If you were a

were a person,

if you lived in the ancient Middle East,

the overwhelming odds are you were a peasant very likely a bonded servant to another family life was hard your life expectancy was low there was famines diseases and, and wars.

And the land you lived in would have been ruled by a king, the ultimate authority.

That king would call himself the image of God.

And that was a political theology.

It let him rule the way he wanted to.

But there was one family in the ancient Middle East, but a different story.

They didn't have a king, not at first anyway, and they viewed everyone as equally valuable.

They considered every human as the image of God.

The biblical narrative is transparent as a kind of political theology, but it's one that elevates

the common person to the status of the king.

Their story was of a god who wanted to rule with all of them.

And he wanted them to rule with wisdom and justice.

All of these laws are about a covenantal marriage between God and every Israelite.

So every Israelite has a royal obligation to the covenant.

That's a brand new idea. I'm John Collins and this is the

Bible Project podcast. We continue our conversation on the biblical law and we're

going to dive into the way that the ancient Jewish law codes pushed the boundaries for justice in our world.

We're going to look at some of the most uncomfortable parts of Israel's ancient law code.

The classic example is slavery is not abolished.

...