Patron-Client Relations in the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages

EMANUEL PFOH

Copenhague

Conferencia; Conferencia en el marco del seminario permanente sobre el Antiguo Testamento, Departamento de Exégesis Bíblica, Facultad de Teología, Universidad de Copenhague; 2015

Afdeling for Bibelske Eksegese, Det Teologiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet

This lecture aims at presenting the major features of patron-client relations in the southern Levant during roughly a millennium of history (ca. 1600-600 BCE). In the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600-1200 BCE), patron-client dynamics may be found in the Amarna archive, covering the relation between the Egyptian king and his Levantine subjects, and also in some textual references of the Hittite rule over Syrian subjects. In the Iron Age (ca. 1200-600 BCE), patron-client relations appear once again in the history of the region, especially under the Assyrian rule of Levant. Insight into the political anthropology of the region?as reflected by the extant epigraphic sources and informed by the ethnographic record?can also shed light into the world of the biblical writers, their conception of rulership and sovereignty and their implied political ontology.