Slavery between Judah and Babylon: The Exilic Experience more

oi.uchicago.edu SLAVERY BETWEEN JUDAH AND BABYLON: THE EXILIC EXPERIENCE 113 8 SLAVERY BETWEEN JUDAH AND BABYLON: THE EXILIC EXPERIENCE F. RACHEL MAGDALENE, UNIVERSITÄT LEIPZIG; AND CORNELIA WUNSCH, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON* Much scholarly work has been done on the institution of slavery1 as documented in the Hebrew Bible and the corpus of Neo-Babylonian2 documents. From these studies and others, we know that the authors of the Hebrew Bible attempted to distinguish in various ways the Israelite practice of slavery from that of its neighbors (see, e.g., Exod. 21:2; Lev. 25:36–37, 39; and Deut. 23:16 [Eng. 23:15]).3 Until recently, no first-hand information (legal records) from exilic and early post-exilic period legal practice concerning this subject was known. Now, however, documents from communities of exiled Judeans in rural Babylonia, reflecting at least four generations, have come to light.4 These important texts, herein referred to as the “Judean * Translations of ancient texts, unless otherwise noted, are those of the authors. Research for this article has been funded in part by the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities and its award of a Collaborative Research Grant for the authors’ project, “Neo-Babylonian Trial Procedure,” with Bruce Wells. The 2010–2011Bridwell Library Scholars Fellowship of the Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, provided additional support for this undertaking to F. Rachel Magdalene. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Bridwell Library, or Bruce Wells. We wish to thank additionally Laurie Pearce, who has also worked on the Judean corpus; Laura Culbertson, who organized the conference related to this volume at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago; and Bruce Wells, who organized the conference “Jerusalem in Babylonia: New Discoveries from the Exilic Period” at Saint Joseph’s University, at which we also presented some of these ideas. 1 A growing bibliography on slavery in the ancient and modern world exists. In his seminal work, Patterson (1982) surveys this institution both diachronically and comparatively across cultures. It includes some material on Mesopotamia, but mostly from the third and second millennia B . C ., and relies on the works by Mendelsohn (1949) and Driver and Miles (1956, 1960) that are, in certain respects, incomplete or outdated. Furthermore, for the Neo-Babylonian period, the English edition of Dandamaev’s (1974) monumental work was not yet available, and, consequently, much information could not be incorporated. For an overview about the sources for the Neo-Babylonian period, Dandamaev’s (1984) English version is essential, as it conveniently gathers and presents a vast amount of textual evidence, even though the literature has increased considerably in the past twenty-five years and some aspects require a fresh approach. For a very brief survey of Neo-Babylonian slave law, see Oelsner, Wunsch, and Wells 2003: 928–33. The literature on slavery within the Hebrew Bible is vast. We can only refer here to a few of the more recent works (see, e.g., Baltzer 1987; Jackson 1988; Chirichigno 1993; Matthews 1994; Westbrook 1995, 1998; Van Seters 1996, 2007; Schenker 1998; de Menezes 1999; Carmichael 2000; and Mooney 2008). 2 We use the term “Neo-Babylonian” here to cover not only the period when the Neo-Babylonian kings held political control over Mesopotamia (612–539 B . C .) but also to include the first half-century of Achaemenid Persian rule until the end of Darius I’s reign (539–486 B . C .), as both periods, despite the dynastic change, share in Babylonia proper similar socioeconomic features and are well documented. 3 This is noted, for example, by Dandamaev (1992: 65). 4 These texts are dispersed in museum and private collections, such as the Diaspora Museum, Tel Aviv, the Sch˜yen collection, and the Moussaieff collection. Only a few tablets have been published thus far, by Joannès (1999) and Abraham (2005/06, 2007). 113 oi.uchicago.edu 114 F. RACHEL MAGDALENE AND CORNELIA WUNSCH texts,” describe life and legal events during what the Bible calls “the captivity” 5 and scholars often call “the Babylonian captivity.” 6 They document a crucial period in Jewish history about which we have known quite little. These new texts offer us, not only critical socio-historical insights into what it was like to live in exile, but also key legal historical information about this period. Seven such documents reflect the institution of slavery among the Judeans. This article, therefore, discusses the documents from this corpus that contain references to slaves and asks three primary questions: 1) What do these documents reflect about the institution of slavery in the Judean exilic community? 2) Is this practice more consistent with practices described in the Neo-Babylonian corpus or in the Hebrew Bible? 3) What does this evidence mean in regard to the biblical allusions of Israelites being slaves in Babylonia during the exile?7 We must admit that this is just an initial foray into these significant texts and their implications for biblical law. Before we address the relevant texts, we describe the corpus of texts from which they derive. The publication of the bulk of material is under way; see Pearce and Wunsch (forthcoming; text numbers are cited with the prefix IMMP) and Wunsch (forthcoming; with the prefix JWB). We wish to acknowledge the problem of working with unprovenanced tablets that have been split between museums and private collections. The same holds true for the bulk of Neo-Babylonian archival material, most of which was acquired by European and American museums in the nineteenth and early twentieth century from individual dealers and collectors or through uncontrolled or undocumented licensed excavations and now forms part of their collections. Thus, Assyriologists working in the field are faced with the lamentable lack of stratigraphic information for almost all NeoBabylonian archival texts and have to make up for this shortcoming with a great deal of work on developing auxiliary methods to reconstruct the original archival groups on the basis of internal criteria (such as prosopographical work) and acquisition details. For examples of results achieved by such procedures, see, for example, Jursa 2005, which provides an overview of the archival background of the entire material known thus far; or Waerzeggers 2005, for a detailed study concerning the Borsippa archives. In regard to the Judean texts, no doubt exists in regard to the authenticity of the documents. Furthermore, these texts appear to be of great historical import and require competent, careful, and responsible publication in order to avoid misleading information or speculation about their contents. Such a body of information should, therefore, not remain inaccessible to scholars and the public. 5 See, for example, 2 Kings 24:15: “He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon; the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officials, and the elite of the land, he took into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon”; and Jeremiah 20:6: “And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, shall go into captivity, and to Babylon you shall go; there you shall die, and there you shall be buried, you and all your friends, to whom you have prophesied falsely.” 6 See, for example, Kaufmann 1977; Barstad 1997; and Jones 2004. 7 The authors are well aware that socioeconomic realities for persons of the same legal status may differ widely, and, conversely, persons of different legal status may find themselves under similar circumstances; that the concept of slavery goes beyond legal ramifications; and that the institution may serve particular functions in various societies. In regard to the fundamental precept of slavery, we follow Finley (1989: 77), who sums up the three essential components of slavery as “the slave’s property status, the totality of the power over him, and his kinlessness.” For further on our rationale, see Wunsch and Magdalene forthcoming, chapter 1. oi.uchicago.edu SLAVERY BETWEEN JUDAH AND BABYLON: THE EXILIC EXPERIENCE 115 THE CORPUS OF TEXTS The deportation policies of the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires have been extremely consequential to the history of Israel and to biblical studies as a scholarly field. When the Neo-Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom in 722–721 B.C., they deported population groups from Israel to other areas of the Neo-Assyrian empire. Similarly, the Babylonians conquered the Southern Kingdom in 587–586 B.C. and also engaged in a series of major deportations of the population. This second episode, the so-called Babylonian captivity, figures prominently in the Hebrew Bible. The biblical report about the deportation of the Judean population was not substantiated by historical records until the early twentieth century, when some texts were discovered that contain first-hand information concerning the political events recorded in the Bible.8 Yet, much is still to be done, especially in regard to the social history of the Judeans in exile. We must assume that the large majority of the deported population did not experience the same conditions as the Judean king and his immediate circle, which have been documented.9 Commoners were probably only brought into Babylon to be employed in large building and similar infrastructure projects. We have assumed that most of them were distributed over the country and, in each locale, settled together with other population groups of which we know from cuneiform texts, such as the settlements of Gezerites, Hindaneans, and Arabs. Thus far, the primary evidence for descendants of common Judean deportees were texts from the MurΩåû archive that date about one hundred years later and reflect personal names of West Semitic and Hebrew origin, even containing Yahwistic elements, among the witnesses.10 In these texts, Judeans occur at the margin; they are usually not the parties of the transaction, but rather witnesses or people mentioned in passing. This textual lacuna has allowed a great deal of speculation but little real historiography to take place. This situation now has changed thanks to new evidence that shows Judeans as the main protagonists and archive holders within a cuneiform corpus. Only a few of these texts have been published to date. The corpus contains approximately two hundred legal texts from settlements of Judean communities and their neighbors, dwelling in otherwise unattested localities of rural Babylonia, and the records illustrate the administrative and business relations among those population groups; the texts are written in Neo-Babylonian cuneiform and usually have identifiable Babylonian scribes. This is true, far into the Persian period, even where all the parties and most of the witnesses have Hebrew names. The texts date from the time of Nebuchadnezzar through Xerxes, but they are distributed unevenly over time. They start with two isolated texts from the time of Nebuchadnezzar; there are a few from the reign of Nabonidus; and the majority were written during the rule of the first three Persian kings. The 8 The German archaeological excavation at Babylon yielded administrative texts that made reference to the Judean king Jehoiachin being held as a hostage or prisoner in the Babylonian capital, where he and his entourage were maintained by rations given by the crown administration, obviously spending some time there (Weidner 1939). This helped to substantiate the biblical report of 2 Kings 24:12–15. Three years ago, Jursa (2008) discovered a text in the British Museum that mentions the high Babylonian rab åa-rËåi official Nabû-åarr„ssu-ukÏn, who is known as Neboåarsekim (nbwårskym, as already expected by Vanderhooft [1999: 151]) from Jeremiah 39:3. It is a receipt for a substantial amount of gold that was delivered to the Esangila, the main sanctuary of Babylon, on Nabû-åarr„ssu-ukÏn’s behalf in the tenth year of Nebuchadrezzar, about eight years before the events recounted in Jeremiah 39 (dating to 587 B . C .) that refer to Neboåarsekim as a participant in the siege of Jerusalem. 9 See note 8 concerning King Jehoiachin. 10 See further Coogan 1976a, 1976b; Zadok 1979, 2002. For more on the MurΩåû archive, see Donbaz and Stolper 1997; and Stolper 1985, 1992, 2001. oi.uchicago.edu 116 F. RACHEL MAGDALENE AND CORNELIA WUNSCH tablets taper off at the beginning of Xerxes’ rule, but a few continue after year two of Xerxes, which is the cut-off point of most known private archives from Babylonia. 11 In contrast to the MurΩåû archive, these tablets are much earlier and cover, not only the early post-exilic period, but also part of the exilic period proper. While they are contemporary with the welldocumented Neo-Babylonian private archives, as well as temple archives from Babylonia, in their contents and business profile, they show similarities with the later MurΩåû corpus. They therefore represent a crucial link between these various archives. The prosopography allows us to reconstruct up to four generations of Judeans as the protagonists in one archival group and two or three tiers in several others. Thanks to Babylonian record practice, the dates are clearly discernible in most cases. Most of the place names, however, do not help to locate their place of origin, as they either do not occur in other corpora or are known already from other sources but nonetheless cannot be located. Two groups of texts focus most prominently on the towns of Naåar (or BÏt-Naåar, named after an individual) and ¸l-YΩæ„du (or Judah-town),12 respectively, and attest to a few individuals who appear in both of them. The third group relates to BÏt-AbÏ-râm (again derived from a personal name) and displays a faint link to the other two groups. Some other place names are less often attested and otherwise unknown. A few tablets are either drafted in Babylon or mention it, but this is inconclusive, as the parties appear to have traveled there to deal with administrative, juridical, or business matters. Borsippa is mentioned once in connection with the personal affairs of one official, which, again, does not tell us anything about the origin of the archive itself. This leaves the three localities of Karkara, Nippur, and Keå, 13 which point to the region beyond Nippur toward the east and southeast, at the Tigris corridor, in roughly the same area that is later reflected at the fringes of the MurΩåû texts. This region, well known from third- and second-millennium texts, suffered considerably during the time of the Assyrian battles with Elam. Nebuchadnezzar and his successors apparently took measures to revive and repopulate the whole area beyond Nippur to make it economically viable again. The Persian kings must have followed this economic and political strategy, especially in view of the fact that the region touched upon main routes linking Babylonia and Persia (it is unlikely that they did it out of devotion for Babylonian deities and their ancient cult centers, which may have been a key impetus for the Neo-Babylonian kings). In this context, the settlement of Judean deportees appears as one example among many others. Large irrigation projects were undertaken, canals were dug and along their course emerged new outposts, such as the “king’s town at the new canal,” that still refer to their recent establishment by name. Thus we may surmise that significant groups of Judeans were deported to an area to the east and southeast of Nippur, to the north of Uruk where, after completion of the necessary infrastructure work, they received lands along the waterways, allotted in parcel units of æanåê “fifties” and were liable as to the obligation to pay taxes and to render either military or corvée service for a certain period per year.14 The texts further allude to the fact See Waerzeggers 2003/04. One of the earliest attestations actually says ¸l-YΩæ„daya, which clearly indicates that the place name derives from a gentilic. 13 Spelled ki-e-åu2ki; one might at first consider this as an irregular orthography for Kiå, given the fact that there is no evidence for Keå in the second and first millennia apart from being mentioned in a Nabonidus 12 11 inscription. There are, however, texts from the later Achaemenid period issued at Keå (Wunsch forthcoming) that display both syllabic as well as logographic spellings and therefore prove that this place had a functioning temple until at least five generations after Nebuchadnezzar. 14 On these obligations, see further van Driel 2002: 155–85; and Jursa 2009: 237–69. oi.uchicago.edu SLAVERY BETWEEN JUDAH AND BABYLON: THE EXILIC EXPERIENCE 117 that populations of different ethnic and geographical background were transplanted and settled as homogeneous groups according to their origin. The Judeans’ main occupation was agriculture, mainly grain and date palm cultivation. When these settlers arrived and land parcels were measured out to them, they all apparently started from a more or less equal basis. As we follow the archive over three more generations, we notice signs of increasing affluence and wealth in some families, with some of their members climbing the administrative ladder up to a certain point (such as to foreman and summoner of workmen for corvée services15 or the position of the headman of the village16), while others struggle to make ends meet. A certain social polarization among the population can, therefore, be observed. The successful individuals are the ones who left their mark in the archives. As we will see, Judeans engaged in business with outsiders and made active use of Babylonian legal instruments, even applying them to matters of private law, such as marriage, inheritance, and property transfer. In the context of this article, we examine Judean attitudes regarding slave ownership in comparison to the biblical laws regarding slavery. THE BIBLICAL LAWS OF SLAVERY We know from studies on slavery in the Hebrew Bible that the authors of the Hebrew Bible attempted to distinguish in various ways the Israelite practice of slavery from that of its neighbors.17 Moreover, the Hebrew Bible differentiates between chattel slaves (e.g., Lev. 25:46; Qoh. 2:7) and Hebrew debt slaves, who became such via distraint (e.g., Lev. 25:35–38; 2 Kings 4:1), selling themselves into slavery (e.g., Lev. 25:39–43), or being sold by their parents into slavery (e.g., Neh. 5:5).18 Chattel slaves were typically foreigners acquired by 15 Akkadian lúdËkû. Stolper (1985: 83) describes the role and title of dËkû as “marshaling the taxes and services incumbent on land holders” and provides attestations of individuals bearing this title in the MurΩåû corpus. Individuals with Hebrew names are attested in this role, for example, YΩæû-ezer, son of Ø„b-åalam (IMMP 12) and Abdi-YΩhû, son of BarakYΩma (Joannès and Lemaire 1999: 27–28 [no. 2]). 16 Written lú EN . NAM ; Joannès and Lemaire 1999: 27–28 (no. 2). 17 See, for example, Greengus 1998: 9 n. 28; and Frymer-Kensky 2003: 1007. Although aware of the issues, due to space limitations we do not discuss herein the problem of the apparent conflicts between the slave provisions of the biblical Covenant Code, Holiness Code, and Deuteronomic Code, and the various diachronic solutions to these conflicts. See, among others, Paul 1970; Phillips 1984; Matthews 1994; and Levinson 2006. 18 In the ancient Near East generally, impoverished persons might voluntarily give up their free status if this were the only guarantee for survival in times of famine. Family members might also be pledged and sold, although families were generally reluctant to sell members and, if done, only in satisfaction of an outstanding debt. This is to be distinguished from the situation wherein a person is under distraint due to a pledge in a secured debt instrument, that is, debt slavery. As Westbrook (2003: 41) states: “At first sight, the situation of a free person given in pledge to a creditor was identical to slavery: the pledge lost his personal freedom and was required to serve the creditor, who exploited the pledge’s labor. Nonetheless, the relationship between pledge and pledge holder remained one of contract, not property. Since the creditor did not own the pledge, he could not alienate him, nor did property of the pledge automatically vest in the creditor. It was in the nature of a pledge that it could be redeemed by payment of the debt, at which point the human pledge would go free. During the period of his service, failure of the pledge to fulfill his duties led to contractual penalties, not punishment under general disciplinary powers of the master.” Westbrook (1995: 1639) also states: “Where slavery was created by contract, especially where a self-sale was involved, the rule of status could be affected in an analogous way [that is, to marriage contracts]. The terms of the contract could ameliorate the slave’s condition, making it closer to other types of servile condition such as pledge….” The slavery provisions of the Hebrew Bible tend to group these types of slavery into the category of debt slavery and distinguish them from chattel slavery as discussed above. oi.uchicago.edu 118 F. RACHEL MAGDALENE AND CORNELIA WUNSCH purchase (e.g., Lev. 25:44; cf. Gen. 37:28; 39:1–6; Ps. 105:16–18), in war (e.g., Deut. 20:10– 14; Num. 31:25–41), through raids (cf. 2 Sam. 3:22),19 and house-born slaves (Gen. 15:3), but they might also be taken from the resident alien population (e.g., Lev. 25:45; 1 Kings 9:15–21; cf. Isa. 14:2).20 The Hebrew Bible does not envision Hebrews owning Hebrew chattel slaves (e.g., 1 Kings 9:22).21 Surprisingly, Deuteronomy 23:16–17 (Eng. 23:15–16) even provides protections for escaped slaves: “Slaves who have escaped to you from their owners shall not be given back to them. They shall reside with you, in your midst, in any place they choose in any one of your towns, wherever they please; you shall not oppress them.” 22 Special protections are granted for Hebrew debt slaves. For example, the status of one who had sold himself into slavery, where the creditor or owner was also a Hebrew, was that of a hired workman, not a chattel slave (Lev. 25:39–42, 46). Deuteronomy 5:14 states in addition: “But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work — you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you” (see also Exod. 20:10). Terms of release are also provided for the Hebrew debt slave (whether or not serving a Hebrew or an alien) but not for the alien chattel slave (cf. Lev. 25:46 with Lev. 25:47–51). Generally, if an individual sold himself to another Hebrew, he had to pay the amount or work it off (Neh. 5:8), but in the seventh year release was granted as a matter of law (Exod. 21:2; Deut. 15:12, cf. verse 18), as well as in the Jubilee Year (Lev. 25:10–11, 40). This provision establishes the period of time by which the law presumed the debt to be paid. 23 The slave did not have to pay for his release, rather the creditor was to give the slave a gift presumably to enable him to reestablish his household (Deut. 15:13–14). If an individual sold himself to a foreigner, he would have to be released when the slave or his relatives could pay the redemption amount (Lev. 25:47–52). Redemption was not, however, always possible (Neh. 5:3–5), nor was release always done appropriately (Jer. 34:8–17).24 Female slaves, alternatively, were generally not released in the seventh year like male slaves, but they could not be sold off to a “In all societies where the institution acquired more than marginal significance and persisted for more than a couple of generations, birth became the single most important source of slaves” (Patterson 1982: 132). Yet, we do know that slaves could be acquired through war and raids in the ancient Near East. See further Westbrook 1995: 1640–43. Any attempt to rank or quantify the various sources of slaves in either ancient Israel or Neo-Babylonian Mesopotamia on the basis of cuneiform sources is futile, although Dandamaev (1992: 63–64) makes a valiant attempt. We do, however, have some information about the relative ranking in importance of sources for the slave supply in the Roman Empire. Harris (1999: 62), in response to Scheidel (1997: 159–69), maintains: “The sources which most require consideration are: (1) children born to slave-mothers within the Empire; (2) persons enslaved in provincial or frontier wars; (3) persons imported across the frontiers; (4) the ‘self-enslaved’; and (5) infants abandoned at places within the Empire.” Debt slavery was a significant problem in ancient Israel (2 Kings 4:1; Neh. 5:5). 19 Enslavement by Hebrews of other Hebrews via kidnapping was, however, prohibited (Deut. 24:7; Exod. 21:16; cf. Exod. 20:17). 20 On the distinction between Hebrew and foreign slaves, see further Hezser 2005: 29–31. 21 Cf. van der Ploeg 1972: 87. 22 This reverses the typical ancient Near Eastern requirement of slave return (see, e.g., Laws of Hammurabi §§16–20; Hittite Laws §§22–44; and Greengus 1997: 9 n. 28. Vasholz (1991), Nelson (2002: 280), and Hiers (2002: 48) all suggest that this provision is meant to apply only to slaves escaped from other nations, although Nelson (2002: 280) also maintains that verse 16 alone might have first been a general slave law that did apply to the Israelites. 23 Cf. Law of Hammurabi §117, wherein a debt slave may go free after only three years of service. See further Magdalene forthcoming. 24 See further Chavel 1997. oi.uchicago.edu SLAVERY BETWEEN JUDAH AND BABYLON: THE EXILIC EXPERIENCE 119 foreigner (Exod. 21:7). If, however, the slave was not a concubine or if she was to be given to a son in marriage and he deprived her of the basic necessities and conjugal rights, she could go free without any payment to her master (Exod. 21:8–11). Other possibilities for release of male debt slaves were also available (see, e.g., Deut. 15:1–3). Moreover, the biblical law prohibits the charging of advance interest and the antichretic pledge, wherein the interest owed on the debt is offset by the labor of the slave or detainee in the case of Hebrew-Hebrew debt relations. 25 Leviticus 25:36–37 instructs: “Do not take interest in advance or otherwise make a profit from them [one’s kin], but fear your God and let them live with you. You shall not lend them your money at interest taken in advance, or provide them food at profit.” Although this provision addresses charging kin any pre-paid interest, it is typically seen, when read with Exodus 22:24 (Eng. 22:25) and Deuteronomy 23:18–20, as a general prohibition on the charging of interest to any Israelite or use of the antichretic pledge.26 Some of these passages, such as those that prohibit making a Hebrew a chattel slave, the Jubilee Year release, and not returning runaway slaves to their masters, seek to change some aspect of the practice of slavery in the greater ancient Near East by softening certain usual practices.27 Let us investigate whether we can observe the operation of any of these biblical laws in the texts from the Judean archive. TEXTS THAT MENTION SLAVES IN THE JUDEAN MATERIALS Although only seven texts in the Judean corpus mention slaves, we can glean from them some helpful information about the practice of slavery in these communities. We begin with slaves in debt-related documents and then turn to the transfer of slaves through various other means. Our format examines more fully one or two examples in each of these two groups and summarizes the key points of the other texts. The first example, JWB 9, is, in most respects, an ordinary Neo-Babylonian promissory note for twenty-one shekels of silver that was drafted in the twelfth year of Darius’ reign in a small place called Adabil — of unknown location, but certainly not far from ¸l-YΩæ„du. The creditor Enlil-iqÏåa,28 son of Libluø, bears a traditional Babylonian name, and the theophoric element of his first name points toward Nippur, which was the center of Enlil’s cult. The debtor AæÏqam, son of Rapa-YΩma, is known as the central figure in one group of Judean texts. He is obliged to repay the silver in eight months and pledges a slave woman by the name of IlΩ-bî (either a West Semitic or Arabic name) under the condition of antichresis, that is, the An antichretic pledge is one whereby a creditor replaces any interest payment that might be associated with repayment of a loan through the use (and the benefit or income obtained thereby) of the pledge (Zaccagnini 2003: 609). Thus, it involves to some extent advance interest. 26 See, for example, Chiltron 1992: 115. Cf. Proverbs 28:8. As Hiers (2002: 72) indicates: “Here ‘brother’ probably means fellow-Israelite, perhaps female as well as male.” See also Levine 2004: 425. On NeoBabylonian secured debt instruments and the antichretic pledge, see Oelsner 2001 and Wunsch 2001. 25 We make comparisons with the Judean corpus against the materials discussed in these articles. 27 See, for example, the discussions in Jackson 1988: 86, 91; and Westbrook 1995: 1639. 28 Many of the personal names in the Judean texts, in particular the syllabically written non-Akkadian ones, exhibit spelling variants that make them difficult to be rendered phonetically as well as correct grammatically, especially when it is not clear in which language they originate. We can offer at this time only a tentative reading of several of these names. oi.uchicago.edu 120 F. RACHEL MAGDALENE AND CORNELIA WUNSCH interest accruing on the silver is to be offset by the labor of the slave woman. This debt note follows the normal formula and structure for Neo-Babylonian loan documents of this kind. Thus, we may assume that some of the Judeans owned slaves and used them in antichretic pledge situations. In respect to the latter, we observe the biblical prohibition against antichretic pledges in Leviticus 25:36–37, although, here, the Judean is the debtor, not the creditor. The slave woman is not only described by her name but also bears a tattooed inscription on her wrist of the name of one Kalbaya, son of Ammâ, who we may presume from this mark was her previous owner. We can observe here that the prior owner has an Akkadian name in combination with a West Semitic patronym. This wrist inscription is mentioned in the contract because it is important for the creditor to prove his rightful possession of the slave, should the previous owner, or someone else in, or of, his name, attempt to claim the slave woman as his own, or should she herself assert belonging to someone else. In antichretic situations, the slave is supposed to serve the creditor at his location, which in the case of Enlil-iqÏåa is probably at some distance from AæÏqam’s locale, so that any legal issue could not be resolved easily. This clause also indicates that the slave woman is not homebred: AæÏqam came into the possession of her either by the regular means of purchase, inheritance, or dowry acquisition from his wife. The clause is legally important because it affirms that the debtor holds title to the slave and would be able to prove this, despite the contradictory inscription on her wrist. This clause is followed by a stipulation that is quite exceptional from both a NeoBabylonian and biblical legal perspective because it says that the creditor does not guarantee against the death or escape of the slave woman. We do not usually find such a provision among the customary contractual clauses of contemporary Neo-Babylonian promissory notes with a slave pledge. Its inclusion may be prompted by the fact that the creditor intends to take the slave woman with him, either to his home base or as a travel companion, and that she might be able to escape more easily as compared with living in a regular settlement, where some household member or neighbor might catch her. The contract also stipulates that the debtor has to replace any item stolen by the slave woman from the creditor’s house. This suggests that debtor and creditor are not well acquainted and that the creditor suspects that the slave woman might behave mischievously against him on behalf of her owner. The creditor, therefore, tries to ensure that the debtor does not abuse the situation. Text JWB 42 shares some similarities to the above tablet. The document was executed in (BÏt)-Naåar, in the fifth year of Cambyses. It is a debt note of twenty shekels of silver to be repaid in two months, which is owed by Zabdia, son of Nabû-zËr-ibni, and his wife Sinqia to ArÏæi and Åum-iddin, sons of BËl-zËr-iddin. Zabdia’s name is West Semitic; Sinqia, his wife, has either an Akkadian or West Semitic name; one of the creditors is named ArÏæi (of unknown meaning but known from the Judean corpus); and the other creditor has a typical Akkadian name. The pledge is, according to the text, their “Egyptian slave woman” Nanaya-baæÏ. The theophoric element relating to the goddess Nanaya is popular in West Semitic names, but the final element, -baæÏ, is Egyptian. This raises questions as to her ethnic background. Was she Egyptian by birthplace but not ethnicity? Was she ethnically Egyptian, or is Egypt the place to where she was first sold, and her name was then (at least partially) changed? Or was she born in Babylonia to owners of Egyptian descent? We cannot know. Text IMMP 5 is a slave rental in combination with a pledge. It is executed in ¸l-YΩæ„du, in the eighth year of Nabonidus. The slave owner is Œidqi-YΩma, who bears a Yahwistic name and is the son of Åillimu. The slave’s renter also bears a Hebrew name: Åikin-YΩma (known in oi.uchicago.edu SLAVERY BETWEEN JUDAH AND BABYLON: THE EXILIC EXPERIENCE 121 biblical sources as åqnyh[w]),29 son of Æinnamu. The slave who is the subject of the contact is called PuæullΩ, which may be a Hebrew name. If this is correct, one might then surmise that the slave was a Judean, but, as is possible with the Egyptian slave woman above, he may simply have received a new name when he was acquired by his present owner.30 It seems that the slave’s owner owes nine kur (ca. 1,620 liters) of barley to the slave’s renter, which the owner promises to deliver after the next harvest (in eight or nine months). The slave serves as security for this claim. During the term of the debt, the slave’s wages will be six shekels for thirteen months. As soon as his wages are paid, the slave will be at the disposal of the creditor. While the renter covers the cost of the slave’s food, the owner provides one garment for the slave. The slave’s wages are quite low, as one could normally expect at least one shekel per month, which in this case would amount to thirteen shekels. Thus, it appears that the interest on this barley loan is being deducted from the slave’s wages. The rental contract, therefore, in part disguises an antichretic pledge, 31 which is a common Neo-Babylonian practice.32 This is significant because we seem to have a Judean master owning a transferable chattel slave, who also may be a Judean, although we cannot be absolutely certain. 33 Furthermore, we apparently have here a Judean using another Judean for an antichretic pledge. Such a situation is not envisioned by biblical law.34 There is also no stipulation explicitly exempting the slave from work on the Sabbath as commanded in Deuteronomy 5:14. IMMP 42 is a receipt concerning a debt note issued upon delivery of the commodities owed in ¸l-YΩæ„du, in the thirteenth year of, we believe, Darius’s reign. The creditor is a slave woman by the Akkadian name Nanaya-ultaraæ (whose owner’s name is not preserved). The deliverer is again AæÏqam, the archive holder, acting on behalf of three individuals, with Akkadian, Hebrew, and West Semitic names respectively.35 The text voids the pertaining debt note should it re-appear in the house of the slave woman. Interestingly, we observe here a slave woman conducting business. Turning now to non-loan-related transactions, IMMP 45 is a duplicate of the transaction in Abraham 2007 which, fortunately, helps, at least in part, to reconstruct some of the lost passages in each individual copy. This contract relates details of an inheritance division after 29 åknyh: Ezra 8:3, 5; 10:2; Nehemiah 3:29; 12:3; 1 Chronicles 3:21, 22; åknyhw: 1 Chronicles 24:11; 2 Chronicles 31:15. 30 Martin (1993: 113–15) describes well the difficulty of studying the Jewish practice of slavery in the Roman period. Some Jews took Greek or Roman names; some non-Jews took what were once believed to be Jewish names, but which we have discovered are not necessarily such; and slaves, freedmen, and free persons are often difficult to distinguish in various records. This, coupled with the practice of renaming of slaves, can make it extremely difficult or impossible to determine the ethnicity of slaves and their owners. In our texts, thanks to the archival context, at least the ethnicity of either one or both of the parties is beyond doubt. 31 This contract contains additionally a contractual liquidated penalty: ten shekels are to be paid by the party who breaks the contract. For the Neo-Babylonian practice, see Oelsner 2001 andWunsch 2001. 33 It is possible that slaves owned before the exile were deported with their masters; it is also possible that slaves were acquired while the Judeans were in exile. 34 We would note here the presence of a slave with a West Semitic name, BarÏk-il, in Strassmaier 1887: no. 1113, in a lawsuit about this individual’s status. He had been acquired for silver by his previous owner, at least twenty-one years earlier, and then sold. He claims instead to be of mΩr banûti (free) status, but fails to prove it. Dandamaev (1984: 443) assumes that he is “a Jewish prisoner of war.” Wallis (1964) also believes that he is a deported Judean, although in the absence of a Yahwistic theophoric element this name should be understood as West Semitic. 35 Kinâ, son of Aæ„; ÅabbatΩya, son of Bana-YΩma; and NΩtina, son of Raæi-il. 32 oi.uchicago.edu 122 F. RACHEL MAGDALENE AND CORNELIA WUNSCH AæÏqam’s death and was issued in Babylon in the sixteenth year of Darius. AæÏqam is the archive holder we met earlier, and in this record we find his five sons — split into two groups, doubtless according to their mothers — dividing their assets. We may therefore assume that AæÏqam had two wives, either consecutively or at the same time. The recorded distribution involves slaves. His sons NÏr-YΩma and YΩæû-azza receive the slave woman Nanaya-piææÏ and ten vats (probably for beer production) as their share, while his other sons, Æaggai, YΩæûezer, and YΩæû-åû, receive the male slave Abdi-YΩæû and eight vats. Once again, we observe that one of the slaves has a Judean name, but we do not know for certain whether he is, in fact, Judean. The brothers also agree to keep the pertaining implements and utensils as their jointly held property and to divide the remaining assets at a later point. Lastly, they pledge to pay jointly any obligations owed by their father at his death from the property that is still held in common. The setting and contents of this inheritance division is rather unusual. First, it is issued at Babylon. This is, in fact, the only record known thus far that shows the sons of AæÏqam traveling to Babylon; they normally do business in the province. The parties would have had to have gone far out of their way. Although it is not incongruous to assume that there might have been a dispute among them over their inheritance, one would expect them to be able to settle the matter either amicably or, with the help of some relatives and neighbors, closer to home. Furthermore, as members of both sets of brothers appear in later documents acting together, we need not presume that this division was triggered by serious quarrels among them. The whole process makes sense when we consider it as a secondary affair that happened when our protagonists were in Babylon for some other reason. Second, among the witnesses figure some individuals with Babylonian names and others with West Semitic or Judean names. We have to assume, therefore, that either the brothers went with an entourage of fellow Judeans to Babylon in order to settle their inheritance division (which seems unlikely given its modest value), or that some of the Judeans mentioned in this record were actually people local to Babylon. It does not seem impossible that a group of Judeans settled in Babylon and remained in contact with other Judeans from the provinces; they may also have done business together. Third, the objects of this transaction — slaves and vats — do not point so much to private inheritance divisions as they do to allocations of business shares among partners, as known from other archives. 36 Thus, Wunsch suggests that we consider this inheritance division as a by-product of some other legal dealing that led the brothers (or, at least, some of them) to Babylon, presumably to address the royal judges.37 The key issue before the courts in this See, for example, the documents Strassmaier 1885: no. 13; Wunsch 2000: nos. 54 and 57; Strassmaier 1887: no. 244; and Contenau 1929: no. 160, all pertaining to the management and division of such a partnership from the Egibi archive. For details, see Wunsch 2000 vol. A: 100–05. When people conduct joint ventures and make profits, they tend to retire some of the business proceeds whenever they cannot invest them for further productive uses. In such cases, they buy, for example, houses, arable land, or slaves and sooner or later assign them to each of the partners when they balance accounts. Such records tell us that so-and-so many slaves or certain real estate was bought with capital of the æarrΩnu business, and that at this certain point these assets are divided 36 and personally assigned to the partners. As far as AæÏqam’s estate is concerned, one would expect him to have owned at least a house (not necessarily built on his own land, but with parts such as beams and doors that are valuable assets), and possibly some animals (sheep or shares in cows). No such assets are mentioned. Thus, it is likely that here only part of the inheritance is under discussion. 37 One of the reasons people ventured to Babylon is to litigate lawsuits upon referral from local authorities. See BM 16996 (unpublished), issued in Nippur during the reign of Cyrus, a conditional verdict document in a private matter, which obliges two persons to litigate their case in Babylon. For further oi.uchicago.edu SLAVERY BETWEEN JUDAH AND BABYLON: THE EXILIC EXPERIENCE 123 case may have been the dissolution of a joint venture (what is known in Akkadian by the term æarrΩnu) between the heirs of the deceased AæÏqam and his business partner. Once the business was disbanded, the brothers probably went on to divide immediately the proceeds that had been assigned as their father’s share in the business capital, that is, the two slaves and the vats. Thus, this document reflects a secondary settlement between the brothers, involving lesser property than the main assets of the deceased. IMMP 54 involves a slave sale transacted in the seventh year of Xerxes. The vendor is IqÏåaya, son of BarÏk-il. We note that the seller has an Akkadian name but a West Semitic patronym, which indicates that his father had reached some level of acclimatization. The buyer is Åalammû, daughter of Æannan, and therefore most likely a Judean woman. According to the document, a slave woman and her baby are sold. Interestingly, the woman’s name is Ana-muææi-Nanaya-taklΩk, a most proper Akkadian name, expressing reverence and trust to Nanaya, a goddess also popular in West Semitic names. The text reveals that her wrist was inscribed with the name of her former owner, BarÏk-il, the seller’s father. The son may have received her via inheritance or donatio inter vivos (a lifetime gift). She was sold for the price of three minas of silver, and the sale contract contains the usual guarantee clauses of NeoBabylonian slave sale contracts. Lastly, JWB 3 seemingly addresses a gift in favor of a daughter. Here, one MalËåu, son of MÏ-kÏ-YΩma, is said to have voluntarily made out an official document and transferred as property his slave-woman ÆuøuatΩ and a half-share in a cow to his daughter YΩhû-æinni. The daughter has a Yahwistic name while the name of the slave woman appears to be nonAkkadian of unknown provenance and meaning. Furthermore, this record lists six witnesses with Yahwistic names. This text is extremely unusual in that it has no date or place listed and, furthermore, the scribe is not mentioned. The operative section is based on the standard Neo-Babylonian formula for a property transfer, in this case from father to daughter. This is neither a dowry promise nor compensation for dowry items. Hence, we must assume that this text involves a property transfer that was meant as a bequest that would devolve to the daughter on her father’s passing. THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY AMONG THE JUDEANS IN EXILE We must start this part of our discussion by stating two caveats. First, we have a limited number of texts. Second, all the texts were written by Babylonian scribes, who would understandably cast these records in traditional Neo-Babylonian forms. Thus, we cannot say anything absolutely definitive on the basis of these few Akkadian records. Nonetheless, certain aspects do begin to help us form a picture of slavery among the Judeans in exile, an area about which we previously knew quite little. What exactly do these texts, in toto, tell us about the institution of slavery in these communities? First and most obviously, slavery was an extant institution in which the Judeans participated. The exiled Judeans pledged slaves in both regular and antichretic debt situations. Such slaves were fully transferable: they could be sold, transferred as part of an inheritance, or given by inter vivos gift. These slaves, therefore, are in the nature of chattel slaves because of their absolute transferability. Additionally, the Judeans in exile may have had Judean slaves, on conditional verdict documents, see Wells 2004: 108–30; and Magdalene 2007: 78–88. oi.uchicago.edu 124 F. RACHEL MAGDALENE AND CORNELIA WUNSCH as well as foreign slaves, whose original names were maintained or changed to West-Semitc or Hebrew names. We do not observe on the face of the texts any specially treated slaves. We note, instead, that whenever a slave with a Yahwistic name appears, no mention is made of either a time limit on slave service, as we find in Exodus 21:2 for Hebrew slaves owned by Hebrews, or the allowance of any slave to observe the Sabbath as in Deuteronomy 5:14. We note first, in the case of IMMP 45 two slaves, one with a Yahwistic name and another with a nonHebrew name, are divided between two sets of brothers. If they were of different extraction and this indeed obliged their owners to a different treatment of them, one might argue that such implications were understood by the father and his sons and tacitly observed during the father’s lifetime. The settlement between the brothers, however, does not indicate any such understanding, which should have been documented because it would have had important consequences for the status and value of both slaves. It is most unlikely that one set of sons would receive a Hebrew slave with unspoken limitations on his servitude and the other set a non-Hebrew slave with no such limitations. Hence, if the slaves with Yahwistic names are, indeed, of Judean descent, we must argue that the exilic community most probably adopted and applied Neo-Babylonian law regarding slaves and that they apparently did not seek in any manner to distinguish themselves in regard to the institution of slavery from the Babylonians. Only the less significant guarantee clauses were apparent exceptions, but these arose out of a practical necessity rather than a biblical injunction. Second, the Judeans were involved in various antichretic pledge arrangements, which the Hebrew Bible seems to disavow. Third, individuals in the Judean communities owned and transferred the ownership of slaves with Yahwistic, West Semitic, Akkadian, and partially Egyptian names. The fact that slaves of other ethnic groups, particular Akkadian slaves, were owned and transferred by persons with Yahwistic names indicates the integration of Judean individuals into the larger Babylonian society and their economic and political advancement therein. Fourth, these legal documents reflect typical contemporary Neo-Babylonian legal formulas and typology. We can therefore state that the Judeans actively used Babylonian legal forms and contracts in contact with outsiders and among themselves for business. Moreover, we also see that they even applied Babylonian legal forms and Babylonian private law to their own family affairs, or, at least, actively endorsed them by using Babylonian scribes to record the transfer of family property. Fifth, the Judeans apparently had full access to the legal system in that they could witness documents and bring suits, not only to settle their own status, as slaves were permitted, but also in regard to many other matters. The usage of Neo-Babylonian legal formulas by Judeans and their standing to witness documents and to sue is especially important from a legal anthropological point of view. Legal anthropologists, who study the interaction of colonial and indigenous law in colonial situations, are keenly aware that a range of interaction may exist between colonial and indigenous legal systems. They also argue that, even where so-called home-rule is allowed to the indigenous population in the colonized peripheral regions, the indigenous legal system must make so many accommodations to the colonial law from the center of the empire that what is left of the indigenous system is often more fancy than fact. Hobsbawm and Ranger have characterized what is typically left of the indigenous system under home-rule colonial systems, as the “invention of tradition”38 and have made clear that, usually, a great rift is left between the law 38 Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983; cf. Gocking 1994, where this is discussed this in the context of the British Gold Coast. oi.uchicago.edu SLAVERY BETWEEN JUDAH AND BABYLON: THE EXILIC EXPERIENCE 125 of the pre- and post-colonial society.39 We can see this, for example, in British “home-rule” of South and Southeast Asia, where they allegedly enforced Islamic law, but tended to do so only in the area of family and personal-status law.40 Commercial law, property law, criminal law, and the like were actually Western, a fact which left an indelible mark on these legal systems and created a form of legal neo-colonialism.41 Now the question becomes, How might this phenomenon apply to these ancient deported communities living at the center of the colonial power? Grätz has observed, for instance, that in the district of Herakleopolis in Lower Egypt during the Ptolemaic era, various ethnic groups lived in distinct communities, each with a distinct politeuma.42 He defines these: This means a territorial association of Ioudaioi in Egypt[,] which had seemingly the rights of a partial autonomy, accomplished by an elite called archontes, within the realm of the Ptolemies. The members of such an association call themselves politai whereas the non-members are denoted as allophyloi (P. Polit. Iud. 1,17f.). The relationship of such an association is not only determined by the same ethnic origin but also by the above-mentioned partial legal sovereignty. 43 He notes that these groups had especially strong rights to determine their own family law, which is often also true under colonial systems of so-called home-rule, as we just discussed. We do not, however, see this same phenomenon in the deported ethnic communities residing in Babylonia during either the Neo-Babylonian or Persian empires. The texts before us demonstrate, instead, that Neo-Babylonian law apparently structured even family and personal status law in the Judean communities. These groups do not seeem to posses legal sovereignty. 39 40 Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983: 63. As Bin Hassan (2007: 289) states in regard to Malaysia: “One of the main policies of the British in the Malay Peninsula was non-interference in religious matters. However, this could not be said to be totally true, because there were many instances where Islamic practices, especially the implementation of Islamic laws, were severely curtailed through direct and indirect interference to the extent that only Islamic Personal Laws were allowed to be practiced.” Bin Hassan (2007: 292) continues: “The constitution states, ‘Islam is the religion of the Federation; but other religions may be practised in peace and harmony in any part of the Federation.’ [Constitution of Malaysia, article 3.] However, they did not grant Malaysia independence so that it could become a religious state. The commission responsible for drafting the constitution stated in its report that, ‘The observance of this principle shall not impose any disability on non-Muslim nationals professing and practising their own religions and shall not imply that the State is not a secular state.’ [Federation of Malaya Constitutional Commission 1957: 73, paragraph 169].” See also Hussin 2007; cf. Mastura 1994. In examining this same phenomenon in British India and its aftermath, Kozlowski (1997: 223) reports: “As the raj gradually emerged as a distinct style of government, the British very quickly dropped any attempt to enforce the criminal punishments prescribed in some Islamic texts. In that, the British seem to have followed the practice of the Mughal state in which district police officials (kotwals), not qazis, handled all criminal offenses. Moreover, the kotwals did not render judgments in consonance with the physical punishments or rules of evidence contained in the manuals for qazis which [sic] were in circulation in India. By the middle years of the nineteenth century, the British had provided uniform codes for criminal law as well as for the law of evidence applicable throughout British India. Significantly, those legal reforms often occurred in India long before they did in Britain itself. Laws applicable to Muslims became restricted to the realm of ‘personal law,’ that is to say matters of inheritance and family relations. Those laws have remained uncodified in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.” 42 Grätz 2009: 6–7. 43 Grätz 2009: 7. 41 oi.uchicago.edu 126 F. RACHEL MAGDALENE AND CORNELIA WUNSCH THE IMPLICATIONS FOR UNDERSTANDING BIBLICAL LAW What we observe in this corpus is that some of the distinct features of biblical law when compared with Neo-Babylonian law seem not to have been in operation in the deported Judean communities in rural Babylonia. The phenomenon that exilic law is seemingly unrelated to biblical law is reminiscent of the legal materials of Elephantine and the Judean Dessert, where scholars have noted that certain critical biblical legal attributes are missing from the legal texts of those corpora. This fact raises some profound questions in regard to biblical law. For example, Knauf has described Elephantine Judaism as “pre-Biblical Judaism.” 44 This may also be true of Babylonian Judaism. Greengus observes that there is much similarity between older Mesopotamian traditions regarding slavery and later rabbinic traditions, even though many of these provisions are missing from biblical law, positing that the solution to this connection lies in the “documentary trail.” 45 He states: “The long occupation of Judea and all of Samaria by Assyria, beginning in the 8th century, and continuing with total Babylonian rule followed by that of Persia from the 6th through the 4th centuries B.C.E.” gives us the answer,46 although he does not speculate as to precisely why the biblical laws remain silent on these matters. It is possible, as we have stated previously, that the exilic community simply adopted Neo-Babylonian law. We tend toward agreeing with Greengus that connections exist among Mesopotamian, biblical, and rabbinic law in regard to slavery due to the cultural contacts that were made far more intense by colonial occupation and resettlement policies. Whether or not post-exilic biblical law follows, departs from, or remains silent on particular issues, it seems that the law was formed in all probability with Mesopotamian exemplars in mind. This leaves open the question as to what pre-exilic biblical or Israelite law might have contained. Careful study of this corpus will invite many more questions in regard to the development of biblical law and hopefully provide a few solutions. WERE THE HEBREWS REALLY SLAVES IN BABYLONIA? Because one key source of slaves is through raids and warfare in the ancient Near East, it is easy to believe that the Judeans might have been chattel slaves in Babylonia. Several texts within the Hebrew Bible assert, at least as a metaphor, that the people both at home and in exile were as chattel slaves (e.g., Jer. 25:14; 27:7, 9–10; 2 Chron. 36:20; cf. Isa. 49:7; Jer. 2:14). Bible passages describe the position of Judeans during the exile as bearing the heavy yoke of slavery (e.g., Isa. 47:6b; Lam. 1:3). Lamentations 5:5 and 13 indicate that the Judeans were yoked prisoners who received no rest, the young men were forced to grind corn, and they stumbled under heavy loads of wood. Jeremiah 27:7 states: “All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings shall make him their slave.” Moreover, Ezra states of the peoples’ exile: O my God, I am too ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. From the days of our ancestors to this day we have been deep in guilt, and for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been handed over to the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as is now the 44 45 Knauf 2002: 187. Greengus 1997: 7. 46 Greengus 1997: 7. oi.uchicago.edu SLAVERY BETWEEN JUDAH AND BABYLON: THE EXILIC EXPERIENCE 127 case. But now for a brief moment favor has been shown by the Lord our God, who has left us a remnant, and given us a stake in his holy place, in order that he may brighten our eyes and grant us a little sustenance in our slavery. For we are slaves; yet our God has not forsaken us in our slavery, but has extended to us his steadfast love before the kings of Persia, to give us new life to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judea and Jerusalem (Ezra 9:6–9).47 We ask whether Hebrew slavery, as a common exilic experience, is historically accurate or whether slavery is even fair to use as a metaphor for the exilic experience, based on the texts before us? As early as 1992, Dandamaev argued in regard to Judean exiles in Babylonia: These captives, however, cannot be legally classified as [chattel] slaves at all since they were not included in the palace or temple households, but were settled in places set aside for them, particularly in the Nippur region. Initially, these people probably did not have the right to leave their place of residence. Referring to Yahweh’s order, Jeremiah urged the prisoners that the captivity would be long, and he encourage them to build houses and lay out gardens, to marry and raise children (Jer. 29:4, 7, 28). 48 Our findings are in accord. These texts indicate that the Judeans were integrated into the NeoBabylonian legal, political, and economic systems. It appears that the Judean deportees and their descendants, while clearly not entirely free to determine where they would live, were obviously allowed at times to travel. The tablets discussed in this article, as well as the corpus as a whole, indicate that some groups of Judeans were settled in the area beyond Nippur toward the Tigris corridor on royal land in settlements of persons of distinct ethnic background and that deported families were given land subject to taxes and military and corvée duties, just as were ordinary Babylonians and non-Judean displaced ethnic groups. They do not exhibit that they themselves were anything like chattel slaves. According to records dealing with income from land that was cultivated by Judeans, they were holders of bow-fiefs 49 and were qualified as åuåΩnûs,50 a kind of personal status that precisely protected them from being sold as chattel slaves.51 For example, IMMP 18 refers to a large amount of barley owed by AæÏqam 47 Because the terms for “slave” have diverse meanings in the various literary contexts of the Hebrew Bible (Dandamaev 1992: 62) and the context of its use in Ezra is ambiguous, different interpretations exist as to the meaning of “slaves” in Ezra 9:9. For example, Allen and Laniak (2003: 76) say that this refers to “political and economic bondage.” Similarly, Blenkinsopp 1988: 183. Fensham (1982: 130) states of this: “Their situation in these countries is described as servitude. They were slaves of their overlord…. Only by living in their country and having the right to serve their lord properly were they free.” Holmgren (1987: 69) indicates that this is an attempt by Ezra to relate the post-exilic return to Yehud with the Exodus story. Cf. Koch 1974: 184. We follow Holmgren in this regard. 48 Dandamaev 1992: 63. He also notes: “The status of the rest was essentially the same as that of the local free population, as can be seen from the information contained in the documents of the Murashû archive.” 49 A kind of land holding in return for military service and taxes that is well-attested in the MurΩåû archive but known to have already existed during Nebuchadnezzar’s reign (Jursa 1998). 50 The term åuåΩnu, according to Stolper (1985: 82), designates proprietors of bow-lands who “held grants of income-producing property. They were bound to their holdings by restrictions on alienation, and by tax and service encumbrances. Their personal and professional services were controlled by the masters of the subordinate organizations to which they were attached.” 51 Guaranty clauses in slave sale contracts assert that the individual was neither of free status (mΩr banî) nor a temple dependent (åirku), åuåΩnû or royal slave (arad åarri). oi.uchicago.edu 128 F. RACHEL MAGDALENE AND CORNELIA WUNSCH to a representative of the royal administration who was ultimately answerable to the satrap of Transpotamia. This grain is said to be income from land “of the åuåΩnûs of the Judeans,” with AæÏqam apparently acting on behalf of a group of settlers. Some Judeans climbed the administrative ladder even further, such as to headman of a local community. There are signs of increasing affluence and wealth in some families, and increasing social stratification appears among the Judean population over time. Some affluent individuals were able to rid themselves of some of their obligations to perform their corvée or military duty by hiring substitutes.52 Judeans were capable of entering into legal relations for their own benefit, were able to witness legal documents, and had standing to sue within the legal system. Nothing in these documents reflects the three primary attributes of slave status for the exiled Judeans who had been allotted parcels of arable land: the slave’s status as property, the totality of the power exercised over him, and his kinlessness.53 These Judeans owned personal property themselves, including slaves whom they could pledge, sell, or devolve through gifts and inheritance. The Hebrew Bible itself acknowledges that some of the returnees to Yehud brought their chattel slaves with them (Ezra 2:64–65; Neh. 7:66–67). This property was not, then, in the nature of a slave’s peculium.54 It seems that the exiled Judeans were, in reality, able to integrate into the larger society and advance socially, economically, and politically to a fair degree. CONCLUSION Seven texts among the corpus of Neo-Babylonian documents relating to the Judean population of rural Babylonia include some reference to slavery. Nothing in these texts reflects the Pentateuchal laws concerning slavery; clearly, these exiles did not use biblical law precepts in regard to slavery. Thus, we cannot determine the status of the pre-exilic law of slavery in Israel on the basis of these texts. It is quite possible, however, that post-exilic biblical law was shaped, at least in part, by the exilic experience. Further, the exiles in rural Babylonia seem to possess none of the normal attributes of those in chattel slavery. From our brief study of these texts, we have learned that these Judeans were treated much like Babylonians and other non-Judean deported communities. They were given land with the same expectation of taxes and service as common Babylonians. Many integrated well into Neo-Babylonian society, and some were able to prosper in rural Babylonia, becoming affluent farmers, businessmen, and local officials, who might own their own chattel slaves of diverse ethnic backgrounds. All, in fact, were assigned a status that afforded them protection from being sold into chattel slavery. In sum, they apparently used the social, economic, legal, and political systems in place to advance themselves in the situation in which they found themselves. Over four generations, these Judeans became much like those Babylonians who were not from the most privileged urban families. According to JWB 4, in the tenth year of Darius, a certain Zabudu, son of Iltammeå-æaza, “will do two months of service for the king in the land of Elam on behalf of Åalam-YΩma, son of Nubâ, where the colleagues of Åalam-YΩma (perform) the king’s service in the land of Elam.” He receives five shekels 52 of silver in return, apart from travel provisions and equipment. 53 See note 8 above. 54 On the slave’s peculium in the Neo-Babylonian period, see Dandamaev 1972; and Head 2009. oi.uchicago.edu SLAVERY BETWEEN JUDAH AND BABYLON: THE EXILIC EXPERIENCE 129 BIBLIOGRAPHY Abraham, Kathleen 2005/06 “West Semitic and Judean Brides in Cuneiform Sources from the Sixth Century B.C.E.: New Evidence from a Marriage Contract from Al-Yahudu.” Archiv für Orientforschung 51: 198–219. 2007 “An Inheritance Division among Judeans in Babylonia from the Early Persian Period.” In New Seals and Inscriptions, Hebrew, Idumean and Cuneiform, edited by M. Lubetski, pp. 206–21. Hebrew Bible Monographs 8. 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Toledano, and Cornelia Wunsch Papers from the Oriental Institute Seminar Slaves and Households in the Near East Held at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago 5–6 March 2010 THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ORIENTAL INSTITUTE SEMINARS • NUMBER 7 CHICAGO • ILLINOIS oi.uchicago.edu iv Library of Congress Control Number: 2011924051 ISBN-13: 978-1-885923-83-7 ISBN-10: 1-885923-83-X ISSN: 1559-2944 ©2011 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Published 2011. Printed in the United States of America. The Oriental Institute, Chicago THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ORIENTAL INSTITUTE SEMINARS • NUMBER 7 Series Editors Leslie Schramer and Thomas G. Urban with the assistance of Rebecca Cain and Natalie Whiting Publication of this volume was made possible through generous funding from the Arthur and Lee Herbst Research and Education Fund Cover Illustration: Fragment of the so-called Nasiriya Stela showing bound captives. Alabaster. Mesopotamia, Akkadian, ca. 2220–2159 BC. Courtesy of the Iraq National Museum, Baghdad, IM 59205 Printed by Edwards Brothers, Ann Arbor, Michigan The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Services — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. oi.uchicago.edu v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . INTRODUCTION 1. Slaves and Households in the Near East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Laura Culbertson, University of Chicago SECTION ONE: EARLY MESOPOTAMIA 2. Slavery in Private Households toward the End of the Third Millennium B.C. . . . . . . Hans Neumann, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster 3. A Life-Course Approach to Household Slaves in the Late Third Millennium B.C. . . . Laura Culbertson, University of Chicago 4. Domestic Female Slaves during the Old Babylonian Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrea Seri, University of Chicago SECTION TWO: THE ISLAMIC NEAR EAST 5. Preliminary Remarks on Slaves and Slave Labor in the Third/Ninth Century ªAbbΩsid Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matthew S. Gordon, Miami University 6. An Empire of Many Households: The Case of Ottoman Enslavement . . . . . . . . . . . . Ehud R. Toledano, Tel Aviv University SECTION THREE: SECOND AND FIRST MILLENNIUM EMPIRES 7. Neither Slave nor Truly Free: The Status of the Dependents of Babylonian Temple Households . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Kristin Kleber, Freie Universität Berlin 8. Slavery between Judah and Babylon: The Exilic Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 F. Rachel Magdalene, Universität Leipzig; and Cornelia Wunsch, University of London 9. Household Structure and Population Dynamics in the Middle Babylonian Provincial “Slave” Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Jonathan S. Tenney, Loyola University New Orleans and University of Copenhagen SECTION FOUR: RESPONSE 10. Slaves and Households in the Near East: A Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Indrani Chatterjee, Rutgers University 71 85 21 33 49 1 v v