andrewcriddle

In order to regrd the tribe of Levi tribe of David etc as castes in the anthropological sense, I think it would be necessary for marriage to be restricted to people who are both of the same tribe.

Now there were limits on marriage outside of the tribe (eg Numbers 36 prohibits heiresses from marrying outside their tribe) but there was no general ban, so I don't think the tribes can be said to have functioned as castes in the true sense. They are not examples of endogamy

Andrew Criddle

Clivedurdle

Not quite on topic, but this is an example of how to do anthropology, it would be very interesting to do similar studies with respect to xianity, Islam and Judaism, but two of those tend to be sociology!

Cinema and religion in India

Dharma

although the definition of caste does not necessarily include endogamy,

I assume you mean as compared to Hinduism where the rumor is that there were no inter caste marriages? There were plenty of intercaste marriages documented in many ancient texts...they even defined new castes and subcastes that were created as a result of these marriages...

Anat

There might have been a king named David, but he was at most a local king who ruled the Hebron and/or Jerusalem immediate area, not the whole country, and definitely not neighboring countries. The northern hill area of Samaria was more populous than Judah and more developed in material culture - no way it could have been subordinate to the south. So the tribe of Judah was the majority of the population in David's kingdom. OTOH the northern kingdom of Israel had a well developed military force, to the point that eventually when it fell into the hands of Assyria the Assyrians formed a military unit of chariots and riders from captive Israelites.

Dharma

King David is accorded a special status because of spiritual reasons, not simply because he was a king. I believe he was considered a "priest king" one who actually understood almost the entire Bible...

Anat

Priest king? Where do you get that from? King David is considered to be the founder of the Judahite monarchic line, which lasted some 400 years, assuming nobody cheated about paternity (IMO Jehoash would be at least somewhat suspect). I would guess that after a while the idea that his line is the only legitimate one became self-fulfilling. Even when a king was deposed in a coup yet another Davidian was installed. Once the monarchy was no more, the notion of one legitimate monarchic line served as a center for hopes for national revival.

After the fact, David's image was enhanced by ascribing many of the Psalms to him and by fictional stories of military expansion (compare that to the legend of King Arthur in which he conquers Rome, when in reality no single king at the supposed time controlled all of England).

BTW I would like to clarify some issues about ritual impurity and the likes, but that would require serious work.

andrewcriddle

Yes but that doesn't seem to have happened in Israel where children simply took the tribal identity of their father, whatever their mother's tribal origins.

Andrew Criddle

Dharma

if David was just a puny king, so unimportant in Jewish history , certainly none of the priests (except perhaps for those preists who were with David and Solomon) would allow his story to be added books with the original Torah in the Tenach--- they didn't allow any other line of Jewish kings to do so. So would you say that Samuel1,2 kings 1,2, proverbs, etc...were all falsely attributed to King David and Solomon? That's a big preistly boo-boo wouldn't you say?

Dharma

well actually there is a difference in the two\:

1) Each Vedic tribe has the 5 part division of society i.e. priests, warriors, businessmen, farmers and laborers, untouchables formed the outcasted members...so example: a brahmin man in one tribe would marry a brahmin women in another tribe -- the offspring carries on the tradition of the high brahmin preisthood, or a brahmin in one would marry a kshatriya in another...the brahmin-brahmin would not allow such a union to come to equal to the brahmin-brahmin mix...so thus a new subgroup of that caste would be formed and a brahmin-kshatriya offspring would be given a different set of priestly duties... the child would be still considered brahmin but not the highest one.

2) In Biblical tribes, each tribe is not divided according to castes, the tribes themselves become the caste...i.e. God makes a covenant with the tribe of Levi and Mosaic law states that only the descendant of Aaron from the male side shall serve as preists who are called Cohanim, the Levi tribe then gets the job of guarding the temple making sure no Israelite enters and is even ordered to kill any Israelite or gentile who tries. So initially, you might say that the Levi served as both Preists and guardians of the temple offerings...

So you have a conundrum which is not found in Vedic tribes, why should other tribes follow a covenant given to the tribe of Levi? So they had to include other tribes through intermarriage and so as long as the male was a Cohanim or Levi the child would be a Cohanim or Levi, they would get to marry the best Jewish women from the other tribes, thus integrating the 12 tribes by marriage...

However, I have heard that the High Cohanim priest, the one that actually performs the sacrifice at temple, did have endogamy and it was preferred that he marry another Cohanim for the greatest ritual purity.

Of course, endogamy is not necessary for the definition of caste to hold, it is mostly based on division of society based on degree of ritual purity.

RED DAVE

One element that seems to be missing in this discussion: the caste/tribal system among Jews no longer has any social signficance. The caste system in India is alive and well.

By the way, I'm a cohen.

RED DAVE