Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World

Prostitution in the Social World and the Religious Rhetoric of Ancient Israel

Prostitution in the Social World and Religious Rhetoric of Ancient Israel phyllis a. bird Sources and History of Interpretation Any attempt to speak of prostitution in ancient Israel must reckon first with the literary sources that provide our sole means of access to the institution . All information about practices, incidence, and attitudes toward the practitioners must be drawn from a literature that contains a particular, theological employment of the language of prostitution and a history of interpretation that identified it with pagan religious practice . The legacy of this peculiar literary tradition reaches far beyond the field of biblical studies owing to the Bible’s role in western culture as a common text and primary source for the religion and culture of the ancient Mediterranean world. While the rediscovery of classical sources and the recovery of still more ancient documents from Mesopotamia, Syria, Anatolia, and Egypt brought new data for the study of ancient Near Eastern and Israelite society, old presuppositions persisted, influencing new interpretive constructs. This may be seen, for example, in the concept of “sacred” or “cultic” prostitution, which has become a given in interpretations of “Canaanite” and ancient “oriental” religions. 40 The Hebrew Bible (hereafter HB), or Christian Old Testament, is a collection of texts of different types, purposes, and perspectives, whose composition may span as much as a thousand years (older consensus) or as little as two to three centuries. Current debate concerning the period and nature of the writings makes historical reconstruction difficult, but certain general characteristics hold for any period. I shall assume that while the final shaping of all of the texts, and the composition of many, must be placed in the postexilic period (fifth to fourth centuries BCE) and understood as a response to the crisis of identity created by the destruction of the temple, state, and monarchy, much of the content of the books describing preexilic conditions stems from traditions and documents formed during the monarchy. Nevertheless, the form of the text that we have received is far removed from the time of the narrated events or actions, and all of the records are secondhand. Moreover, despite their diversity, all of the texts must be understood as maleauthored and addressed primarily to males. Thus in all matters of sexual relations it is a male point of view that is expressed in the texts. In addition, the collection, and most of the individual compositions, must also be understood as the work of religious elites and created, selected, and preserved through a process that came to accord divine authority, and even authorship, to the texts. Religious purpose and particular theological interests exercised a significant role in the shaping and reception of the texts, as well as in later interpretation. Despite these limiting and distorting factors, however, it is still possible to recognize the prostitute as an identifiable “type” already in the earliest sources, a type that appears to have much in common with what we know about prostitutes in surrounding cultures and with the way they are represented in comparative literature. Terminology The terminology used to designate the prostitute in the HB provides important clues to Israel’s understanding of the practice/profession. Extensive metaphorical or figurative use, however, has generated confusion in the secondary literature. This confusion has been further complicated by three passages in which the term for “prostitute” appears in parallelism or interchange with a term for a religious devotee (“qede- †sah,” “consecrated woman”). This essay concentrates on the primary usage, which is clear and separable from the special uses. The metaphorical uses and the juxtaposition with the cultic term involve Prostitution in Ancient Israel 41 complex textual and socio-religious considerations, which cannot be treated adequately here.1 Nevertheless, I offer an introduction to this secondary usage in order to illustrate some of the interpretive issues it raises. The common term for a prostitute, and the only term generally recognized , is a feminine participle “zonah” of the verb “zanah,” whose basic meaning is “to engage in extramarital sexual relations.” Standard Hebrew lexicons give the following definitions for the verb in its simple (Qal) stem: “commit fornication” (BDB); “sich mit einem anderen Mann einlassen, buhlen” (HAL).2 As a general term for nonmarital sexual intercourse, the verb “zanah” is normally used only with female subjects , since it is only for women that marriage is the primary determinant of legal status and obligation. While...