Wie der Einheimische so der Fremde

How did the Persian period shape the language and thought of the Old Testament? Alexandra Jacobsen offers a fresh perspective on the origin, structure, and intention of the Holiness Legislation in Lev 17-26 and its reworking in the context of the post-exilic and Persian periods. She investigates how this legal corpus is composed literarily, which redactional developments it underwent, and how its innovative theological accents - especially with regard to the relationship between natives and foreigners - are to be situated historically. Her central thesis is the literary differentiation of two clearly discernible layers within the texts attributed to the so-called "Holiness School": an older foundational layer and a later, extensive "redaction of the foreigner," which articulates a new integrative ethic. By combining historical and literary arguments, the author contributes to the current discussion on the formation of the Pentateuch and presents a model that is able to explain the diversity of the so-called Holiness texts with greater precision than before.