Abstract
This latest entry into the genre of the history of the ordinary people of the biblical world is a welcome arrival. The author presents, in five chapters, his understanding of family economics in Judea in the period after the exile. Chapter 1, “Family Life and Marriage,” describes life in the household and the process of both getting married and securing a divorce. Adams concludes that the average household consisted of ten persons (16), that Jews in this period tended to marry cousins (24), and that returnees from the exile may have been discouraged from marrying not just gentiles but even Israelites who had stayed behind (26). During this period there is a “major shift from bride wealth to dowry” (31). Women at Elephantine could initiate divorce but not women in Judah (39).
Chapter 2, “The Status of Women and Children,” surveys the social and work obligations of family members. Women played an important role in the household because of their influence on the health of the family (41–44). Boys probably went to work at an early age, perhaps six years old (61). Although girls are often said to have been secluded to protect their virginity, the practical demands of working class people would have made that impossible (67–68).
Chapter 3, “Work and Financial Exchanges,” discusses the nature of farming and the other means of making a living such as potters, merchants (“the flow of goods remained minimal”—93), scribes, and priests (91–99). He also introduces important economic terms and practices such as bartering, reciprocity, charging interest on loans (100–14), and giving surety for someone's loan (114–21). He concludes the chapter with an interesting and informative section on bribery and its economic function in the ancient world (121–26). In this chapter the author laudably relies on input from sociologists and economists such as Lenski, Garnsey, Saller, Polanyi, and Mauss.
Chapter 4, “Taxation and the Role of the State,” is—in this reviewer's opinion—the most nuanced chapter in this monograph. The author carefully describes how both time and regime changes forced taxation to evolve. Yet, he offers, one feature remained constant: taxation caused a “consistent burden on the people” (181). Heavy taxation tended to press many Judeans into tenant farming (181). This is a sophisticated analysis of the available evidence.
Chapter 5, “The Ethics of Wealth and Poverty,” leads us through the canonical and deuterocanonical wisdom books, into the 4QInstruction text from Qumran, and finally through 1 Enoch and the Gospel of Luke. These texts present us with varying views on the ethics of wealth and its accumulation. Sometimes even within the same text there are different perspectives. A shift occurring in the Second Temple period, which resulted from the belief in an afterlife, and eschatological reversal, meant that one's reward for virtue was no longer tied to wealth and status. Though interesting, this chapter seems to this reviewer to be somewhat out of place in this monograph. But as the author states twice in the monograph (ix, 206) he began working on this monograph in 2008 in the midst of the global economic crisis. Perhaps that context led him to deal with the ethics of wealth and not just a social description of the Second Temple period.
The author's broadly stated goal (and method) in this monograph is to synthesize archaeological insights, cultural analysis, and a “close examination of extant texts” (207) in order to inform the reader about the socio-economic conditions of his stated time period and, in the main, he succeeds in this intent. As his title indicates, he makes no attempt to describe Galilee, Perea, Samaria, or Idumea. His close reading of the texts includes the canonical books Proverbs, Qohelet, Nehemiah-Ezra, Ruth, Chronicles, and Job alongside deuterocanonical books like Sirach and Tobit, a few documents from the Dead Sea area, some papyri from Egypt (Zeno letters and Elephatine papyri), Josephus, Philo, the New Testament and the Mishnah. Yet, the overall impression one gets—confirmed by a glance at the indices—is that this study emphasizes the early Second Temple Period. Indeed, sometimes the author, after a detailed explanation of a social feature from the earlier sources, then suddenly jumps hundreds of years in sources as if all texts witness to the same conditions regardless of their date of origin (e.g. 69, 78–80 and 95). As a matter of fact, the author seldom makes distinctions between the early and the late Second Temple period in discussing the various topics (though the chapter on taxes is more nuanced). Further, one might question the author's use of the Gospels' parables since they would seem to witness more to Galilean socio-economic conditions than Judean. At least the author should have explained his use of the Gospels' parables.
Still, this is an impressive accomplishment based on a thorough review, especially, of the early Second Temple period sources. The volume offers the reader much information and many insights. Adams' understanding of the ancient Judean family will serve biblical scholars for years to come. This is a very welcome addition to the library of resources on the socio-economic description of the Second Temple period.