Abstract
Of the various problems that drive study of the Covenant Code (cc), questions of the text's origin, its development, and with this, its relationship to other legal texts, both biblical and from elsewhere in the ancient Near East, have priority. Two divergent hypotheses compete with one another. The prevailing hypothesis is one of gradual redactional growth. The casuistic laws were created first, out of Israelite practice and tradition. Later the apodictic laws were added. The Covenant Code was inserted into a narrative context when or after the apodictic laws were added. The other hypothesis claims that cc as a whole arose as a relatively unified composition from the revision or recasting of sources, mainly the Laws of Hammurabi (lh). This chapter outlines these two hypotheses with emphasis on evidence for the source theory and offers some additional evidence for this view.