Social and Economic Life in Second Temple Judea

Samuel L. Adams

• Editorial: Westminster John Knox Press
• Año: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781611645231
• Categoría: Theology & Religion
• Categoría: Biblical Studies

Those who study the Bible are becoming increasingly attentive to the significance of economics when examining ancient texts and the cultures that produced them. This book looks at the socioeconomic landscape of Second Temple Judea, from the end of the Babylonian exile to the destruction of the temple by the Romans (532 BCE to 70 CE). Adams carefully examines key themes, paying special attention to family life, the status of women, and children, while engaging relevant textual and archaeological evidence. He looks at borrowing and lending and the burdensome taxation policies under a succession of colonial powers. In this pursuit, Adams offers an innovative analysis of economic life with fresh insights from biblical texts. No other study has specifically analyzed economics for this lengthy timeframe, especially in relation to these key themes. This important book provides readers with a helpful context for understanding religious beliefs and practices in the time of early Judaism and emerging Christianity.

1

Family Life and Marriage

The family stood at the center of life in Judah, before and after the exile. A long-standing kinship system played a fundamental role in determining settlement patterns, social hierarchies, and the distribution of wealth. The various literary genres in the Hebrew Bible, along with the New Testament and extracanonical evidence, reflect the centrality of the family in the social structure and its significance for a person’s well-being. The importance of household structures persisted, even through exile and when foreign powers took control of Judah. The possibility of healthy offspring, financial stability, a good reputation, and in some cases survival remained much higher if an individual had a place in an established household with a living patriarch.¹ Those who found themselves on the periphery, such as widows and orphans, faced many disadvantages, which often led to desperate circumstances.

Family life is both a critical and elusive topic in the study of the Second Temple period. Those living in Judah had to adapt to a succession of colonial powers and such developments as an increase in coinage and trade. When examining this period, it is necessary to consider the relationship between households and external dynamics, including the challenge of adjusting to imperial rule, changing social institutions, urbanization, and an array of taxation demands. Yet the specifics of household life, especially in relation to economics, are largely unknown to the modern interpreter. The Persians and their successors did not always maintain careful archives, and little inscriptional evidence from Judah dates to these centuries.² The rabbinic literature provides a more thorough picture of financial dynamics in this regard, but one cannot simply apply these writings to an earlier era without analysis of the Second Temple sources and other evidence. Biblical books and extracanonical sources, such as the contracts from Elephantine and the Zeno papyri, shed light on the socioeconomic landscape during this period, but from the outset we recognize the guesswork in exploring this topic, particularly in relation to the subsistence farmers who made up the majority of the population.

The present chapter will address the economics of family life during the Second Temple period, with special attention to basic demographics and the financial aspects of marriage.³ Key factors, such as the permanent loss of national sovereignty, the revenue needs of colonial powers and local officials/priests, and challenging farming conditions had an impact on families during this period, and these topics will receive attention throughout our study. Archaeological and inscriptional evidence will be helpful for this inquiry, including documents that did not originate in Judah (e.g., family concerns in the contracts from Elephantine). Throughout our discussion, we will consult the biblical texts from this period for clues about economics and family life. One should not sweep aside as irrelevant the books with fictional details (e.g., Ruth), advice that transcends a particular era (e.g., Proverbs and Ben Sira), or content with a clearly historiographic intent (e.g., Chronicles). The careful reader often finds incidental information and implicit commentary on financial matters in these and other sources. Many passages, such as the prohibition against intermarriage in Ezra 9–10, offer important hints about the pecuniary aspects of family life. Much of this chapter will take up the topic of marriage, and we will demonstrate that one cannot detach the economic aspects of betrothal and marriage customs from other dynamics at work, including theological issues.

Before proceeding, it is worth noting that the terms “family” and “household” are not exactly synonymous. A “family” can be defined as a “group of kin-related people … who may or may not reside together and whose primary function is to reproduce members biologically.”⁴ The “household,” on the other hand, is a residential arrangement of persons “who live together in one or more structures, who carry out daily activities necessary for the maintenance and social reproduction of the group living within a specific space associated with the residence, and who interact with other households.”⁵ In this context “household” means not just biological relatives; it could also include slaves, concubines, and other retainers who assist with productivity. There can be overlap between the categories (i.e., an entire “family” can be situated in one locale as a “household”), but failure to notice this distinction often leads to confusion.

BASIC HOUSEHOLD STRUCTURES

Our first task is to consider household structures in the Second Temple period, including the import of residential patterns for economic life. Throughout the ancient Near East, a network of interdependent kinship groups and tribal associations connected most households, and these ties usually mattered more than any national loyalties. In a major study on this topic, J. David Schloen presents a “patrimonial household model” to explain the organizing principle of societies. According to his analysis, “the social order consists of a hierarchy of subhouseholds linked by personal ties at each level between individual ‘masters’ and ‘slaves’ or ‘fathers’ and ‘sons.’”⁶ Within this system, a person’s identity and success hinged on participation in a functioning household, with its hierarchical network of relationships and larger kinship group.

Terminology in the Hebrew Bible and beyond illustrates the significance of this “patrimonial household model,” including the many references to the “house of the father” (Heb. bêt

āb) as the basic structure for family life.⁷ This “house of the father” term indicates a family unit with various kinship ties and a patriarch at the head of a hierarchical grouping. This system was patrilocal in the sense that young females who married became members of their husband’s household and also patrilineal since family identity and inheritance usually passed from the father to his son(s). The “house of the father” structure frequently included siblings, as evidenced by the important fraternal relationships throughout the Bible.⁸ In addition, tiers of organization existed beyond the baseline “house of the father,” including the “extended family” or “clan” (Heb. mišpā

â) and then the “tribe” (Heb. šēbet) level. The many genealogies in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament underscore the significance of this terminology for individual families and the society at large. For example, when the Lord commands Abram in Genesis, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Gen. 12:1, emphasis added), this verse emphasizes Abram’s ties to his father Terah’s house and the risk he takes in leaving. Later references highlight the significance of Abram’s departure and the importance of living securely within a “house of the father” structure (e.g., Gen. 20:13; 24:7).

For the current discussion, one pressing question is the amount of change that occurred within household structures after the exile, especially in relation to land distribution and the long-standing “house of the father” system. Those living in Judah under the Persians and subsequent rulers faced numerous challenges, including foreign interest in their land and its resources, tensions between returnees from exile and those who stayed in the region, urbanization (esp. later in the Second Temple period), and the need to rebuild the temple. Within this context, Jon Berquist cites the significance of foreign rulers and how they put into place a class of “nonagricultural elites” who could work at the local level to maximize food output, tax revenues, and the production of indigenous goods.⁹ As families encountered the shifting landscape during this period, we should consider to what extent household patterns changed, especially as larger estates became more prominent and many kinship groups lost their land.

According to an influential but ultimately questionable thesis from Joel Weinberg, the inhabitants of Judah developed greater solidarity and therefore a more communal identity after the exile. Weinberg proposed that a large network of households in and around Jerusalem formed a solidarity group, a “citizen-temple community.” There are many references in the biblical lists from Ezra–Nehemiah and Chronicles to the “house of the fathers” (Heb. bêt

ābôt), as opposed to “house of the father.”¹⁰ Weinberg argued that local authorities in Judah divided the land into parcels for individual families, but all of the estates ultimately functioned as the common property of the “citizen-temple community” and the God it worshiped.¹¹ This shift toward a more collective mentality represented a response to exile and permanent colonization as the community sought to remain cohesive. Weinberg’s idea of common ownership is intriguing, and he is undoubtedly correct that certain factions competed for land and favor with the authorities during the Persian period, leading to a more collectivist mentality. The tension between those returning from exile and those who stayed in the land is the clearest example of this trend, and this type of factionalism paved the way for the sects of later eras (i.e., Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes).¹² Yet there is no real textual or archaeological evidence for the “citizen-temple community” that Weinberg proposes. It is more likely that the “house of the fathers” replaced the larger “clan” (mišpā

â) terminology that existed before the exile.¹³ In certain cases, references to the “house of the fathers” seem to represent the efforts of postexilic families to link their ancestry to the long-standing “clans” (800–1,000 males) of preexilic Israel, sometimes as a means of authenticating land possession. For example, after the exile members of the Benjaminite tribe occupied the town of Geba (just north of Jerusalem), and the language concerning the “house of the fathers” in 1 Chronicles 8 enlarges the borders of Benjaminite territory by connecting earlier ancestors to the surrounding towns in this area.¹⁴ Yet in such passages or in extracanonical texts from this period, one strains to find clues of collective ownership on the scale that Weinberg suggests.¹⁵ Those in charge of the temple treasury and other officials had to placate the royal authorities who allowed them to serve and the local elites who supported them rather than a large guild of Judean families holding property in common.

If it is inaccurate to speak of widespread collective ownership, to what extent did residential patterns during the Second Temple period approximate the “house of the father” system of earlier eras? Living circumstances for households varied: some resided on isolated farms while others inhabited villages with interconnected units.¹⁶ Many agriculturalists lived in smaller villages after the exile, often sharing a courtyard with other family members and/or strangers.¹⁷ If working on a large estate, a common occurrence after the exile, a person might reside only with his nuclear family, along with other workers at that particular site. Both foreign rulers and local elites became proficient in usurping land for themselves, such that long-standing agrarian households (whether a nuclear family or larger kinship group) often lost the territory and stability that went with one location over many generations. Under the Ptolemaic and Seleucid regimes in particular (fourth–second centuries BCE), intricate tax measures and land seizures became commonplace, and this forced many households into becoming landless peasants, perhaps serving as tenant farmers on estates where they had no property claim (see chap. 4). Such dynamics meant the splintering of kinship groups, especially if indebtedness required the parceling out of members to serve in disparate areas, sometimes in order to work off a loan to a creditor. Some archaeologists have pointed to smaller tombs in the Second Temple period, suggesting that the extended family ceased to have the same level of cohesiveness.¹⁸ In light of these factors, perhaps the “house of the father” has somewhat less relevance for this period as a descriptive term.

Yet Judean society continued to rely on long-standing household structures and kinship patterns as organizing principles. Even if certain developments disrupted the syst...

Índice

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• List of Ancient Sources Quoted
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Family Life and Marriage
• Chapter 2: The Status of Women and Children
• Chapter 3: Work and Financial Exchanges
• Chapter 4: Taxation and the Role of the State
• Chapter 5: The Ethics of Wealth and Poverty
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index of Ancient Sources
• Index of Subjects