Albertz on Economics, the Covenant Code, Anti-Syncretism, and Deuteronomic Reform

I'm continuing my way through Volume 1 of Rainer Albertz's A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period. In this post, I want to regurgitate some of what Albertz says about the economic stratification of eighth century Israel as well as the Covenant Code. I also will talk some about Albertz's ideas on anti-syncretism in ancient Israelite religion, and the Deuteronomic reform movement.

1. Albertz talks about the economic stratification of eighth century Israel on pages 159-160. I don't understand economics that well, so some of what Albertz was saying was unclear to me, but I'll try to summarize. The existence of the monarchy led to the "creation of large estates, from the crown downwards", and "A prosperous stratum of large landowners, officials, military and merchants had set themselves above the traditional small farmers intent only on self-sufficiency (Micah 3.1-9; Isa. 1.23; 3.12.14), and far outstripped them with market orientated surplus production." Many small farmers---"perhaps because of the population growth and the ongoing division of their businesses as they were handed down from generation to generation---were forced to the brink by the tougher economic conditions." Albertz continues to say the small farmers "were less and less in a position to cope with the normal risks of agricultural production from their own resources, and it became increasingly difficult for them to bear the usual burdens of state taxation and forced labour; they were compelled more and more frequently to resort to loans in order to get by." And where did they get the loans? From the upper classes, who weren't always nice people, interested in the good of their fellow human beings.

I guess where I'm stumped is at the part about the small farmers being interested only in self-sufficiency. I can understand if the problem was that the small farmers were selling their crops, and they were outproduced by big farmers, and so the small farmers were losing business. But if they were subsistence farmers, why would it matter that there were big farmers? The small farmers would just go about their business, growing their own food---for themselves. But maybe the problem was that there was risk in that: suppose that the small farmers had a bad year agriculturally? Maybe they would need resources from economic transactions in order to weather that kind of storm. I don't know. But, in any case, taxes and forced state labor did not help: it took from the small farmers the resources that they needed to support themselves, as well as time to grow crops. The small farmers then had to rely on loans from the upper classes to get by, and, because they were already limited in their earning capacity, they had difficulty paying back their creditors, who could then take away their homes, or their fields, or their millstone for making bread, or them and their family as slaves. Eighth century Israel was witnessing the creation of a permanent underclass. And there were prophets, such as Amos, who were condemning this state of affairs.

Well, Northern Israel fell in 722 B.C.E., and, according to Albertz, a Hosea group came South and influenced Judah to reflect on what the North did wrong, and how Judah could avoid a similar cataclysm. This led to the reform of Hezekiah, which sought to purge syncretism from Judahite religion. Albertz states on on pages 180-181 that there is archaeological evidence for Hezekiah's reform, for the Yahweh sanctuary at Arad was "demonstrably put out of action" in the late eighth century. According to Albertz, in the midst of a concern about syncretism and social injustice in eighth century Judah, there emerged the Covenant Code (Exodus 20:23-23:19), which reflects the economic problems of the eighth century, for it mentions poor people and is concerned about debt slavery and usury. It also pays special attention to the alien, which would make sense after the fall of Northern Israel, when many refugees fled to the South. And the Covenant Code reflects views of the Hosea group: aniconism, a belief that "legitimate sacrificial worship can only be carried out at such places which have officially been declared cultic places of Yahweh", a concern about "sexual obscenities in cultic practice", and a commitment to the sole worship of Yahweh (page 184).

According to Albertz, Deuteronomy carried forward these concerns to another level. It not only limited worship to "official cultic places of Yahweh," but it consigned it to one central sanctuary. Deuteronomy also sought to curb abuses by creditors and slaveholders, beyond the laws of the Covenant Code. For example, whereas the Covenant Code merely commanded the release of male slaves after six years (Exodus 21:2-6), Deuteronomy 15:13ff. required masters to pay their freed slaves some initial capital, so that the slaves did not have to become a part of a permanent underclass.

2. I guess that the question that swam through my mind as I read Albertz was this: Why did there develop in ancient Israelite religion an opposition to syncretism? I can understand the view of scholars that this sort of belief emerged in exile, when Israel was afraid of assimilation and thus sought to rigidly separate herself from other people-groups. That would be an appropriate context for the development of an anti-syncretistic attitude. But Albertz does not go this route. He thinks that anti-syncretism in ancient Israelite religion developed before Israel's exile---even as he acknowledges that such an attitude enabled her to survive in exile.

My impression is that, for Albertz, there was an anti-syncretistic trend in pre-exilic Israel because of what took place at Sinai: in reaction against the polytheistic, oppressive society of Egypt, from which she came, the Exodus group in the wilderness committed herself to only one God and embraced democratic values, and she contributed those beliefs to the "Israel" group in the land of Canaan. And so, based upon old Israelite traditions, there was an opposition to monarchies in Israel that absorbed foreign ideas---ideas that advocated the worship of other gods in addition to Yahweh, or that treated the state as a representative of God, or that led to the oppression of Israelites. Maybe part of the issue was also that there were Israelites who did not like Syria and Assyria, which were oppressive of Israel, and so they resented Israelite elites copying these nations' customs. (I don't remember if Albertz makes this point, but, if he didn't, he should have!)

I doubt that Albertz believes that there was an uncontaminated Yahwism that went back to Sinai, for, on page 173, he notes that Hosea was criticizing as Baal worship things that had been a part of Yahwism for centuries: high places, massebot, oracular trees, divine images, the bull at Bethel, plum cakes, etc. Abraham and Jacob established sanctuaries. Moses set up twelves matzevot in Exodus 24:4. In Joshua 24:26, Joshua sets up an oak and a stone right by the sanctuary of the LORD. Moreover, Albertz talks at length about family cults, which the patriarchs had: a god protected their family, their worship was local, etc. And, although Albertz sympathizes with elements of the Deuteronomic reform, my impression is that he doesn't particularly care for its attempts to stifle family cults.

But I think that Albertz's point is that the roots of anti-syncretism go back to the Exodus community at Sinai, even though that anti-syncretism may have manifested itself in different ways throughout Israel's history. Some forms tolerated certain absorptions of foreign customs, whereas others were rabidly against them. Hosea's problem, for example, was that the Israelite cult's iconism resulted in an attempt to magically manipulate the divine, and thus bypass morality.

3. I'd now like to summarize Albertz's views on the Deuteronomic reform movement, which he places in the seventh century B.C.E. Assyria had just weakened, and there was an opportunity for the nation to unite, without being stressed out a great deal by the threat of foreign invasion. According to Albertz, the Deuteronomic reform movement consisted of a variety of groups. There was the am ha-aretz, a group of landowners who didn't care for the "destructive upper class of the capital" and sought to "prevent struggles for power between rival court parties of the kind that had shattered the northern kingdom in its last years" (page 201). They also supported a limited monarchy. There were the Jerusalem priests, who liked the Deuteronomic idea of all of the sacrifices going to Jerusalem; the Davidic monarchy too had long been an advocate for the importance of Zion, which the Deuteronomic reform movement was acknowledging. There were prophets, who condemned syncretism and injustice. And there were people fleeing from the North, who brought with them some of their Northern (or, more accurately, Hosean) ideas about limited monarchy, devotion to one God, and anti-syncretism. The Deuteronomic reform movement was an attempt to unite all of these groups, and it succeeded---at least temporarily---because of the influential people supporting it.

But, according to Albertz, Josiah's untimely death, his successor's disregard of the am ha-aretz's wishes when he submitted himself to Egypt, the aristocracy's resumption of the oppressive practices that had long worked well for them, and the priests' emphasis on the "Zion" part of the Deuteronomic reform to the exclusion of its other elements (i.e., righteousness) led to the fragmentation and the collapse of the Deuteronomic reform movement.