The Catholic Biblical Quarterly

In The Economy of Deuteronomy’s Core, Philippe Guillaume attempts to quantify the economic systems reported in the core of the Book of Deuteronomy, identified as chaps. [End Page 374] 12–26. Although G. views the economic details of the book as late and utopian, he argues that investigating “the utopia can profitably contribute to our understanding of ordinary economic practices because the gap between what was factually the case and the proposed new reality cannot be too wide” (p. 4).

In chap. 1, G. offers the specifics of economic exchange in the expenses and incomes of a citizen of Deuteronomic Israel and, in chap. 2, delineates the economic actors thought to inhabit this system, specifying eleven distinct “economic agents” made up in part by fourteen different categories of “brother.” G. identifies this economy as redistributive and guild-based, defining the ʾāḥ ( , “brother”) of Deuteronomy as a member of the influential “economic and financial brotherhood” associated with the “qehal-Yhwh” (the community of Yhwh) much like a “biblical Rotary Club” (pp. 59, 129, 140). G. lingers over the mandate in Deut 23:2–9 that third-generation Edomites and Egyptians be welcome in the qāhāl (“community”)—a pericope he believes is the key to understanding the nature of the qāhāl as a nonreligious guild (p. 76). In chap. 3, Guillaume introduces his three economic institutions: “your gates, the maqom, the qehal-YHWH” (p. 110). In his reconstruction, the māqôm ( , the place of festal gatherings) moves annually to offer equal economic advantage to all (p. 121). Here Guillaume hypothesizes that an annual, unnamed tithe festival is celebrated—involving the entire bêt ʾāb ( , literally, “house of father”), who consume the entire tithe lipnê Yhwh ( , “before Yhwh”). Guillaume further argues that the three pilgrim feasts familiar to the larger Torah are compulsory (and therefore not joyful), male-only gatherings—this because the presence of women might encourage Baal-like orgies.

In part 2, G. deals with the allocation of the tithe in Deuteronomy, claiming that the noncritical synthesis of chaps. 12, 14, 16, and 18 has silenced the unique contribution of chap. 14. According to G., only in chap. 14 is his unnamed, annual tithe festival visible—a festival to which the Levites are not invited. Moreover, chap. 14 alone alerts us that the Levites receive no portion of the citizens’ annual tithe but are fully supported by the triennial tithe stored in the villages. Thus, G. reads Deuteronomy as a text “torn between two irreconcilable views regarding religious personnel”—Levites confined to the villages with the gēr ( ), widow, and orphan (chap. 14); and Levites as elitist religious personnel (chaps. 12, 16, and 18; cf. p. 128). He then concludes that scholarship has failed to recognize the unique contribution of Deut 14:22–29 due to refusal to distinguish its tithing laws from those of the rest of Deuteronomy’s core, and because scholars are “preconditioned to conceive that tithes belong to priests” (p. 174).

Although exploring the relationship between the economies of the ancient Levant and the biblical text is a timely and important endeavor, the significant lacunae in The Economy of Deuteronomy’s Core as regards economic method, research, and citation undermine its thesis. In part 1, the economic data upon which G. builds his argument are uncited and suspect. Indeed, he states in his introduction that he believes such data are unavailable (p. 6), but he forges ahead all the same. As any use of numbers or estimations in the reconstruction of ancient economic systems must speak directly to the sources and models utilized to obtain those numbers, and as such an academic inquiry demands thorough citation, G.’s failure on these fronts renders his argument almost nonsensical. Taking table 1.1 as an example, G. claims to be communicating a “Summary of Levies and Incidental Costs in Deuteronomy” (p. 31). Here he offers specific income and loss percentages regarding “price fluctuations,” “remitted debts,” “meat cuts,” and so on. But there are no numbers...