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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 October 2009
This study presents a new interpretation of tithe references in Scripture. It departs from the conventional view that the tithe is merely a tax levied on the people. Rather it sees the tithe as a partnership or compact with God in which tangible goods are exchanged for intangible ones. Taking the Pentateuch in its entirety as our contextreveals the tithe to bepart of a pattern of reciprocities in which goods are exchanged for divine acceptance, protection, and blessing.
1. Biblical ordinances dealing with the tithe include Priestly (Lev. 27:30–33, Num. 18:21–32) and Deuteronomic sources (Deut. 12:6–7, 11–12, 17–18; 14:22–29; 26:12–15).
2. For a more complete discusssion of the various scholarly views on the tithe, see the author's doctoral dissertation, Tithe as Gift: The Institution in the Pentateuch and in Light of Mauss's Prestation Theory (San Francisco: Mellon Research University Press, 1991), pp. 7–37.Google Scholar
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5. Ibid, p. 70.
6. Ibid, pp. 70–71.
7. Ibid, p. 27.
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21. Evans-Pritchard, in Mauss, Gift,pp. vii–viii.
22. Ibid, p. ix.
23. Lukes, “Mauss.”
24. Mauss, Gift,pp. 1, 3.
25. Ibid, pp. 37–40.
26. Ibid, p. 22.
27. Ibid, p. 37.
28. Ibid, pp. 3910.
29. Ibid, p. 9.
30. Ibid, pp. 12, 15–16.
31. Ibid, p. 58.
32. Ibid
33. Ibid, p. 22.
34. Ibid, p. 45.
35. Ibid, p. 81.
36. Ibid, p. 80.
37. Lévi-Strauss, Claude, The Elementary Structures of Kinship, rev. and trans, by Bell, James Harle and Richard von Sturmer, John, ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), pp. 62, 68.Google Scholar
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42. Ibid, pp. 219–220.
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59. Ibid, p. 54.
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64. Ibid, p. 76.
65. Ibid.
66. Sahlins, Stone Age Economics,pp. 169–170.
67. Ibid, pp. 192–193.
68. Weiner, Women of Value,p. 213.
69. Sahlins, Stone Age Economics,pp. 192–193.
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73. Powell, “Territory, Hierarchy, and Kinship,” p. 592.
