The Impact of Sargon & Enheduanna on Land Rights in Deuteronomy

Abstract

Hormuzd Rassam (1826-1910) and Austen Henry Layard (1817–1894) recovered the Birth Stories of Sargon copied or composed under Sargon II (722–705 BCE). Existing studies of their intriguing parallels with the Birth Stories of Moses (Exod 1:22–2:10) emphasize shared motifs—unwanted pregnancy, secret birth. abandoned newborn, adoption by an outsider, river ordeal and protection by a divine patron. Here I am proposing that the Birth Stories of Moses parallel the Birth Stories of Sargon to compare the way Sargon and the woman Enheduanna distribute land use rights in Akkad with the way Moses and the women in Deuteronomy distribute land rights in ancient Israel.

Keywords

Moses Sargon Enheduanna Deuteronomy Land Rights

“The Impact of Sargon & Enheduanna on Land Rights in Deuteronomy” continues work in my “Social World of Deuteronomy: A New Feminist Commentary” (Benjamin 2015) and “Land Rights of Women in Deuteronomy” (Benjamin 2017: 3–15). Recently, Steve Wiggins invited me to edit The Oxford Handbook of Deuteronomy, which contains thirty-some 7000-word chapters by scholars from Europe and the Americas (Benjamin, forthcoming). This article models the format for that handbook, explaining who began the conversation, what is the status of the conversation, and what is trending.

Who Began the Conversation?

Deuteronomy

Like Nebuchadnezzar (604–562 BCE) who filled his Northern Palace with antiquities from previous dynasties to justify his empire (Casson: 53–57), France, Britain and Germany (1870–1914) collected antiquities from the world of the Bible to justify their empires (Silberman). Despite the competition, intrigue and conspiracy that characterized these campaigns, collectors recovered the Code of Hammurabi (1792–1750 BCE), the Treaties of Ramesses II (1279–1213 BCE) and Hattusilis III (1286-1265 BCE) and the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon (680–669 BCE) demonstrating that Deuteronomy developed through a long-established cultural exchange in the world of the Bible. The people of YHWH who created Deuteronomy were not only learned enough to read Akkadian and Egyptian, but were also secure enough in their own cultural identity not only to benefit from, but also to contribute to this rich intellectual tradition.

Sargon

Hormuzd Rassam (1826–1910) and Austen Henry Layard (1817–1894) recovered the Birth Stories of Sargon of Akkad (2334–2279 BCE) copied or composed under Sargon II (722–705 BCE). Existing studies of the intriguing parallels with the Birth Stories of Moses (Exod 1:22–2:10) emphasize the motifs of unwanted pregnancy, secret birth, abandoned newborn, adoption by an outsider, river ordeal, and protection by a divine patron. Both rise from poverty to power, but Sargon is a military hero, Moses is not. Moses frees slaves, Sargon does not (Lewis: 263–67). Both, however, endow their peoples with enduring economic systems for distributing land use rights.

Sargon and Moses assign ownership rights of all land to the divine assembly; administrative rights to protect land from misuse to monarchs, and land use rights to women who either delegate them to elite males or exercise them independently (Russell: 153–170). Both also recognize that the women and the land of households are co-extensive and interchangeable. Women not only give birth to the heirs of their households, but also endow the fathers of their households with land use rights. Only fathers of households who care for their land and women as Deuteronomy envisions can endow their households with life as abundant as the life with which Sargon and Enheduanna endowed Akkad. Therefore, I propose here that the Birth Stories of Moses parallel the Birth Stories of Sargon to compare the way Moses and the women in Deuteronomy distribute land rights in ancient Israel with the way Sargon and the woman Enheduanna distribute land use rights in Akkad.

Enheduanna

Sargon appointed Enheduanna as high priest of Nanna at Ur in Sumer. Her title Daughter of Sargon does not necessarily indicate that he was her biological parent, or that her appointment was simple nepotism. Both Enheduanna's office and her actions have significant connections with the distribution of land use rights, suggesting she plays an important role in the economic system which Sargon designs to stabilize the empire of Akkad after war ends.

For example, Enheduanna serves Nanna, the divine patron of the moon, which governs the cycles of planting and harvesting. She also serves as the incarnation of Ningal, the wife of Nanna. Ningal is the divine patron of the reed marshes—the land settled by the earliest peoples of Sumer, who built villages on rafts of reed mats, grazed water buffalo in the marshes, and pastured sheep and goats along the banks (Ochsenschlager: 29–39).

In 1927, Leonard Woolley (1880–1960) recovered an alabaster disc dedicated to Enheduanna (Winter). Eventually, archaeologists recovered some 40 Hymns of Enheduanna on 37 tablets copied between 2122–1595 BCE at Nippur, Ur and Lagash. Preserving these hymns in royal archives indicates that they have the same authority as the documents of male rulers.

Enheduanna's literary masterpiece is the Exaltation of Inanna (Akkadian: nin-me-sara), the divine patron of Venus, who was the daughter of Nanna and Ningal. Enheduanna elevates her to replace An and Enlil as the representative of the divine assembly on the human plane. Inanna's title: Lady of Largest Heart celebrates her intelligence, not her feelings, (Michalowski: 2279–91). The world of the Bible identifies the heart with intelligence; the kidneys with emotions. Enheduanna praises her godmother for endowing the peoples of Mesopotamia with more cultural achievements (Akkadian: me's)—mathematics, astronomy, medicine, law, art, science, architecture, military science, writing—than any other member of the divine assembly. Enheduanna does not, however, praise Inanna for endowing Mesopotamia with a system for distributing land rights.

Early studies celebrate Enheduanna as a poet, not as a land manager. Benjamin Foster thoroughly studied the Hymns of Enheduanna, although he does not consider them to be evidence that other women exercised similar authority or wrote as extensively (Foster). In contrast, William H. Hallo (1928–2015) considers that Enheduanna demonstrates that women are not only literate, but exercise significant authority in the public life of Akkad (Hallo: 518–22). Foster, Joan Goodick Westenholz (Westenholz: 539–56) and Brian Lewis all describe the social world of Akkad in some detail, but not the role of women in land management.

What is the Status of the Conversation?

Deuteronomy

Between 1903 and 2009 archaeologists recovered a dozen copies of the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon stipulating that clients of Assyria must accept his heir, Assurbanipal, as their great king (Parpola & Watanabe). Litanies of curses describe punishments for those who do not, but without blessings for those who do. When clients declare their independence from Assyria, they smash these tablets in sanctuaries at Assur, Kalhu and Tayinat. Shared vocabulary, motifs, adaptations and transformations (Levinson & Stackert: 123–40) or even direct translations (Frankena: 122–54) suggested that traditions like the Instructions on Apostasy (12:29–13:18) and Covenant Blessings and Curses (27:11–28:68) in Deuteronomy develop as Judah's own declaration of independence from Assyria (Weitzman: 377–93). Meir Malul, Bernard M. Levinson, Jeffrey Stackert, Karel van der Toorn, David F. Wright, and Sara J. Milstein continue to explore not only how Deuteronomy revises the world view in the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon, but also how scribes throughout the world of the Bible address new situations by changing received traditions while affirming that the original intention of those traditions remains the same.

Deuteronomy does declare that YHWH alone, not Esarhaddon, not Assurbanipal, is the patron of Judah. Nonetheless, striking differences remain between Deuteronomy (6:4–25; 12:29–13:18; 27:11–28:68) and the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon. Furthermore, proposing a uniform policy of resistance to Assyria oversimplifies the complex dynamics which characterize any collision of cultures (Zehnder: 341–74; 511–35).

For Carley L. Crouch Deuteronomy does not simply subvert the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon. If Deuteronomy developed before 586 BCE, the households of Judah would not have noticed a reversal because only rulers, not their people, heard the promulgation of these treaties. If Deuteronomy developed after 586 BCE—when Babylon ruled Judah—declaring Judah's independence from Assyria would be unnecessary. Likewise, vocabulary and motifs shared by the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon and Deuteronomy are common in the world of the Bible; so few households would have made the connection between these traditions and the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon. If the intention of Deuteronomy was to subvert the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon, the parallels between the two would have to be more literal, and less ambiguous.

In her study of Judean Pillar Figurines, Erin Darby describes the relationship between Judah and Assyria as collaborative, not antagonistic. Building on the studies of Mark S. Smith establishing that only peers, not patrons and clients, borrow from one another, Darby finds the relationship between Assyria and Judah multi-dimensional. These figurines of nursing women both link Judah to a shared tradition of protection and healing throughout the Assyrian empire, and distinguish Judah from neighboring client states in Syria-Palestine. Far from a relationship of mere opposition, the evidence suggests that Judah interacted with and benefitted from its position in the empire (Darby: 396–97).

Using the social scientific studies of Antonio Gramsci and Stuart Hall, Ian Douglas Wilson explains how multidimensional relationships function (Wilson: 259–78). Cultural identity results both as a reaction to and an interaction between the world views of rulers and the cultural hegemony—a common sense of right and wrong—of ordinary people. The world views of Judah and Assyria communicated with each other, sometimes preserving and sometimes re-interpreting the traditions that defined the people of YHWH.

Patron states like Assyria and client states like Judah were two parts of a single imperial culture which benefited both. Clients provided their patrons with goods and services; patrons protected the crops and herds of client states and provided them with markets. Judah sent men to Assyria's armies, women to its workshops, and produce to its sanctuaries. When the households of Israel refused, Assyria re-assigned their land rights to outsiders. Ultimately, Babylon imposed the same penalty on Judah. Deuteronomy addresses this challenge to the households of Judah to preserve their cultural identity (Liss & Oeming). As a client state during the peace enforced by Assyria in Syria-Palestine between Assyria's conquest of Israel (722 BCE) and Assyria's defeat by Babylon at Carchemish (605 BCE), Judah participated in and contributed to the extensive cultural community of Assyria.

Enheduanna

Literary traditions associated with Enheduanna contain clear land use rights motifs. J. P. Peters, J. H. Haynes, and H. V. Hilprecht directed excavations at Nippur for the University of Pennsylvania (1889–1900) where they recovered some 30,000 cuneiform tablets including Enheduanna's Love Songs of Inanna and Dumuzi (Kramer & Wolkstein). Sumerians celebrated Inanna (Akkadian: Ishtar, Astarte, Ashtartu, Ashtoreth) and Dumuzi (Akkadian: Tammuz) as a divine couple separated by death, but reunited by love. In some traditions, Inanna descends into the land of the dead; in others Dumuzi. In both, the widowed partner faithfully rescues the other from death. The songs celebrate not only two lovers, but also of the death of the land during the long dry season, and its rebirth at the beginning of the rainy season, demonstrating how the connotations of Semitic words for farming, sexual intercourse, war, sacrifice, eating, and learning often overlap. Parallels appear in the Song of Songs and a Trial of Jotham (Isa 5:1–7) where YHWH and the farmers of Judah are not just working the land, they are making love to it.

Roberta A. Binkley and Betty De Shong Meador investigated the political significance of the Hymns of Enheduanna. Enheduanna travels to the central sanctuary of each land conquered by Sargon. She enters the courtyard where pilgrims gather, and then into the great room where produce of the land is processed. When she arrives at the holy of holies she salutes its divine patron with a profession of faith. Enheduanna visits the sanctuary to evaluate their land and livestock. Based on her analysis, she redefines the status of their divine patron in relationship to the divine patrons of the other clients in the empire of Akkad.

Women in Deuteronomy

Patriarchy is a social structure; sexism is an abuse of power. For Cheryl B. Anderson, Carol Pressler, J. Cheryl Exum (Exum: 248–71), and Harold C. Washington (Washington: 185–213) Deuteronomy describes a legal system administered by men, accessible only to men and violently oppressive of women. Women do not have authority over their own bodies, much less over the land. Women in patriarchal cultures—then and now—are regularly victims of sexism, and these scholars conclude that Deuteronomy authorizes structural sexism—then and now (Ashmore: 27–43).

For Carol Meyers, however, Deuteronomy describes heterarchy—a social structure that does not endow men with absolute authority to violently oppress women (Meyers: 180–202). In a heterarchy men and women exercise different kinds of authority in different social settings. Women produce beer, bread, wine, olive oil, and yogurt. They manufacture clothes, baskets and pottery. They mediate conflicts between heirs (Matthews & Benjamin).

In such a heterarchy, women could hold legal title to the land use rights of their households, which they delegate to men or exercise independently. Men designate heirs to their land rights, but, to activate their rights, these men must marry women with legal title to those rights. Baruch A. Levine offers linguistic evidence for such a two step proceedure. After fathers designate (Hebrew: yerussah) heirs to their use rights (Hebrew: nahala), heirs must take possession of the land (Hebrew: ‘ahuzzah) to activate their rights (Levine: 134–39). Although Levine does not conclude that heirs must marry women with legal title to their land rights, he does note that Hebrew uses the same word for taking possession of the land and for taking a wife (Hebrew: leqah).

What is Trending in the Conversation?

Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy concludes the Teachings of Moses (Exod 1:7–Deut 34:12) framed by his birth stories (Exod 1:22–2:10) and his obituary (34:1-2). They … set before [the fathers of households] life and death, blessings and curses and invite them to choose life so that their heirs may continue to enjoy the land use rights which support their households (30:19).

Early Deuteronomy studies assume that legal assemblies use codes from Mesopotamia to resolve disputes between households. To date Bruce Wells and his team, however, have recovered no trial records from Israel, and records from Mesopotamia do not cite the Code of Hammurabi even when precedents are available (Wells: 223–43). Von Rad was among the first to propose that Deuteronomy was not law, but parenesis—sermons on law. Then Moshe Weinfeld (1925–2009) demonstrated that teaching rather than legal traditions were better parallels for Deuteronomy. Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley suggests that the studies of astronomy, mathematics and medicine by Mesopotamian scribes are better parallels for Deuteronomy.

Sargon and Enheduanna

Agriculture was the foundation of Mesopotamian cultures. Pioneering farmers domesticated einkorn wheat, which grew wild in the mountains of Turkey during the Neolithic period (10,000–4,000 BCE). Then they farmed emmer wheat, oats, barely, lentils, and finally rye, chickpeas, legumes, dates, olives, pomegranates, grapes, cherries, melons, almonds and pistachios. Sunshine was consistent on their flat and treeless fields; frost infrequent; water for irrigation plentiful. The Euphrates and Tigris Rivers flooded the fields with silt every year. Farmers havested enough grain during three weeks to feed their villages for a year (Bar-Yosef: 10–39).

Women processed the grain, which made up 75% percent of the produce of households for bread and Šēkār beer. This barley beer had an alcoholic content of 4% and the same shelf-life as bread. Beer was served in a common bowl and drunk through reed straws. Households used beer not only as food (1 Sam 1:15), but also for sacrifice (Num 28:7) and recreation (Prov 31:6). The woman Siduri in the Gilgamesh Stories both brews and sells beer. A Hymn to Ninkasi (1800 BCE) celebrates the godmother of brewers, who taught Sumerian women how to brew beer from emmer wheat.

Survival in the world of Bible required knowing not only how to acquire land, but also how to manage it (Postgate: 395–411). Before Sargon monarchs ruled solely by force. Sargon's military conquests created an empire, but his strategy for distributing land rights to veterans stabilized it. Victor H. Matthews studied the active-duty benefits of soldiers like the 5400 who conquered Sumer and the trade routes east to Elam and west to Ebla for Sargon (Matthews 1981: 135–51). In the Archives of Mari (ARM) and the Code of Hammurabi soldiers receive moveable property—plunder and prisoners. The Code of Hammurabi also protects the land use rights of deployed soldiers. Wives cannot remarry and delegate their land use rights to new husbands (LH 133–35). Heirs can exercise deployed soldiers’ land use rights (LH 28–29). If heirs are minors, one third of soldiers’ rights are delegated to their mothers as child support (LH 134). If these mothers have children with their legal guardians, the guardians retain custody of the children they father when soldiers return home. Speculators cannot buy the land use rights of soldiers even if they default on their commissions (LH 27, 35–39, 41). If soldiers are taken prisoner, merchants can ransom them with proceeds from their lands, but not with their land use rights (ARM I, 6:38, 18:25; IV, 1:5-28). When wars end Sargon pays veterans retirement benefits in immovable property by designating them as heirs—citizens of Akkad—to land use rights in Akkad and the lands they conquer.

Traditions concerning the land rights of women at Nippur, Sumer, Babylon, Assyria and Ugarit; Enheduanna's status as high priest of Inanna at Ur; and even her deportation by Lugal-ane during the civil war after Sargon's death all evidence practical connections between Enheduanna and land use rights.

Naditu women at Nippur (5900–4300 BCE) managed the resources of their households by investing them in other households instead of receiving a dowry to invest in the household of one husband (LH 144–146). These naditu were not only financial planners, but also drafted and witnessed the covenants governing their investments. Like Tamar and Rahab (Josh 2:1–24; 6:22–25) naditu women are often labeled prostitutes. None, however, are sex workers. All are women who – above and beyond what is demanded by their status—put themselves at risk to deliver their households. Naditu women could marry, but only after negotiating covenants with surrogates to bear children for their husbands. To protect the resources of their households of origin, these children could inherit only from their fathers, not from their naditu mothers (Jeyes: 260–72).

Sumerian women owned land and paid taxes (Roth: 173–84). They bought and sold houses, fields, orchards, slaves, livestock and made loans. They managed royal land and traveled between cities and villages to transact business, initiate litigation, and serve as trial witnesses. Sometimes, men challenged their authority. Heirs of her husband sued Innasaga for not delegating her rights to a house and a slave to them. Innasaga won (Tetlow: 28–29).

Babylonian women acquired land use rights in dowries and divorce settlements. They not only exercised their rights independentally, but also delegated them to tenants (LH 35–38). Sikkuti delegated her rights to one house for an annual commission of one ounce of silver and Amata her rights to three houses for an annual commission of a half ounce of silver and daily meals for her household of 12 (Tetlow: 106). If the men to whom women delegated their rights died, the rights returned to the women. If widows gave up their land rights to remarry, they forfeited their rights to the state. Some men in Babylon sued to limit land rights to veterans. Nonetheless, the women often prevailed.

Assyrian queens managed land for their husbands (Hussein, Altaweel, & Gibson). These women complement the authority of their kings and personify the fertility of the state (Gansell: 391–420). The word for queen (Akkadian: segallu = woman+palace) and her crown shaped like city walls portray her as a woman with authority over land (Ornan: 461–77). Archaeologists recovered the skeleton of Hama, primary wife of Shalmaneser IV (782–773 BCE) in the Northwest Palace at Nimrud in 1987 (Kertai). On her necklace hung a seal inscribed: Belonging to Hama, queen of Shalmaneser, which she could have used to notarize covenants delegating land use rights (Spurrier: 149-174).

According to Duane E. Smith, a tablet (RS 20.123:20) from Ugarit (RS 8.208:3a) reads: Gilben, land manager to the Queen [of Ugarit] … (Ugaritic: ^mgil-be-en MAŠKIM Έ SAL.LUGAL-ti), who is unidentified (D. E. Smith). The tablet records the emancipation of the SAL.Έ.KAR woman Eleyawa—held as collateral for delinquent debts (Rowe: 15–16). When Buriyanu from the steppes—a man without land rights—pays Gilben, Eleyawa is free to endow him with her land use rights. His payment is not bride wealth—the investment of the household of a groom in the household of the bride—but the settlement of delinquent commissions.

During the civil war following the death of Sargon, Lugal-ane deposed Enheduanna and sent her into exile. Sumerian art documents such attempts to redistribute land rights by overthrowing women who held title to those rights (Jacobsen: 91–140). Lagash emblazoned the flag that its soldiers carried into battles protecting or expanding its land rights with a female lion with eagle's wings—the ensign of women who held legal title to the land rights. Dudu, high priest of Ningirsu Ninurta, the divine patron of the barley fields of Lagash, commissioned images of him as a female lion with eagle's wings. When Sumer's revolt failed, Enheduanna was reinstated and she once again distributed land use rights to the heirs of Akkad's households.

Women in Deuteronomy

No one woman like Enheduanna handles the delegation of land use rights in Deuteronomy for Moses. Moses mentions Miriam only once in Deuteronomy (24:8-9), although she exercises significant authority in Exodus and Numbers (Burns; Eskenazi: 922–23). Nonetheless, the role of Enheduanna as land manager for Sargon suggests paying closer attention to the implicit or explicit roles of women in the instructions on the maqom sanctuary (12: 2–28), tithing (14:22–29), pilgrimage (16:1–17), and killings (19:1–13).

Maqom Sanctuary (12:2–28)

Standing stones and great trees marked sacred centers. The stones were phallic; the tree's crown was a divine uterus; the birds of the air the peoples conceived by their godparents at the site. Instructions on the maqom Sanctuary (12:2–28) taught fathers of households that only when one people offered their sacrifices to one divine patron in one place would their land use rights remain intact. Although Deuteronomy associates its sacred center with Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim (26:16—27:26), long-standing traditions of interpretation associate it with Mt. Zion (Richter: 64-78). Like Hagar at Beer-lahai-roi households came to sacred centers to look for YHWH, who looked after them, and where they could look at the land where they had use rights (Gen 16:1–16).

Long-standing tradition of interpretation consider sacrifices as a destruction of produce. Such destruction, however, would contradict the strong sense of limited resources in traditional cultures, suggesting that to sacrifice would be better understood as to process, store and redistribute produce (18:1–8). Levites and priests inspected sacrifices to insure households were making good use of their rights. The land use rights of households submitting defective produce were reassigned.

Tithing (14:22–29)

Households harvested twice each year. Instructions on Tithing (14:22–29) taught fathers to follow a three-year cycle of redistributing commissions to maintain their land use rights. Tithes for years one and two were regressive; produce was redistributed to the powerful. Tithes for year three were progressive; produce was redistributed to the powerless (Anderson). Deuteronomy's tax plan is utopian. Generally, rulers collected the entire first harvest (Amos 7:1) to support their households and pay the premiums on their covenants with other states. Households had to survive on their second harvest. To meet these tithes women rationed produce for their households. As A Sufferer and a Soul Dispute Suicide from Egypt (2050–1800 BCE) indicates, not even fathers of households could override the authority of women to ration. As a Trial of the Household of Eli (1 Sam 2:7-17) indicates, once households arrived at their sacred centers, women prepared meals from tithes to share with their divine patrons.

Pilgrimage (16:1–17)

Instructions on Pilgrimage (16:1–17) taught fathers to pay commissions during the March-April lamb-kid birthing, the May-June barley and wheat harvests and the July grain and grape harvests. As an Annunciation to Hanna (1 Sam 1:1—2:11) indicates, pilgrimage was an ancient ritual not only for maintaining, but also for restoring the fertility of its women and its land (Meyers 2014: 225–50).

Sanctuaries—often on a rise shaped like the distended uterus of a pregnant woman—marked sacred centers where the umbilical cord connected the land to its divine patron. Sacred centers revealed themselves by signs that here the land was most alive and here was where the people were born—a totem animal grazing, an ancestor dreaming, a storm thundering (Eliade). Life flowed from the sacred center into the women and the land of its households.

Wars, famines, epidemics, infertility, miscarriage and infant mortality were symptoms that the women and land of households were at risk because they had defaulted on their commissions. To reinstate their rights, fathers brought their primary and secondary wives, sons, daughters, slaves, Levites, outsiders, orphans, and widows to the maqom sanctuary.

Killings (19:1–13)

Instructions on Killings (19:1–13) taught fathers to use ordeals when the member of one household killed a member of another household to take over its land use rights. As the Stories of David's Succession (2 Sam 9:1–1 Kgs 2:12) indicate, women and land rights could not be obtained by hostile takeover. Violence not only ended the lives of their human victims, but also the life of the soil into which their blood drained.

Ordeals resolved disputes over land use rights that assemblies could not. They exposed representatives of households to life-threatening experiences by driving them into the desert or throwing them into a river (Gen 16:1–16; 21:1–21; LH: 129, 132). If they survived the land use rights of their households were restored (1 Kgs 18:40; Job 21:17). Here the ordeal required defendants to make their way to designated cities without being caught and executed by guardians of the innocent—commonly translated avengers of blood—who were not just seeking vengeance but designated to restore the land use rights of victims’ households (Cimosa: 319–26).

Women outside Deuteronomy

Biblical traditions outside Deuteronomy also provide insights into land management in ancient Israel. A Woman Delivers Thebez from Abimelech (Judg 9:1–6; 22–57) demonstrates the role of women both in delegating and revoking land use rights. The mother of Abimelech delegates her land use rights to Abimelech, which a woman of Thebez revokes by killing him with a mill stone used for processing the produce of the land.

Jephthah Delivers Gilead from Ammon (Judg 11:1–40) demonstrates how women and land are interchangeable. The heirs of the primary wife of Gilead challenge the authority of his secondary wife to delegate use rights to her heir, Jephthath. Jephthah regains his use rights by force, but inadvertantly forfeits his only child—a daughter.

In a Parable of a Persevering Widow (Ruth 1:1-22), the men—Elimelech, Mahlon, and Chilion—to whom Naomi, Ruth and Orpah have delegated their land use rights all die. Rather than exercise their rights independently or delegate their rights to legal guardians in Moab, Naomi emigrates to Judah with Ruth. Naomi mentors Ruth through the complex legal process of activating the land use rights which she had delegated to Elimelech in Judah.

In a Story of Tamar as a Persevering Widow she acts above and beyond the call of duty to give birth to a child and prevent Judah from forfeiting the land use rights of his household. Onan's sin is not masturbation, but fraud. She delegates her land use rights to him as her legal guardian, but he refuses to father an heir for her so that he can continuing to enjoy the usufruct of the land.

Abigail (1 Sam 24:20–25:8) in the Stories of David's Rise to Power best models the role of women in land management. David orders Nabal to tranfer the commissions on his land use rights to him as as a tribal chief with administrative rights for the land that YHWH owns. Nabal refuses, putting his household in default, and its use rights revert to Abigail, who then delivers the commissions to David, marries him, and delegates her use rights to his household.

Finally, ethnographies also document that some women in still existing cultures have legal title to land use rights that provide concrete examples that such a system of land management proposed here for the world of the Bible actually works in the world today. For example, women in the Dine culture of the Southwestern United States hold legal title to the land and livestock of their households, which they pass on to their daughters (Shepardson: 149–69).

Conclusions

The Stories of Sargon celebrate him not only for the military victories which created Akkad, but also for the land management policy which stabilize Akkad and successive Mesopotamian empires for generations. Enheduanna models the delegation of land use rights by the women of Akkad to heirs of Sargon. Parallels between the Birth Stories of Sargon and Birth Stories of Moses—and between Deuteronomy, the Treaties of Ramesses and Hattusilis, the Code of Hammurabi, and the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon—reflect a healthy interaction between a client culture and its patron to create and preserve a cultural identity for the people of YHWH. What Sargon and Enheduanna did for Akkad, Moses and the women in Deuteronomy did for the people of YHWH by endowing their peoples with enduring social institutions for distributing land rights. Deuteronomy describes that utopia, where land rights are responsibly distributed, as instructions on the maqom sanctuary (12: 2–28), tithing (14:22–29), pilgrimage (16:1–17), and killings (19:1–13) reflect.

Footnotes

Author's Note

For Rolf P. Knierim (1928–2018) and Hildegard E. Knierim (1929–2018) who died together in a tragic automobile accident. I am one of some 33 students who completed Ph.Ds.with Rolf at the Claremont Graduate University, and who enjoyed the gentleness and hospitality of Hildegard (Eph 4:1-6) during those years of learning. In the tradition of Gerhard von Rad, his doktorvater at Heidelberg, Rolf taught us form criticism, biblical theology and how important an understanding and appreciation of the legal traditions of ancient Israel are to understanding and appreciating the Bible itself.

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Cimosa

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