Indeed, it is possible that what God does on Mount Sinai is not to give his people a wholly new law, but to take what they know already of law and reshape it, rejecting some parts of it and developing others. The law God gives to Moses for the Israelites bears all the marks of being genuine ancient Near Eastern law. God is not calling his people to live in an eccentric, unhistorical fashion: they are to be genuine people of their own historical time and place.
so important to remember in biblical studies.
