Establishing the relevance of Old Testament ethics to contemporary life is, as John Barton concedes, an uphill task. For many Christians today - let alone those with no religious commitment - to find some way of accommodating them into a coherent moral system by which to live in this new century and millennium seems at best implausible and at worst ridiculous or even immoral.
However, Barton is convinced that in many aras of ethical enquiry the Old Testament has much to teach us. He looks again at the Ten Commandmens; the narrative about David and his children; the ethical issue of ecology; sexual morality and proprty; human morality as the express command of God; and the motivation for moral conduct. An additional chapter offers some fresh views about the value of Old Testament ethics in general.
By the end of the book it is clear that although the Old Testament comes to us from a remote, alien and apparently unsophistocaled context, the powerful minds who worked on its books still have things to say which remain evocative and suggestive for our moral enquiries.
John Barton is Oriel and Lain Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture in the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Oriel College. He is the author of many books, including The Spirit and the Letter, and he edited the Cambridge Companion to the Old Testament.