The elements of the covenant in the structure of Deuteronomy are fundamental worldview categories, though they may be stated in different terms and the individual elements themselves may be expressed in broader or narrower terms. When modern scholars of comparative religion, for example, consider the history of religion and attempt to describe the data, they develop a remarkably similar account of the elements of a worldview. William E. Paden, in his popular textbook on comparative religion, sees
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