| Summary: | This study examines problems to do with social justice and class relations in two societies of the archaic eastern Mediterranean: Attica and Israel. It shows that both societies faced similar social problems (predatory lending, enslavement for debt, corrupt judicial processes, violence); both societies produced legal responses to these problems, both in the area of substantive law, and in structural/procedural innovations. However, the greater proximity of Israel to Near Eastern superpowers meant that these reforms were not carried through (Judah was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC), whereas the Greeks, located further afield, were not menaced by a Near Eastern superpower until such reforms were already entrenched.
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