Women at Work in the Deuteronomistic History - International Voices ...

HIDE AND SEEK: MISCELLANEOUS WOMEN | 233
Unwittingly, Matthews responds to our question about the dearth of data from
another perspective. He considers that the Syro-Palestinian geography allowed
nearly every village (of the hill country) to have its vineyards and therefore,
wine was able to serve as the common beverage in Syro-Palestine and also
became an aspect of everyday social life (Ruth 2:14; Hos 2:7; Dan 10:3). It
serves as a libation offering… Wine also had the potential to become a source
of social comment if it were used intemperately (Isa 56:12). Its value could also
become a form of evidence of injustice to the poor, as it does in Amos’
indictment of those who profit from unfair fines (Amos 2:8). 209
Wine must have been, indeed, quite common in the hill country and there is
plenty of evidence on that. On the other hand, I am unconvinced by his
argument that wine served as common beverage in Syro-Palestine, unless
“common” implies only well-to-do people. Boaz was not precisely amongst the
poor of the land; Daniel could be considered poor in the sense that he had been
exiled, but the table at his disposal was that of the king. The third example he
puts, that of Hosea’s indictment, if taken literally, means again, rich women with
rich lovers. The last sentence in his quotation above signals, I think, precisely
my contention that wine was not so accessible to the lower classes. In terms of
the archaeological and literary imbalance in favor of wine against beer,
Matthews’s statement of course explains it, for both ancient literary sources and
much of archaeology have been interested in luxurious and elite items.
Ebeling and Homan go in this same line of mine, focusing on gender and
archaeology. They find that, even though men, women and children drank large
amounts of this drink,
biblical scholars and archaeologists have focused on wine, not beer, because
wine is associated with industry, trade, inheritance, ritual and status while beer
is associated with the domestic sphere. Moreover, the remains of wine are more
common than those concerning beer, because beer was typically produced for
immediate consumption, and, unlike wine, it does not improve with age; in
general, people traded wine and grain as opposed to beer and grapes. 210
Their analysis is important, because they manage to use gender sensibility
to interpret the archaeological milieu in which they work: not only are there
loops in our information, due to reasons such as longer presence of wine over
beer in archaeological remains; but also the importance that traditional
209 Victor Matthews, “Treading the Winepress. Actual and Metaphorical Viticulture in the Ancient
Near East,” Semeia 86 (1999): 22. He further states that Ahlström discovered “117 winepresses of
various types at small sites radiating from the urban center of Megiddo.”
210 Ebeling and Homan, “Baking and Brewing Beer,” 46.