Law and Redemption: Expounding and Expanding Robert Cover’s Nomos and Narrative

Abstract

This Article explores two interrelated themes that distinguish much of Robert Cover’s scholarship: reliance on Jewish sources and the redemption of American constitutionalism. Two pieces of Cover’s, Nomos and Narrative and Bringing the Messiah Through the Law: A Case Study, explore these themes, providing complementary views on the potential and limitations of the redemptive power of law. In Nomos and Narrative, Cover develops a metaphor of the law as a bridge, linking the actual to the potential. Bringing the Messiah Through the Law: A Case Study extends the metaphor through the lens of Jewish legal history. Building on Cover’s foundation, this Article further examines the transformative power of law in Jewish tradition, using examples that illustrate Cover’s redemptive vision for the law. The unrealized redemptive potential of the American legal system ultimately reflects the failure of American law and society to grapple with our past wrongs, a necessary first step on the bridge to Messianic harmony.