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
.
Neil Godfrey
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