Marital Relations in Ancient Judaism.

• Author: Lemos, T.M.
• Position: Book review

Marital Relations in Ancient Judaism. By ETAN LEVINE. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgesehichte, vol. 10. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2009. Pp. xiv + 349. [euro]88.

It is sometimes difficult to evaluate works produced by earlier generations of scholars. The methods utilized in biblical studies, the assumptions made, and the objectives underlying research have each shifted in the past several decades, in some ways greatly so. Etan Levine belongs to a generation of scholars different from my own and his work consequently conforms to a different set of norms from that prevailing in scholarship today. My review of his book, then, is not solely an analysis of this one work on marriage but is also unavoidably an analysis of those scholarly methods that once predominated in our field of research.

Aiming one's work towards one audience over another is frequently necessary to set forth a cohesive presentation of ideas, but a scholar's or a discipline's--unselfconsciousness about goals can lead a writer to attempt to speak to several audiences at once. It was certainly typical of earlier scholarship that works were geared towards both historically and theologically interested audiences. This characteristic is present in Levine's Marital Relations in Ancient Judaism. Levine displays various strengths in this work: his mastery of rabbinic texts, his familiarity with biblical, ancient Near Eastern, classical, and other sources, and his passion for the subject matter, and certainly for Jewish religion and culture. Yet his objective in writing it remains somewhat unclear to me, for it is in some ways historical-critical and aimed toward a well-read, multilingual, academic audience, but in other ways theological and seemingly aimed towards a non-academic set of readers, rather than towards professional theologians. Unfortunately, his bifurcation in style and intention, though it would not have been atypical in the field a few decades ago, has nonetheless produced a work that I think will leave many in my generation of academics--as well as many laymen--scratching their heads.

Some of the confusion perhaps stems from the fact that the work is not on the whole thesis-driven. Its major argument seems to be the following: "one fundamental characteristic revealed by archaeological and literary evidence is that from its earliest origins this was a family-based People ... the distinctive feature of Hebrew society was its...