Created Equal Quotes

“Deuteronomy’s notion of tithes—that for two out of three years surplus is shared broadly with the disadvantaged, and in the third year is given to them outright—is sound economics when seen in light of conceptions of redistributive economics in primitive societies. In modern capitalist societies, surplus earnings are placed into savings, and insurance policies are taken out to hedge against various forms of adversity. The laws of tithing may be construed as another element in a program of primitive insurance. In a premodern society, A will give some of his surplus in a good year to B, who may have fallen on hard times in exchange for B’s commitment to reciprocate should their roles one day be reversed.”
― Joshua A. Berman, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought

“Motifs recur in independent fashion because they are universal. And when such events actually happen, people like to tell of them. Equally evident, however, are these stories’ differences across cultures. Elements are present, or are not present, or appear in varying forms. As significant as the similarities are these differences, for they are often markers of precisely what sets apart a given culture as distinct. Over against the standard forms that are shared with other cultures, these differences highlight the values of a culture in bold relief.51 This”
― Joshua A. Berman, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought

“The Sargon account is written in the first person, as is highly typical for royal narrative inscriptions, whereas the Moses account is written in third person, as is highly typical of biblical narrative. These two modes of narration evince deep ideological underpinnings. First”
― Joshua A. Berman, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought

“When economic imbalances became extreme, the lack of equilibrium and viability could threaten social and political order.”
― Joshua A. Berman, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought

“As shown in chapter 2, the Pentateuch largely rejects the monarchic principle as it was construed elsewhere, often with a religiously sanctioned central government, a professional army, and an elite class of charioteers. Instead, the biblical laws seek to advance a mode of production and an accompanying set of power relations that will build up the whole society, serving the greatest number of people, rather than a political or financial elite.31 While”
― Joshua A. Berman, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought

“A peasant—a small landowner—resides on a small plot of privately owned lands, and engages in subsistence farming.25 As his margins of profit are slim, he can go into debt for any number of reasons: personal illness, crop failure, taxation, or the monopoly of resources by the state or private elite. His first line of recourse is to procure a loan, which he can only get at high interest. The high interest renders him insolvent, so he is forced to sell or deliver family members into debt-slavery, to pay off the debt (see 2 Kgs 4:1–7; Neh 5:1–13). When this does not secure the means to pay off the debt, he has to resort to relinquishing or selling his own land (Neh 5:1–13)—his means of production—and, finally, to selling himself. Thus, he is compelled to enter the service of the state or some arrangement of feudal sharecropping for the landowning elite.26”
― Joshua A. Berman, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought

“One leitmotif in the biblical law codes is an attempt to restructure society in such a way that the exploitative role of tribute paid to a political elite is eliminated.”
― Joshua A. Berman, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought

“To understand, however, how the received form of the Bible frames and presents them, we do well to refer to the way I introduced them in chapter 1: the laws are, first and foremost, treaty stipulations. They are the conditions and mandates set down by the sovereign king YHWH for His treaty with the vassal Israel.12 As such, they are prescriptive in nature, and are meant to be binding on the members of the covenantal community. It is on the basis of the fulfillment of these stipulations that Israel the vassal will be judged by the heavenly sovereign king, just as earthly sovereigns judged their vassals on the basis of their compliance with the treaty stipulations. It may well be, additionally, that Scripture intends that judges make quasi-statutory, analogical, or referential uses of some of these laws.13 At the same time, it is clear that judges, perforce, must have also engaged a comprehensive oral law, or set of unwritten norms and social customs. The”
― Joshua A. Berman, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought

“Generally, three approaches to the law codes of the ancient Near East are adduced. Some scholars see them as idyllic collections of judicial problems and solutions. Others see them as thematic guides meant to serve judges, as juridical training texts. Yet others see them as the king’s statements of self-justification to posterity or to the gods concerning the just character of his reign.9 Whether these putative “laws” indeed served a statutory purpose or, as is more commonly accepted, were statements of juridical philosophy, we may legitimately see them as reflections of wider systems of thought and ideology. When we read a particular “law,” it does not stand on its own, available for immediate interpretation, but must be understood as just one element of the culture in which it is embedded.10 Turning”
― Joshua A. Berman, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought

“What we will see time and again is the way preexisting concepts and institutions in ancient Near Eastern culture are reworked according to a new agenda that advocates the attenuation of the socioeconomic hierarchy.”
― Joshua A. Berman, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought

“Ennoblement and empowerment, however, are not achieved in the theological or political realms alone. In this chapter, I examine how the law collections of the Pentateuch articulate a philosophy of riches with the social goal in mind of ensuring that a broad swath of the citizenry remain landed and economically secure.”
― Joshua A. Berman, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought