文档介绍：LAND AND ECONOMIC LIFE IN JEWISH SOCIETY
IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL DURING THE PERSIAN, HELLENISTIC,
AND ROMAN PERIOD <538 BCE ­ 135 CE)
JACK PASTOR
Abstract■
This dissertation examines the role of land in Jewish
society, economy, and politics, throughout the entire period of
the Second i ly, we attempt­ to determine who owned
land, and how he came to own it. We delve into the various
r amif i cat i ons of landowner ship in anc i ent soc i ety in an effort to
ascertain how 1 andowner sh ip affected livelihoods, government
policies and revenue. A special focus is placed on debt and
famine as social and econom ic problems having ties to the
landholding structure. Similarly, we pursue the evidence of
economic and social unrest in Jewish society in order to
determine the affect of 1 andownersh ip relations on these
situations.
Based on previous stud i es of the ancient economy , we
assume that the land was the pre­eminent factor of production,
and the major source of wea 1 t­h . Similarly we accept the view that
social and economic problems should be examined by scrutinizing
long periods of history. Therefore, the 1 andowner sh ip structure
V
of Jewish society is surveyedchr ono 1og i ca 1 1 y in an effort­ to
attain the long duree view of the problem.
The first chapter presents basic information on the
subsistence aspects of the economy and the society in an effort
to better understand the crucial role of land as the major source
of food. Related problems such as diet, the size of plots, and
the size and growth of the population are examined in light of
the demands these make on the land base of the economy.
We begin our survey with the Persian period. This era
provides evidence of a landowner ship crisis in the days of
Nehemiah. The biblical sources for this crisis are examined in
1 ight of simi lar problems in the ancient Near East­ , and in
Ancient Greece. Much of the landholding pattern fami1iar to us
from the H