52. Slavery In the Ancient Near East (Part 2): What Was a "Slave"?
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52. Slavery In the Ancient Near East (Part 2): What Was a "Slave"?
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About this listen
Dr. Mark Chavalas continues the slavery series by reading ancient Near Eastern legal texts and contracts to show that “slavery” wasn’t one simple category—it was fluid, layered, and often temporary, tied to debt, restraint, famine survival, marriage arrangements, and social rank.
Then the real question comes into focus: if the biblical world shares the same environment, does Israel respond the same way—or does biblical monotheism and Genesis 1–2 shift the value of the human person underneath the system?
📜 Sources mentioned:
Code of Hammurabi (laws discussed: 115–116; also 146 referenced)
- Code of Ur-Namma (early laws on slaves and marriage)Muhammad A.
- Dandamayev, Slavery in Babylonia (and his Anchor Bible Dictionary article)
- Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (ed. Victor H. Matthews, incl. Raymond Westbrook, “The Female Slave”)
- Marten Stol, Women in the Ancient Near East (c. 2016)
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