Jewish law has evolved throughout the centuries as a mature, complex system with direct bearing on the evolution of law within Christendom. The modifications of Roman law by the Church in the Middle Ages, the covenant law of the American Puritans, and a significant portion of Anglo-American secular law has been derived from and influenced by this older legal tradition. At the same time, because so much of that tradition has been embodied in Hebrew and Aramaic texts, it had remained largely inaccessible to all but Talmudic scholars until the publication of Horowit"s work.