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The Body as Property

Physical Disfigurement in Biblical Law [Hardback]

by Sandra Jacobs

Author
Sandra Jacobs
Book Format
Hardback
Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published
April 2014

Bloomsbury

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The Body as Property

Today's Price £135.31

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Product Description

The Body As Property indicates that physical disfigurement functioned in biblical law to verify legal property acquisition, when changes in the status of dependants were formalized. It is based on the reality the cuneiform script, in particular, was developed in Sumer and Mesopotamia for the purpose of record keeping: to provide legal proof of ownership where the inscription of a tablet evidenced the sale, or transfer, of property. Legitimate property acquisition was as important in biblical law, where physical disfigurements marked dependants, in a similar way that the veil or the head covering identified a wife or concubine in ancient Assyrian and Judean societies. This is primarily substantiated in the accounts of prescriptive disfigurements: namely circumcision and the piercing of a slave's ear, both of which were required only when a son, or slave, was acquired permanently. It is further argued that legal entitlement was relevant also to the punitive disfigurements recorded in Exodus 21:22-24, and Deuteronomy 25:11-12, where the physical violation of women was of concern solely as an infringement of male property rights.