral depth and contemporary relevance, but that they also played a role in shaping American public life from our earliest days as a people. Writing with great scholarly self-discipline and staying tightly focused on his task, Hiers' research ends up leading him to offer stinging challenges to our political, academic, and popular cultures, which are losing the transcendent and other-regarding moral vision that undergirds any sustainable human community. This excellent book makes an indispensable contribution to both biblical scholarship and contemporary social ethics. -- David P. Gushee, Mercer University, Atlanta, GA, USA. Hiers introduces people engaged in Christian or Jewish ethics to some norms or standards of justice and compassion found in biblical laws relating to the interactions of people in society. Readers might be surprised by the frequent call for compassion, he suggests, and secular humanists particularly startled to discover how often the concerns and values implicit in biblical laws are congruent with their own convictions and social policy agendas. Most of the study is devoted to criminal law, with discussions of biblical trial scenes, impartial judgment and equal protection, capital offenses, due process protections, and contemporary application. A section on civil law covers contract and tort law and the transfer of property by inheritance and bequest. A final section looks at social legislation in terms of protecting against injustice and mistreatment, and affirmative actions by private people. -- Eithne O'Leyne * BOOK NEWS, Inc. * Justice and compassion in Biblical Law exhibits technical skill, sensibly differentiates between different traditions in biblical law, and offers a useful overview of the subject. -- Ronan Head, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA * Theological Book Review *