Pseudo-Kline Retranslates the Torah

The Pentateuch actually states:

Deuteronomy 4:6-8
Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?

However, if one adopts a Klinean "intrusion ethic" principle and if one therefore denies that Israel's civil laws are laws that reflect the natural law given to all nations, then one might expect a very different kind of reaction than that described in the above passage. One might expect something like the following:

[Klinean] Deuteronomy 4:6-8
Keep therefore and do them; for this is your [foolishness and barbarity] in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a [eschatologically overrealized] people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments [that would be so inappropriate, if not for the intrusion of the eschaton and the consequent conflation of the two kingdoms] as all this law, which I set before you this day?

I really do think that some of Kline's spiritual successors (even those who have never read Kline himself) do think that the OT civil laws are barbaric and that it would be totally inappropriate for a country today to have similar laws.  They don't view the OT civil laws as admirable and something to be imitated.

People who think that way have, it seems, drunk too deeply of the well of Enlightenment, Modern, and Post-Modern thought.  Their concept of what constitute good laws are therefore distorted.  Their judgment is faulty.

They ought to reconsider their position and recognize that the statutes and judgments that were righteous - statutes and judgments that had (to use the Confession's expression) general equity that has continuing relevance to all nations.

Kline never re-translated Deuteronomy to fit his misunderstanding of natural law (as far as I know), but his positions seem to imply this kind of view of the Torah.

-TurretinFan