Revisiting the Division of Ownership in the Book of Joshua and Old Babylonia

Abstract

At first glance, the division and allocation of ownership portrayed in the book of Joshua and the legal corpora of Old Babylonia seem to be a general division with shared features. A class of co-owners agree to, or the original owner consents to, the division and allocation of shared property and may apply two of an array of elective practices, i.e., lot-casting and firstborn share. My focus shifts away from such a general classification. I will show that at least two types of divisions—the tribal division from Yahweh in the book of Joshua, and the family division from the estate of a deceased owner in Old Babylonia—do not exhibit a shared standardised pattern. Each division has its own requisites, a distinct raison d’être, and even the elective lot-casting and firstborn share practices hold different functions in the two types of divisions.