Shawn W. Flynn. Children in Ancient Israel: The Hebrew Bible and Mesopotamia in Comparative Perspective. Oxford University Press, 2018.
In the last few decades, the field of Biblical Studies has seen a growing interest in different forms of local and family religion, reflected both in biblical and archaeological evidence. Recent studies on the legal, social, and religious status of children are part of this development. Reconstructing the voices and lived realities of children and, indeed, other groups largely overlooked by biblical writers requires scholars to utilize different strategies in interpreting the extant evidence. In fact, in Chapter One of his study on Israelite children, Shawn W. Flynn outlines some methodological problems in the study of children in the ancient world: “There is a paucity of information about Israelite children; texts that contain children are not particularly about children; and texts about children do not include the child’s perspective” (p. 1). As Flynn goes on to demonstrate in his book, in order to recover these voices from the Hebrew Bible, scholars must consider what these texts take for granted about children, including their perceived value in different contexts, and to what extent comparative material may illuminate shared cultural principles concerning children. Flynn’s study is most helpful when it emphasizes the contextual value of children—for instance, how a biblical text might leverage the broadly recognized value of a child (e.g. Isaac in Gen 22) in order to heighten the drama or emphasize the theological point of a particular text.
Chapter Two of the study focuses on the so-called “pre-born child” in cuneiform evidence, which seems like a circumlocution for “fetus” until it becomes clear that this terminology reflects a central argument of the chapter: there is little distinction between the value of the “pre-born child” and the child or infant.[1] Here, however, we see some problems with selective use of comparative examples: the cuneiform evidence is incomplete. While Flynn notes the use of the Akkadian term ṣeḫru referring to both the “pre-born child” and the “child,” which he takes as evidence for a lack of distinction between them, his analysis largely excludes other terms, such as kūbu (sometimes translated “fetus”),[2] that suggest more complex notions about human developmental stages in different genres of cuneiform evidence.
This treatment of the cuneiform evidence is particularly problematic when Flynn uses it to fill in the gaps of the biblical evidence for the “pre-born child.” For instance, the study argues that Jer 1:1-4 and Ps 138:13-15 also reflect this notion of the “pre-born child”: “The absence of similar texts in the HB does not mean the Israelites typically did not envision YHWH’s involvement in the pre-born stage or that it is not a valid stage in a child’s life in the Israelite perception” (p. 46). While cuneiform and biblical texts share many underlying cultural principles, it is not clear that the idea of the “pre-born child”—that arguably appears in some cuneiform texts— can help fill in gaps in our understanding of biblical texts that come from different times and cultural contexts. Indeed, the Jeremiah example is particularly problematic due to the prophet’s privileged access to Yahweh, a difficulty Flynn recognizes in the chapter, arguing that Jeremiah’s privileged status is marked by Yahweh’s involvement with Jeremiah pre-conception, not in the womb (p. 48). Yet, this emphasis on the prophet’s longstanding relationship with the deity, even in his youth, is a trope that appears in other books (e.g., 1 Sam 1:24; Ezek 4:14), which suggests that Jer 1:1-4 is a variation of that trope rather than evidence of a widespread view of human development among Israelites. Another consideration that bears mentioning in this discussion is the retrospective value of children in these texts, meaning that both Jer 1:1-4 and Ps 138:13-15 are reflections on adult Yahweh-worshippers’ earlier existence in the womb. The fact that such an existence is (1) recognized and (2) deemed valuable relies on the survival of that Yahweh-worshipper into adulthood or, at least, a later stage of verbal development and cultic participation. This perspective would likely influence how children are valued in biblical texts, but this context is not discussed in the book.
Chapter Three examines the status of children in times of transition, focusing on breastfeeding, scribal training, adoption, and slavery. Flynn’s analysis of Exod 1:15-2:10 is particularly useful in highlighting the social and ritual resonances of breastfeeding in the Hebrew Bible, and the chapter cogently argues that such biblical texts use that language of breastfeeding and adoption to establish networks of affiliation.[3] However, the framing of Flynn’s argument regarding sale adoptions and slavery raises some interpretative issues: “At times we must simply acknowledge that societal systems and structures, despite the efforts of ancient societies, were used purely for economic gain” (p. 81, emphasis mine). This wording implies a commitment to the idea that ancient societies are fundamentally ethical by modern standards, striving to acknowledge the multi-faceted value of human beings. This view of ancient societies, however, requires a selective reading of the extant evidence, one that privileges texts that evaluate children in positive ways.
In another section, Flynn seems to minimize the prevalence of child exposure or abandonment: “We know that abandonment is primarily a legal (or even narrative—as in Exodus) pre-cursor to an adoption. I know of no examples where a child is simply abandoned without a response, whether in contracts or in myth. If they exist, they are not the norm” (p. 106). In this case, it is unclear if Flynn is making an argument about tropes in ancient literature or actual practice. If the former, Flynn rightly highlights a trope that dramatically marks the child’s imminent change in status. But social, economic, or cultic value does not exist in a vacuum but rather depends upon the recognition of that value by others. It should not surprise us that relatively few (if any) texts detail the practice of child exposure or abandonment, since it is less likely to be recorded and preserved. These exposed children would be “children” by modern scholars’ standards, but they may not have been valued as such by those who abandoned them. Conversely, the legal, medical, and mythological texts that survive to the present presume the social relationships between children and others. This is to say that our extant evidence is necessarily skewed toward the positive value of children, and a necessary next step in the study of family religion is to consider how this happened, how it shaped the history of scholarship, and how it continues to influence our understanding of ancient practice.
Chapter Four provides helpful context for analyzing biblical depictions of violence against children. Flynn argues that the perceived value of children gives biblical depictions of violence against them more rhetorical force. As noted above, a classic illustration is Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac in Genesis 22. Flynn takes this argument and applies it more broadly throughout the Hebrew Bible and depictions of violence against children. One surprising omission in Flynn’s section on “Children in War,” however, is the concept of ḥērem, which in many cases entails the extermination of children along with adults and, sometimes, livestock. It is difficult to argue that this treatment of children in the biblical text reflects their value as Flynn articulates it in his study and, thus, would be a useful counter-example in this section.
Throughout Flynn’s study, he refers to the “domestic-cultic value” of children in ancient Mesopotamia and Israel. In fact, an overarching argument in the book is that these ancient cultures recognize not only the economic value of children but also this religious value. This is a necessary intervention in the academic discourse about children and their value in the ancient world, which would presumably have taken into consideration economic, social, and religious factors. In Chapter Five, Flynn parses out this “domestic-cultic value” and provides this necessary context by surveying some of the aspects of family and household religion in ancient Israel and the roles children play in that religious sphere. As Flynn and others have noted, the value of children (both young and adult) is partly derived from their ritual roles as caregivers and memory-bearers for their parents in life and death (p. 178).
Ultimately, this study of children in ancient Israel examines not only the role of children in family religion but also Yahwistic ideology in the Hebrew Bible, particularly texts that cast Israel in the role of “child” to its divine parent, Yahweh. Many previous studies have examined the marriage metaphor in biblical depictions of covenant, often drawing parallels between ancient West Asian marriage contracts. Yet, as Flynn notes in his study, the child-deity relationship is also prevalent throughout the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Ezek 16), which necessitates more attention to the social and religious roles of children in ancient Israel. Indeed, this study contributes to a growing consensus in the field of Israelite Religion that family religion is inextricably linked to the Yahwism professed by biblical writers.
Kerry M. Sonia received an A.B. in Religious Studies from Brown University (2007), an M.T.S. in Hebrew Bible from Harvard Divinity School (2009), and a Ph.D. in Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean from Brown University (2017). She specializes in Hebrew Bible and Israelite religion, and her work seeks to situate the religious ideologies and practices of the biblical text in their ancient Near Eastern context. Her first book, Caring for the Dead in Ancient Israel (forthcoming with SBL Press), examines the cult of dead kin in the context of Israelite family religion as well as the relationship between this cult and the Jerusalem temple. Her current project focuses on the social and ritual dimensions of childbirth in ancient Israel.
[1] On cuneiform evidence describing the “attention, care, and concern” for the LÚ.TUR or ṣeḫru in the womb, Flynn states: “There does not seem to be any disconnect between the earliest stages after conception and how the child is perceived upon birth” (p. 26-27).
[2] CAD K sub kūbu 487-88.
[3] Another recent study that examines kinship through breastfeeding in the Hebrew Bible is Cynthia R. Chapman, The House of the Mother: The Social Roles of Maternal Kin in Biblical Hebrew Narrative and Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), esp. 125-49.