Children in the Bible and the Ancient World

Comparative and Historical Methods in Reading Ancient Children

Shawn W. Flynn, Shawn W. Flynn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351006088
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

The topic of children in the Bible has long been under-represented, but this has recently changed with the development of childhood studies in broader fields, and the work of several dedicated scholars. While many reading methods are employed in this emerging field, comparative work with children in the ancient world has been an important tool to understand the function of children in biblical texts.

Children in the Bible and the Ancient World broadly introduces children in the ancient world, and specifically children in the Bible. It brings together an international group of experts who help readers understand how children are constructed in biblical literature across three broad areas: children in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East, children in Christian writings and the Greco-Roman world, and children and materiality. The diverse essays cover topics such as: vows in Ugarit and the Hebrew Bible, obstetric knowledge, infant abandonment, the role of marriage, Greek abandonment texts, ritual entry for children into Christian communities, education, sexual abuse, and the role of archeological figurines in children's lives. The volume also includes expertise in biological anthropology to study the skeletal remains of ancient children, as well as how ancient texts illuminate Mary's female maturity. The volume is written in an accessible style suitable for non-specialists, and it is equipped with a helpful resource bibliography that organizes select secondary sources from these essays into meaningful categories for further study.

Children in the Bible and the Ancient World is a helpful introduction to any who study children and childhood in the ancient world. In addition, the volume will be of interest to experts who are engaged in historical approaches to biblical studies, while appreciating how the ancient world continues to illuminate select topics in biblical texts.

Part I

Children in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East

1Vows and children in the Hebrew Bible

Heath D. Dewrell

Vows were an important aspect of religious life in ancient Israel, as well as in the broader Northwest Semitic world. In the Hebrew Bible, vows appear in virtually every major genre of biblical literature. In narrative, characters make vows to God (Gen 28:20; 31:13; Judg 11:30; 1 Sam 1:11; 2 Sam 15:7–8; Jonah 1:6). Several biblical ‘laws’ are devoted to vows (Lev 7:16; 22:21–25; Num 6:1–21; 15:1–10; 30:1–15; Deut 23:18). Vows frequently appear in the Psalms (22:26 [Eng 22:25]; 50:14; 56:13 [Eng 56:12]; 61:6, 9 [Eng 61:5, 8]; 65:2 [Eng 65:1]; 66:13; 76:12 [Eng 76:11]; 116:14, 18; 132:2). In their oracles, the Hebrew prophets address vows (Isa 19:21; Jer 44:25–26; Nah 2:1; Mal 1:14). Vows even appear as topics of discussion in the usually less ritually focused ‘wisdom’ literature of the Hebrew Bible (Job 22:27; Prov 31:2; Ecc 5:3–4 [Eng 5:4–5]). Outside the Hebrew Bible, ‘vows’ appear in texts written in Old Aramaic (KAI 201); Official Aramaic (Sam 15); Palmyrene (PAT 1677); Phoenician (KAI 18); Punic (KAI 88; 103); and Ugaritic (on which, see below).¹

In his seminal study of ancient Near Eastern vows, Tony W. Cartledge defines a vow (Hebrew neder/nēder) as ‘a conditional promise, made within the context of petitionary prayer, that the individual will give to God some gift or service in return for God’s willingness to hear and answer [one’s] prayer.’² Further, as Jacques Berlinerblau observes, vows do not appear to have required the mediation of a priest, or even a shrine, and thus provide a window into ‘popular religious practice.’ While some of the laws of the Torah attempt to regulate and standardise vows (Lev 7:16; 22:21–25; Num 6:1–21; 15:1–10; 30:1–15; Deut 23:18), it appears that, in practice, it was entirely up to the individual what to promise, what to request, and when and in what manner to fulfill a vow. Unlike many aspects of the Israelite cult, vows were not restricted to certain genders or classes of people. Anyone could make a vow. Thus, vows provide the historian of the Israelite religion with an uncommon glimpse into the way in which individuals directly interacted with their god(s).³

Another interesting aspect of vows is their nakedly transactional nature. While there are indications that the intended result of firstfruit offerings, for example, was a bountiful harvest, the transactional nature of these offerings is not explicitly stated. Firstfruit offerings are never presented as optional or conditional; they were owed to Yahweh as his share of the harvest (Exod 23:19; 34:26; Deut 18:4). While in practice firstfruit offerings could be conceived of as being of a do ut des (‘I give so that you will give’) variety, the transaction is masked as an unconditional gift offered to Yahweh, to which Yahweh in turn freely responds with divine blessings. In no way, however, do firstfruit offerings obligate Yahweh to act. In the case of a vow, on the other hand, the promised item is only delivered to the god(s) after the god or goddess has done her or his part. As George Foote Moore observed over a century ago, vows are not even of the do ut des variety; they are instead more accurately dabo si dederis (‘I will give if you will give’) offerings.⁴ If the deity fails to deliver, then the supplicant is none the worse for having made the vow.

Thus, vows represent both one of the most unmediated aspects of the Israelite cult, in that no cultic functionary is necessary to intercede between the individual who makes the vow and his or her god, and one of the most explicit in terms of its intended purpose and function. In contrast to other sorts of offerings, which tend to draw on relationship language, a vow assumes that the deity can be convinced to act via the promise of a gift (a less pious writer might even say ‘bribed’) and does nothing to soften or disguise this practical reality. It is entirely comprehensible, then, that vows often appear in the context of crises, especially crises of a personal nature. When all else has failed, one has little to lose by promising the gods some extravagant gift should they deign to intervene. It is likewise no surprise that vows often involved the most personal of objects—children. While in theory one could make a vow regarding nearly any desired thing, children and vows appear in conjunction with one another in some especially interesting ways. In some cases, individuals requested children from the gods and vowed some precious object in return. In other cases, a person may promise to offer one child in exchange for more children. In still others, a person may vow a child in exchange for some other material benefit. The essay below will sketch the variety of ways in which children and vows intersect in Northwest Semitic societies, especially focusing on the religious practice of ancient Israel as attested in the Hebrew Bible.

Children as the object requested

The first case in which children and vows intersect is perhaps the most obvious one: when the supplicant requests a child in exchange for some promised item. Even today in developed Western societies it is not uncommon for individuals to respond to infertility by attempting to bargain with God,⁵ and it is not surprising that the ancients—most of whom believed that supernatural beings interacted with humans in a more concrete and direct way than most modern Westerners assume—did so as well. Unfortunately, while it is likely that making vows in response to childlessness was a fairly common phenomenon in the ancient Near East, descriptions of such acts of personal piety do not often make their way into texts. The most explicit description of a vow made in the hope of obtaining children is preserved in the literature from Ugarit, specifically the Kirta epic. The tale opens with a report that Kirta’s wife and children have all perished by various ghastly means. When Kirta enters his chamber and weeps, the god Ilu comes to him and asks what it is that is distressing him and what it is that he desires. Kirta rejects the idea that kingship or wealth would provide him any consolation. Instead, he cries out:

[tn.] bnm. ’aqny’	[Allow that] I will acquire/produce children!
[tn. θ’a]rm. ’am’id	[Allow that] I will multiply k[in]!

(KTU³ 1.14.ii:4–5)⁶

In response, Ilu instructs Kirta to make a series of sacrifices before preparing for a journey to Udum with his armies. Once there, he is to request the hand of the daughter of a certain King Pabuli—one Huraya—as his wife. During his journey to Udum, Kirta stops at the shrine of Athiratu at Tyre and makes the following vow:

’i’iθt. ’aθrt. ṣrm	O, as Athiratu of the Tyrians
w’ilt. ṣdynm	and the goddess of the Sidonians exists:
hm. ḥry. bty	If Huraya to my house
’iqḥ. ’aš’rb. ġlmt	I take, and I cause the lass to enter
ḥẓry. θnh. k^!spm	my court. Double her (weight in?) silver
’atn. w. θlθth. ḫrṣm	I will give, and triple her (weight in?^7) gold.

(KTU³ 1.14.iv:38–43)

While in its most literal and technical sense the vow here concerns Kirta’s desire to marry Huraya and never explicitly mentions children, the remainder of the tale reveals that Huraya was essentially a means to the end of obtaining children. Once Kirta has married Huraya, Ilu blesses his family and Huraya bears him two sons and six daughters. This takes seven years’ time to accomplish. At the end of the seven years, the text makes clear that it is the children, and not merely Huraya herself, that were the desired objects of Kirta’s vow:

mk. bšb‘. šnt	Now in seven years
bn. krt. kmhm. tdr	the sons of Kirta were like they were vowed
apbnt. ḥry	also the daughters of Huraya
kmhm.	like them.

(KTU³ 1.15.iii:22–25a)

While there has been some debate about precisely whose vow is referenced here (Kirta’s?⁸ Ilu’s?⁹), it is likely no coincidence that it is immediately following the birth of Kirta’s last child that his vow to Athiratu reappears:

wtḫss. ’aθrt	And Athiratu remembered
ndrh. w’ilt. d[pl’ih]	his vow. And the goddess what [he promised her?]

(KTU³ 1.15.iii:25b–26)

Athiratu is none too pleased that Kirta neglected to fulfill his end of the bargain and strikes him with some sort of illness as a result. This illness, its ramifications, and how to overcome it serve as the driving plot device for most of the remainder of the epic (or at least what is preserved of it).

As Simon Parker perceptively observed,¹⁰ Kirta’s vow has a nice parallel in the story of Hannah’s vow in 1 Samuel. Unlike Kirta, however, who was attempting to replace a family that he had lost, Hannah had thus far been unable to conceive a child at all. Then, during her family’s regular pilgrimage to the shrine at Shiloh:

She vowed a vow (wattidōr neder) and said, ‘Yahweh of Hosts, if you will look upon the affliction of your maidservant and will remember me and not forget your maidservant and give to your maidservant the seed of men, then I will give him to Yahweh all the days of his life, and a razor will not touch his head.’

(1 Sam 1:11)

Here, unlike in the case of Kirta, Hannah explicitly names a child as the object that she desires. Nonetheless, there still seems to be something left unsaid. That is, the vow as stated offers no material benefit to Hannah. While Kirta promised to give gold and silver (in the form of a statue?) to Athiratu in exchange for a wife (and children), Hannah asks for a child but promises to give the child right back to Yahweh. Why go through the discomfort—and, in the ancient world, even danger—of pregnancy and childbirth just to hand the child over?

Here, examining ancient assumptions about the female reproductive system may be of some help. The most common term for female infertility in the Hebrew Bible is ‘ăqārâ, probably cognate to √‘qr, ‘to uproot,’¹¹ and indicating that the woman’s womb is a place in which the man’s ‘seed’ cannot take root. Another semantic field used in referenc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• Abbreviations
• Part I Children in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East
• Part II Children in Christian writings and the Greco-Roman world
• Part III Children and material culture
• Afterword
• Bibliography