Debt-Slavery in Israel and the Ancient Near East (JSOT Supplement) [Hardcover]

Gregory C. Chirichigno (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1993 | ISBN-10: 1850753598 | ISBN-13: 978-1850753599

This original study concerns itself with the manumission laws of Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 15 and Leviticus 25. It begins with the social background to debt slavery and the socioeconomic factors encouraging the rise of debt slavery in Mesopotamia. After a comparative analysis of the Mesopotamian and biblical material Chirichigno examines the social background to debt slavery in Israel, the various slave laws in the Pentateuch (in order to delimit the chattel-slave laws from the debt-slave laws), and the biblical manumission laws themselves.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 409 pages
• Publisher: Sheffield (June 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1850753598
• ISBN-13: 978-1850753599
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,327,828 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars So-so, August 22, 2005

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Grass Tiger (Wadsworth, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Debt-Slavery in Israel and the Ancient Near East (JSOT Supplement) (Hardcover)

First I'm amazed that this book is so expensive. I really don't know why. But as I'm working on a novel set in ancient Israel and I needed to know about regular slavery and debt-slavery I looked and looked for information on the subject. As you may know there are very, very few books on the topic, for this alone I will not give this book a low rating. It is good to see some treatment of this topic. There is a lot of information here.

This book reads like a PhD thesis and may have been. It has all the extensive notes and references you would expect to find in such a document. If you are not prepared for reading a heavily detailed text this isn't the text for you. But if you are researching it might prove very valuable.

What I do not like about this book is that, writing from a Christian perspective and mostly referencing Christian works, the author's understanding of some of the Jewish laws are inaccurate. This makes the book rather annoying at times. There are also few, if any, references to ancient documents which are far better to rely on than the current Christian texts which he quotes so often. I think if he had stuck with more ancient texts and documents to base his findings on he would have done a far better job.

Here is the table of contents since it might help you decide if this book covers what you are looking for.

Chapter 1-Introduction
Chapter 2-The Social Background of Debt-Slavery in Mesopotamia
Chapter 3-The Legal Background of Debt-Slavery in Mesopotamia
Chapter 4-The Social Background of Debt-Slavery in Israel
Chapter 5-Old Testament Laws Dealing with Chattel- and Debt-Slaves
Chapter 6-The Manumission [releasing of slaves] Laws of Exodus 21.2-6,7-11
Chapter 7-The Manumission Law of Deuteronomy 15.12-18
Chapter 8-The Manumission Laws of Leviticus 25.39-43,47-55
Chapter 9-Conclusions

In the end I would recommend Mendelsohn's "Slavery in the Ancient Near East" over this one. It is also much shorter, but it is extremely worthwhile (as well as facinating) if you can get your hands on it. It quotes ancient documents as its primary source of data.