2017-09-07

Comparing Biblical Laws on Marriage, Inheritance and Sexual Relations with Other Ancient Codes

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

As per the previous posts, the table here is a simplified summary of some of the points Russell Gmirkin discusses in Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible. It is far from being a complete representation of his discussion. It is best read as an easy reference guide in conjunction with the detail covered in the book. The table is only a starting guide: it will be expanded and modified as the details of laws are further explored. I expect to do a few more similar tables for other types of laws. (Still putting on hold the discussion of the final chapter of Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible as I backtrack to sections I covered too briefly earlier or inadvertently omitted altogether.)

ANE = Ancient Near Eastern laws

Greece/Plato = Laws as implemented in Athens and/or Laws presented as ideals by Plato in Laws

MARRIAGE & INHERITANCE	Bible	ANE	Greece/Plato
Two wives permitted	✓	✓	X*
Bride-price custom (groom paid the father of bride)	✓	✓	X
Dowry custom (bride had property from father, managed by her husband)	✓	✓	✓
State cared for widows and orphans without near kin	X	✓	✓
Bride could be won by heroic deeds (in myth and legend)	✓	X	✓
Heiresses (where there are no sons to inherit)	✓	X	✓
Levirate marriage (deceased husband’s next of kin to marry widow)	✓	X	✓
!
PERMISSIBLE SEXUAL RELATIONS (Some acts tolerated though frowned upon)	Bible	ANE	Greece/Plato
With spouse	✓	✓	✓
Husband with his concubine or servant/slave girl	✓	✓	✓
Man with prostitutes	✓	✓	✓
Man with companion (hetaira)	X	X	✓
Married woman or betrothed virgin, with husband	✓	✓	✓
Foreign women permitted to be prostitutes	✓	✓	✓
Temple prostitution	X	?	✓
!
PROHIBITED SEXUAL RELATIONS	Bible	ANE	Greece/Plato
Consensual male homosexuality	✓	X	X/✓
—- Penalty: death	✓		/X
Homosexual rape and/or seduction/rape of minors	✓	✓	✓
Bestiality	✓	✓
—- Penalty for bestiality: death	✓	X/✓^
Cross-dressing	✓	X^^	X^^
Incest and other inter-familial relations	✓	✓	✓
Prostitution of priest’s daughter, death by burning	✓
Prostitution by native free woman and men	✓	X	✓
—- Penalty for being prostitute, “cut off from people” / loss of civic rights	✓	X	✓
Adultery, meaning sex with another man’s wife	✓	✓	✓
— Caught in the act, death	✓	✓#	✓#
— Suspicion of wife, wife to undergo Trial by Ordeal	✓	✓	X
Other extra-marital sex
— If consensual with another’s betrothed virgin still living with father pending marriage	✓	✓	✓
—- Death penalty for both parties above	✓	X
— If in city (or house), and girl/married woman did not cry for help	✓	✓	✓
—- Both were stoned	✓
— If in country, assumed girl/married woman was raped	✓	✓	✓
—- and the man was executed	✓	✓
— If the girl was not betrothed,	✓	✓	✓
—- man had to pay bride price and marry her and never divorce	✓	✓	✓@
— If the betrothed virgin was a slave,	✓	✓
—- she was scourged and man had to offer trespass offering of a ram	✓	X@@
Other Penalties
—- Parent could slay a pregnant daughter whose seducer was unknown	✓		X%
—- Adulteresses subject to public shaming	✓		✓
— False accusation that bride was not a virgin – financial penalty to father	✓	✓
— True accusation that bride was not a virgin – the bride was stoned for prostituting herself in father’s house	✓

* 4i3 BCE Athenian assembly voted to allow men to have concubines for legitimate children (to compensate for war losses)

^ Hittites ruled sexual acts with some animals was capital crime; otherwise, disqualified from priesthood or palace service
^^ Transvestites had special positions in temples or religious rituals

# Husband permitted but not obligated to kill the adulterer

@ Man agreed to marry the daughter or give her a dowry
@@ Man paid financial penalty

% Father or brothers could sell the girl into prostitution

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