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

ON THE SHOULDERS OF OUR PREDECESSORS | 63
Gregory Chirichigno studies debt-slavery in Israel through the laws on
manumission in Exod 21:2–11, Deut 15:12–18 and Lev 25:39–54. His analysis
is especially valuable in a detailed study of the laws involving debt-slaves, an
increasingly common situation among Israelites from the monarchy onwards. 19 I
am unaware of other, more recent large studies that would address directly the
subject of slavery as a subject in itself. 20
Carolyn Pressler contested studies on Deuteronomy which claimed a
particular concern in this book for woman’s interests. Studying the
Deuteronomic family laws (which exclude slaves) she shows that laws aim at
order and harmony within the extended family. Order protects in the first place
the status quo, which is to say, it prevents changes in society which would
disrupt traditional structures and privilege, and thus laws protect first and
foremost the paterfamilias. 21 Pressler concludes that
the laws presuppose the dependence of women within male-headed households
and the subordinate role of women within the family. The laws aim to support
the stability of the family by undergirding hierarchical, patrilineal family
structures. They also protect dependent family members. Their efforts to
protect dependents do not, however, fundamentally challenge the hierarchical
family structure. 22
the ANE (quoted above). Its value lies not only in contributions from experts on various cities and
periods, but also in their repeated assessment that the difference between slave and free is often
blurred in the sources. On legal issues see Raymond Westbrook, Property and the Family in Biblical
Law (JSOTS 113. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), especially chs. 2 (Jubilee laws) and 7
(dowry); E. Otto, “Rechtssystematik im altbabylonischen ‘Codex Esnunna’ und im altisraelitischen
‘Bundesbuch’. Eine Redaktionsgeschichtliche und rechtsvergleichende Analyse von CE §§ 17; 18;
22–28 und Ex 21,18–32; 22,6–14; 23, 1–3.6–8,” UF 19 (1987): 175–97; D. Daube, Studies in
Biblical Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1949). Meyers’ Discovering Eve is an
example of the use of anthropological insights to study biblical texts.
19 Chirichigno, Debt-Slavery, quoted above.
20 There are papers on particular laws, of course, but no books; there are also indirect references,
including last decade’s hot debate principally between John van Seters and Eckart Otto. Since the
Covenant Code is involved in the discussion, one may argue that these have a bearing on the subject
of slavery; they do, but only indirectly. See John Van Seters, A Law Book for the Diaspora: Revision
in the Study of the Covenant Code (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) and Eckart Otto, review
of John Van Seters, A Law Book for the Diaspora: Revision in the Study of the Covenant Code,
Review of Biblical Literature [http://www.bookreviews.org] (2004).
21 Carolyn Pressler, The View of Women found in the Deuteronomic Family Laws (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 1993); Elizabeth MacDonald, The Position of Women as Reflected in Semitic Codes of Law
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1931); Shalom M. Paul, “Biblical Analogues to Middle
Assyrian Law,” in Religion and Law: Biblical-Judaic and Islamic Perspectives (ed. E. Firmage, B.
Weiss, & J. W. Welch; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 333–50.
22 Pressler, View of Women, 1.