The offspring of temple prostitutes...
Currently teaching 1 Corinthians and the question came up as to what happened to the offspring of temple prostitutes in cities like Corinth where they were reputed to have over a 1000 practicing prostitutes.
I have Gold scholars, and I haven't bee able to find any resource that deals with the subject, can anyone recommend a logos product that might shed some light?
Terry
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Question like this make me wish we could time travel (to really find out)...
I cant find anything here in my Platinum.
Never Deprive Anyone of Hope.. It Might Be ALL They Have
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C. History of Corinth
Such success inevitably provoked the envy of those less fortunate in their location and less industrious in their habits, and so in the 5th–4th centuries b.c., Athenian writers made Corinth the symbol of commercialized love. Aristophanes coined the verb korinthiazesthai, “to fornicate” (Fr. 354). Philetaerus and Poliochus wrote plays entitled Korinthiastēs, “The Whoremonger” (Athenaeus 313c, 559a). Plato used korinthia korē, “a Corinthian girl,” to mean a prostitute (Rest. 404d). These neologisms, however, left no permament mark on the language, because in reality Corinth was neither better nor worse than its contemporaries. It was not dedicated to the goddess of love, Aphrodite (Saffrey 1985), and Strabo’s story of 1000 sacred prostitutes (8.6.20) has been shown to be pure fabrication (Conzelmann 1967).
vol. 1, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, 1135-36
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David Ames said:
Strabo’s story of 1000 sacred prostitutes (8.6.20) has been shown to be pure fabrication (Conzelmann 1967).
Good find [Y]
Bohuslav
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Terry Poperszky said:
Currently teaching 1 Corinthians and the question came up as to what happened to the offspring of temple prostitutes in cities like Corinth where they were reputed to have over a 1000 practicing prostitutes.
I have Gold scholars, and I haven't bee able to find any resource that deals with the subject, can anyone recommend a logos product that might shed some light?
Terry
Here is some material that deals with offspring, sorry it's not in Logos...yet.
Faraone, Christopher A. (2006). Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press.
http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/2828.htm
Here is an online article that refs Faraone's book. (About half way through the article.)
http://hubpages.com/hub/Prostitution-Sexuality-and-Morality-in-the-New-Testament
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David Ames said:
Strabo’s story of 1000 sacred prostitutes (8.6.20) has been shown to be pure fabrication (Conzelmann 1967)
Interesting...Well I am glad that I use the word reputed [;)]
But regardless of the number, or the city, I assume the practice of temple prostitution wasn't a fabrication, so my question stands...
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Terry Poperszky said:David Ames said:
Strabo’s story of 1000 sacred prostitutes (8.6.20) has been shown to be pure fabrication (Conzelmann 1967)
Interesting...Well I am glad that I use the word reputed
But regardless of the number, or the city, I assume the practice of temple prostitution wasn't a fabrication, so my question stands...
Look's like we posted at the same time 2:34... anyone know the odd's.
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Terry Poperszky said:
I assume the practice of temple prostitution wasn't a fabrication,
Not only is modern scholarship tends to be divided on this subject, I think scholarship is shifting away from it. Here are two more sources that are not in Logos as of yet:
Julia Assante's essay "From Whores to Hierodules: The Historiographic Invention of Mesopotamian Female Sex Professionals." in Ancient Art and Its Historiography 2003
Stephanie Lynn Budin (2008), The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-88090-4
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Anthony H said:
Here is some material that deals with offspring, sorry it's not in Logos...yet.
Don't worry about that, I am more interested in the answer, than I am that it comes from Logos. I find the gaps in Logos material somewhat interesting at times though.
The type of information in that second article was just what I was looking for...
Thanks,
Terry
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David Ames said:
in reality Corinth was neither better nor worse than its contemporaries. It was not dedicated to the goddess of love, Aphrodite (Saffrey 1985), and Strabo’s story of 1000 sacred prostitutes (8.6.20) has been shown to be pure fabrication (Conzelmann 1967).
It is amazing how often truth can destroy good sermon points.
Terry Poperszky said:the question came up as to what happened to the offspring of temple prostitutes
I have never seen this discussed anywhere, but I would be very interested in the answer.
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tom collinge said:
Not only is modern scholarship tends to be divided on this subject, I think scholarship is shifting away from it
Ok, then the question becomes for me whether there is any difference in application if the prostitute mentioned in 1 co 6:15-17 is of the cultic or non-cultic variety. Personally I am assuming this is NOT analogous to eating meat sacrificed to idols.
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Terry Poperszky said:
Currently teaching 1 Corinthians and the question came up as to what happened to the offspring of temple prostitutes in cities like Corinth where they were reputed to have over a 1000 practicing prostitutes.
I'm afraid the answer to the question is probably a very unpleasant one. I can't speak specifically for Corinth, but I know that abortion (and infanticide, and effective infanticide through exposing infants) was rife amongst Greeks and Romans in the first century. It didn't become illegal until the 4th century AD.
On the question of cultic prostitution in Corinth, Jerome Murphy O'Connor's St Paul's Corinth (an excellent book but sadly not in Logos) as a very helpful survey of the evidence on pp 56-57, 144-146. He concludes that there were not temple prostitutes, but there still were a great many 'secular' prostitutes in the city.
I'd create a collection of Background resouces, and search it for (infanticide, abortion, foeticide).
Here's an extract from DNTB:
2.7. Exposure of Unwanted Infants. The father had the right to refuse to rear a newborn, even against the mother’s objections (Gardner, 6). Deformed infants were sometimes killed (Den Boer, 98–99, 113, 116; in other cultures, e.g., Dawson, 324), but most babies were abandoned. Even if the percentage of babies abandoned has been overestimated (see Engels 1984, skeptical of the ten percent figure for infanticide), the exposure of children was a widely known custom (Pausanius Descr. 2.26.4); abandoned babies figure commonly in legends (Diodorus Siculus Bib. Hist.. 4.64.1; 8.4.1; 19.2.3–5; Appian Rom.Hist. 1.1.2) and novels (Longus Daphn. Chl. 1.2, 5).
The high mortality rate among children may have provided one contributing factor for the abandoning of children; at the least it may have reduced the openness to emotional attachment (cf. Dixon, 113; Dupont, 221). Still, ancients were sad when their children died and did not abandon infants out of dislike for them (Golden). Often poverty required exposure or killing (Ovid Met. 9.675–84) of infants, but even a rich family might expose a child if they already had too many (Longus Daphn. Chl. 4.24; perhaps Suetonius Tiberius 47).
For economic reasons (the expense of the dowry), girls appear to have been abandoned more often than boys (P.Oxy. 744; Ovid Met. 9.675–84, 704–13), resulting in a high age for marriage for Greek males (see Marriage). Of the dozens of census declarations from Egypt, only two list more daughters than sons, and even then only one or two more (N. Lewis, 54–55; cf. Tarn, 101). Some scholars object that high rates of female infanticide would decimate the population (Engels 1980), but this ignores substantial concrete evidence (Harris). Moreover, Roman writers do suggest gradual declines in the Greek population, and in any case selective abandonment did not prevent propagation as effectively as widespread infanticide would. Rescued females often became slave prostitutes (see Adultery, Divorce)…
…Because Egyptian religion prohibited killing infants, Egyptians often rescued babies exposed by Hellenistic settlers in Egypt’s nomes; the rescue is reflected in some children’s names (e.g., Kopreus, “off the dunghill” [N. Lewis, 54]). Sometimes those who rescued such infants adopted them as children (Juvenal Sat. 6.602–9), but the children more often became slaves; the Roman government imposed heavy inheritance tax penalties on those who tried to adopt them as children (BGU 1210; N. Lewis, 58). In places like Ephesus the public bought infants cheaply, whom they then enslaved to Artemis (I. Eph. 17–19 in Trebilco, 343). Under Roman law a father who later recognized a child he had abandoned must pay the expenses of his rearing before taking him back (Quintilian Inst. Orat. 7.1.14). Those infants not rescued would have been eaten by dogs and birds (Philo Spec. Leg. 3.115).
(That last link is worth reading for a first century Jewish view on the subject.)
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Check out this from JETS- http://www.biblicalstudies.
org.uk/article_ephesus_baugh. html "The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected."- G.K. Chesterton
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Ben - Excellent article...
Mark - I ran across some of that already in the cultural references, my hesitancy was that if these were the offspring of temple prostitutes, then the religious order may have had stipulations on how they were to be handled. If not, they were destined for the grave or slavery.
Guys, feel free to keep posting. But I want to thank you for the plethora of information on the subject you have given me. Now to read and digest it...
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Terry Poperszky said:
Guys, feel free to keep posting.
Mark has already provided some useful information on this subject. I just wanted to add a paragraph from the IVP NT Background Commentary Article title: Adultery/Divorce 3.2 Prostitution (An article worth reading in its entirety).
More often, prostitutes were female slaves forced to provide income to their masters by the exploitation of their bodies. Exposed female infants were often taken in and raised as slaves, normally for the sex trade; infants could be sold into prostitution (Martial Epigr. 9.6.7; 9.8). Captured female slaves might be used for the same purpose (Apuleius Met. 7.9; ’Abot R. Nat. 8A). Those slaves found to be freeborn were freed from this life; such a dramatic reversal of apparently lowborn persons being discovered to be highborn reflects a common story line (e.g., Longus Daphn.Chl. 4.36), particularly for Terence (Self-Tormentor; Eunuch; Lady of Andros; Lady of Perinthos).
It would appear that the children of prostitutes would be exposed, abandoned, or sold into sexual slavery.
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Its all interesting reading, but its all still speculation, as no one today really knows how the Church in Corinth really operated, In all these we are assuming the church in Corinth did nothing about these kids/mothers, but what if the Early Church in Corinth had some kind of outreach program to try and rescue these poor wretches/prostitutes,
Could it be that there was a Christian Ministry reaching out to save them and change their lives.. I know we have no evidence, but in 1900 years time what evidence will exist of our churches ministries today? Maybe also that would mean a fourth option for these kids,and that they were adopted/fostered into Godly homes.
Possibly never happened, but just a thought...
Never Deprive Anyone of Hope.. It Might Be ALL They Have
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Robert Pavich
For help go to the Wiki: http://wiki.logos.com/Table_of_Contents__
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Dictionary Of New Testament Background = DNTB
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Re Mark Barnes reply:
There is always:
A Modest Proposal: For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being Aburden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to The Public
By Jonathan Swift (1729)
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Robert Pavich
For help go to the Wiki: http://wiki.logos.com/Table_of_Contents__
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As far as I know, they all became prostituting attorneys.
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Ben said:
Check out this from JETS- http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_ephesus_baugh.html
Thanks for posting Baugh's article.
Looks like we need a book (or website) on "Modern Myths of the Ancient World"
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Allen Browne said:Ben said:
Check out this from JETS- http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_ephesus_baugh.html
Thanks for posting Baugh's article.
Very informative article.
BTW: That resource is available in Logos as part of the Theological Journals Library.
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Thanks for your response David.Its helpful.
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Check out Gen Chapter 38. She pretended to be one to get him when would not do his duty. But not a story we use as a Children's story.
My understanding of that story is she was with some other religion's temple prostitutes and he willingly walked in.
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Thanks for the post.
>Aristophanes coined the verb
korinthiazesthai,“to fornicate” (Fr.354).I am wondering if this reference is accurate. I am assuming that Fr. an abbreviation of Aristophanes' "Frogs", and that number 354 is the number of the line. I can't find it there…
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Whew, this is an old post. I appreciate you bringing it up.
"Fr." refers to Aristophanes' "Fragments". As the Loeb website points out, while we have 11 of his intact plays, he wrote over 40 and nearly 1,000 fragments survive. I don't have the book in Logos, so I can't look it up, but I have some confidence that Liddell, et. al. didn't get this one wrong. ☺️
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OK, since I can't seem to let it go, I did confirm that Aristophanes used the word. I don't know how to confirm that he actually coined it. But in archive.org, there's an old, poorly scanned concordance of Aristophanes' works. It uses a different numbering system for the lines, so I found it here:
To make this about Logos, I wish we had more Loeb. More were originally in Community Pricing, but that's gone. So some are left dangling in prepub.
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