Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T07:20:26.873Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - What Was Jewish about Jewish Slavery in Late Antiquity?

from Part II - Slavery, Cultural Discourses, and Identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2022

Chris L. de Wet
Affiliation:
University of South Africa
Maijastina Kahlos
Affiliation:
University of Helsinki
Ville Vuolanto
Affiliation:
University of Tampere, Finland
Get access

Summary

Just like other late antique societies, Jewish society in late antique Palestine was a slaveholding society in which slavery was a common phenomenon of daily life. Even though the proportional numbers of slaves within the population would not have reached the extent of Roman mass slavery, many similarities existed between Jewish and Roman slave practices and attitudes towards slaves. At the same time, we must ask whether Jews, who were subjugated to Roman and Byzantine Christian imperial rule and considered the Torah their most authoritative moral guide, developed different perspectives on slavery and treated slaves differently than non-Jewish Romans, whether pagan or Christian, in late antiquity. Was there something specifically Jewish about Jewish slaveholding practices in late antiquity? Did Jews, who commemorated the Exodus from Egyptian slavery in the annual Passover holiday and who were seen as a ‘servile’ people by Roman rulers, develop alternative approaches to slavery?

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×