Jack Pastor; Routledge; New York and London; 1997
by James A. Bacon
Students of Second Temple Judaism have long been struck by the extreme stratification of Palestinian society. Observers of the Herodian era, in particular, have remarked upon the plethora of taxes, tithes, custom duties, rents, debt and other obligations that weighed upon the poor. Invariably, scholars have attempted to explain the spasms of unrest under Herodian and Roman rule by pointing to deteriorating economic conditions. The chain of causation typically goes something like this: As the rulers increased the burdens upon their subjects, independent landowners borrowed money to meet their obligations. Debt led to foreclosure, swelling the ranks of the dispossessed. Landless tenants and day laborers swelled the ranks of social bandits, Zealots and anyone else bent upon challenging the established order.
This mantra is repeated so frequently that Jack Pastor’s work, Land and Economy in Ancient Palestine, comes as a necessary corrective. Pastor traces the evolution of land-holding patterns from the origins of the Second Temple under Nehemiah to the Bar Kokhba revolt against Rome. Frequently, he concludes, the evidence is too scanty or too ambiguous to make the kind of sweeping generalities of which many scholars are so fond. Some readers may find Pastor’s reading of the sources to be unadventurous. Indeed, anyone looking for grand, overarching theories will not find them here. But Pastor does provide a useful framework for examining land tenure in ancient Palestine. And readers looking for novel interpretations may find his spirited defense of Herod the Great’s economic policies to be especially incisive.
Pastor contends that land-holding system put into place by the Ptolemies persisted throughout the Second Temple era. Successive regimes — Seleucids, Hasmonaeans, Herodians and Romans — accepted the premise of the Hellenistic monarchies that all land belonged to the king. The monarch could either hold land directly and reap the revenue from it, or he could dispense it as a reward to his followers and tax it. The monarch could repossess land at any time, and title theoretically reverted to the king upon the retainer’s death. There were only two important exceptions to this pattern. First, cities founded as a Greek-style polis acquired rights over surrounding territory. Secondly, colonies settled by a king’s soldiers tended to retain their rights in perpetuity.
To students of the historical Jesus, Pastor’s observations about landholding patterns under Herod the Great, Herod Antipas and the Roman prefects are of particular interest. Despite Herod’s abysmal reputation, Pastor contends, his Jewish subjects benefited immensely from his rule. There is no evidence that Herod engorged his personal domains beyond what previous kings had claimed for themselves. Although he stripped Hasmonaean aristocrats of their lands, which he used to reward his own friends and retainers, the object of his depredations were large landholders, not the peasantry.
The Jews prospered under Herod. His massive building projects employed thousands of laborers and craftsmen. Trade increased. Pottery manufacturing expanded. Jews moved into gentile cities and settled what had been gentile lands. Belying his reputation for callousness and brutality, Herod depleted his treasury during a major famine to purchase grain from Egypt and distribute it to his starving people. Historians should look to non-economic causes, says Pastor, to explain the revolts that broke out after Herod’s death.
Pastor does find evidence that the policies of Archelaus, Herod’s successor in Judaea and Samaria, pursued policies that augmented his wealth at the expense of the people. But it is worth noting that he was removed not by a popular uprising but by a delegation of disaffected aristocrats to Rome. His brother, Herod Antipas, pursued policies in Galilee reminiscent of his father’s — and there is no evidence of serious unrest or public dissatisfaction in his domains.
No historian can discuss the connection between socio-economic conditions and social unrest without tackling one of the biggest issues of Second Temple historiography: the causes of the Great Revolt. The economic situation in Judaea was deteriorating in mid-century, says Pastor, but the cause wasn’t a change in landholding patterns. Following the interpretation of Flavius Josephus nearly 2,000 years ago, Pastor contends that the economic crisis resulted from the extortionate demands of a series of corrupt Roman governors.
Pastor does briefly examine the role of money lending and the dynamics of debt in the Herodian era, but he draws no strong conclusions. He cripples his inquiry into the topic by ignoring the Talmudic commentaries about interest and debt forgiveness on the grounds that they are too difficult to date. Yet the evolution of legal rulings during the Herodian era regarding money lending — especially the logical contortions employed to circumvent the prohibition against interest and the forgiveness of debts — are critical to understanding landholding dynamics.
In sum, Land and Economy in Ancient Palestine exhibits sober, solid scholarship that weighs many perspectives, but Pastor does not propel the reader with big themes or passionate argument. Those disposed to agree with him will find some novel interpretations: The analysis of Herod’s famine policy is a gem. Those committed to economic-determinist views of history are unlikely to change their minds or, for that matter, even feel compelled to respond. Pastor produced a useful monograph with many small insights, but not a work that will change the course of debate.
— June 2000