Morten Hørning Jensen, «Rural Galilee and Rapid Changes: An Investigation of the Socio-Economic Dynamics and Developments in Roman Galilee», Vol. 93 (2012) 43-67
Much research on the socio-economic conditions of Galilee in the Herodian period has argued for a rapid economic deterioration amongst the rural population. This is said to have resulted in a deadly spiral of violence prompting popular protest movements of which Jesus of Nazareth became the most renowned. Other investigations, however, paint a much more lenient picture of Galilee being under only a moderate development. This article outlines the problem at hand in the research, suggests a methodology for further development and applies this to new archaeological material emerging from excavations in Galilee and the textual material available.
57
RURAL GALILEE AND RAPID CHANGES
One particularly important argument against my reading of the
sources is found in J. Kloppenborg’s newly published study of the
terms used for a tenant (gewrgo,j, ’aris, colonus, Greek, Hebrew and
Latin) and a day-worker (evrga,thj, po’al, mercennarus). Kloppenborg
seeks to demonstrate how these terms suddenly began to be used in
the Hellenistic (LXX and the Zenon archive), early Roman (the
Gospels and the letters found in Nahal Hever and Wadi Muraba’at),
and middle Roman (the Mishnah) sources, which he takes to indicate
a sudden increase in huge farms, landless day-laborers and tenants.
The growth in estates produced a “debt spiral†that demoted the
formerly free farmers to “a class of under-employed non-slave laborers
(ergatai)†46. In this, Kloppenborg utilizes the thesis of R. de Vaux,
stating that while Mesopotamian culture had always included large
estates, the ideal in Israel was the many small self-sufficient farms 47.
It must be conceded, on the one hand, that Kloppenborg’s thorough
study of the sources reveals how the central government was growing
in the Hellenistic and Roman periods at the expense of the rural
peasantry. On the other hand, I find the proposed implications of his
semantic observation to be weakened by the fact that the case itself is
present in texts that Kloppenborg himself dates from the 8th century
B.C.E. down to around the exile, namely texts that explicitly mention
hired labor, sakir (LXX: misqwto,j – Ex 12,45; Lev 19,13; 22,10;
25,6.40.50.53; Deut 15,18; 24,14; Job 7,1-2; 14,6; Isa 16,14; 21,16;
Mal 3,5) and texts that even in graphic detail describe the elite’s
economic oppression of the poor (1 Sam 8,14; 1 King 21; Isa 5,8;
Prov 28,8; Ez 18,8; 22,12; Mi 2,2; Neh 5,1-5).
valley (the Hanadiv valley) overseeing and controlling its fertile soil; (cf. Y.
HIRSCHFELD, Ramat Hanadiv Excavations. Final Report of the 1984-1998
Seasons (Jerusalem 2000) 679-735, and Y. HIRSCHFELD, “Ramat Hanadiv and
Ein Gedi: Property Versus Poverty in Judea Before 70â€, Jesus and Archaeo-
logy (ed. J.H. CHARLESWORTH) (Grand Rapids, MI 2006) 384-392.
46
J.S. KLOPPENBORG, “The Growth and Impact of Agricultural Tenancy in
Jewish Palestine (III BCE-I CE)â€, Journal of the Economic and Social Hi-
story of the Orient 51 (2008) 60.
47
R. DE VAUX, Ancient Israel. Its Life and Institutions (London 1961).
FOLLOW US