DCHindley wrote: ↑Sat Feb 03, 2018 1:37 pm
I've downloaded the article but must read it later.
A while back, in the Crosstalk2 days, I compiled a post on Roman and Jewish taxation policy in general. It was based on, or at least informed by, Fabian Idoh's PhD thesis that was later expanded into his book on Roman taxation policy.
Let me take a look again.
I guess it was drawn primarily on info I culled from the revised English Translation of Schürer's
History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (1980s, but I thought pretty good).
Other info was drawn from Fabian Udoh's 1996 Duke University PhD dissertation
Tribute & Taxes in Early Roman Palestine (63 BCE-70 CE): The Evidence from Josephus
Udoh, who went on to teach at the University of Notre Dame in S. Bend, Indiana, USA, has broken from Notre Dame due to a dispute over withheld tenure, and I believe he is currently at McGill in Canada for close to 10 years now. I wrote a review of the dissertation (that was all I had at the time, the book still being in "forthcoming" status and no one knew when it would actually be published) in Feb 2003 and asked for his input, but I think I was sending e-mail to his Notre Dame e-mail but after he had quit, so I doubt he ever read it, much less responded. The review is posted on Crosstalk2
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/cro ... ages/12723 *
It was finally published, apparently much as the dissertation was written, in 2005 as
To Caesar What Is Caesar’s: Tribute, Taxes, and Imperial Administration in Early Roman Palestine 63 B.C.E.–70 C.E.. I found a free copy of the book available online (you'll have to search for it) so it is available to just about anybody, hopefully with Udoh's blessing. I'll have to read through it (I never really read the book, only the dissertation) to pull out what he has to say about the temple tax pericope.
DCH
* For those who can no longer stand the Yahoo Groups web interface, here is the review in full in all its naiveté:
I chanced across a 2001 reference to a "forthcoming" book by
Fabian Eugene Udoh Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Program of Liberal Studies,
Notre Dame University, on Roman taxation of Palestine. After some research,
I did not find the book had reached the stage of publication, but I did find
that it would probably be based on Udoh's doctoral dissertation, _Tribute
and Taxes in Early Roman Palestine (63 BCE - 70 CE): The Evidence from
Josephus_, earned Dec. 9th, 1996 at Duke University under supervision of E.
P. Sanders. The review committee included Eric M. Meyers, Dwight Moody
Smith, Dale B. Martin and John F. Oates. The microfilmed master copy is
archived by Bell & Howell's UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, MI, (1997)
and if you look real hard you may find a bound facsimile copy in a
university library (I found the only copy in academic libraries in the state
of Ohio, USA, at Ohio State University, dated 2000).
Having previously mulled over the socio-economic assumptions of Gerd
Theissen as they related to interpretation of the _Didache_ (_Sociology of
Early Palestinian Christianity_, 1978, and _Social Reality and the Early
Christians_, 1992), and Richard Horsley's passionate rebuttal of Theissen's
initial position (_Sociology and the Jesus Movement_, 1989), I had more than
idle curiosity about the subject.
Over the past couple of years I had read and summarized the information
scattered about vol. 1 of Emil Schurer's revised _Jewish People_ (1973),
which was posted here a little while ago, as well as Jack Pastor's _Land and
Economy in Ancient Palestine_ (1997), and David A. Fiensy's _The Social
History of Palestine in the Herodian Period: The Land is Mine_ (1991). Nikos
Kokkinos' _Herodian Dynasty_ is still on my "to-do" list, although he has
told me privately that it does not contain a lot of specific economic
information. In addition I had read an interesting essay entitled "The
Socio-Economic Background of Christianity in Egypt" in _The Roots of
Egyptian Christianity_, Birger A. Pearson & James E. Goehring eds., (1986).
All these sources of information were fascinating, but all had obvious
shortcomings which left the impression in my mind that things were being
assumed without sufficient investigation, and several loose ends were left
dangling.
As a result I was a bit apprehensive when I began reading Udoh's
dissertation, fearing more of the same. To my happy surprise, I found a
really well researched and well presented work on the subject. Udoh comes
to some conclusions that contradict the consensus about such things as the
nature of the direct taxes demanded of Judaeans and Galileans by the Romans
(favoring in-kind agricultural and tolls without a poll tax, a position I
had not personally encountered before), and the degree of taxation Herod's
subjects were subjected to (not nearly as bad as Josephus claims or as
assumed by most modern commentators, but confirming the opinions of Pastor
and Fiensy).
Through careful analysis of the various source passages that serve as our
evidence, Udoh systematically uncovers flaws in the assumptions of others
while stressing evidence that is often passed over too quickly (such as the
fact that Josephus only speaks of "registration" in the time of Quirinius,
meaning strictly a property registration, but not specifically mentioning
any poll tax). I was quite surprised to learn that the existence of poll
taxes in Judaea after 6 CE is based entirely on conjecture through analogy
to practices known from other parts of the Roman empire (or even Seleucid
tax policies), and not on direct evidence. Schurer, for instance, proceeded
as if the existence of a direct poll tax was a given.
Udoh is critical of these kind of broad generalizations based on practices
in Egypt, Asia and Syria, arguing that the Roman tax system was a patchwork
of policies combining elements of poll, property, agricultural, tolls and
sales taxes, with even the arbitrary appropriation of large sums at times,
and dictated by the demands and limitations of time and place. This general
subject was already of interest to me from my reading of James C. Scott's
books (_Weapons of the Weak_, 1985, _Domination and the Arts of Resistance_,
1990, and especially _The Moral Economy of the Peasant_, 1976). Scott had
illustrated the many and various methods by which landlords and governments
can extract rents and taxes from tenant farmers and townsfolk, with each
method having its advantages and disadvantages, depending on which end of
the tax or rent relationship you sit.
Udoh intentionally did not attempt to make use of modern socio-economic
theory in his dissertation, preferring to limit his inquiry to direct
sources of the period and place under inquiry. While he certainly seems to
be aware of the variety of taxation techniques available to ancient
governments, I felt he could have gone into more detail about their
practical effect upon the population, similar to the way he does when it
comes to their effect on a government's ability to collect or administer
revenues. I have seen, for instance, cases where historical accounts of
cities taking all grain supplies from the city's peasant farmers during
periods of famine, are taken as "proof" of the increasingly oppressive
nature of Roman era government (e.g., G. E. M. de Ste. Croix in _The Class
Struggle in the Ancient Greek World_, 1981, or J. Dominic Crossan in _Birth
of Christianity_, 1998), when it could *also* just as easily have been
explained as the "negative" side of a lease plan that stipulated a flat rent
per "acre" based upon average yields, which would have been to the peasants'
decided *advantage* in years of good harvests.
Udoh also touches upon the effect of Jewish tithing practices, concluding
that they did not amount to "double taxation." Here he is in debt to the
work of E. P. Sanders, another author whose books I have been acquiring for
several years. I would have liked to see more attention directed to the form
of the Jewish government. I got the impression that Udoh assumed that it
took a form resembling a "temple state," which I know from other reading is
a minority opinion. It seems to me that there are some far reaching
implications of whether such an assumption is factual or not.
This dissertation is, for an amateur sleuth like me, a "keeper." I also
think it has substantial value for the professional scholar as well!