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Stories of conflict over religion and law proliferate in contemporary American news media. Perhaps even more frequent in recent years are the stories from the Middle East concerning attempts at using law to advance a particular religious agenda. Such patterns are ubiquitous throughout human history. While the circumstances and details vary, law and ritual always shape human societies in remarkable ways. In this course, we will examine the ways in which societies utilize law and ritual to shape social values, customs, and perspectives. We will study law and ritual not simply as cultural artifacts, but as ideological tools used by individuals and groups to advance agendas, compel behaviors, and otherwise influence such social forces as power, status, gender, and resources. We will use ancient Israel as our test case. The texts of the Hebrew Bible offer us a view into a long history of focus on both law and ritual within one society. These texts were preserved because they were socially useful in a variety of contexts. Yet, the long history of legal and ritual texts in the Hebrew Bible also gives us insight into how such traditions evolve and change in different social conditions. While law and ritual may shape society, they are likewise often shaped by it. Students should be able to take these broad considerations from ancient Israel and apply them to other social settings in both discussion and writing by the end of this course.