But it all changed in the Hellenistic period…

It was only when Torah was adopted as legislation in the Hellenistic period that a community discussed the idea of keeping all the law as if it were legislative and comprehensive. As we have seen in our previous discussion, in both Mesopotamia and Israel, the only form of divine law is found in the decrees issued by the gods that maintain order in the cosmos. In contrast, the Greek concept was that law emanated from the gods in the sense that the divine realm was the source of rationality and reason, which in turn served as the foundation for an understanding of natural law. In their view, this law is universal and unchanging, and resulted from general revelation. The model seen in the ANE fits the Torah data better. If that is the case, Torah can be considered neither divine legislation nor a manifestation of the inherent functioning of the world. This is important to recognize if we are interested in reading the text in accordance with its genre and context.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 124–25