Thursday, February 19, 2015

So what's changed?

Children in antiquity had little status and significance, especially outside the Jewish world. although Jews valued children as real human beings who should be cared for, in Greco-Roman culture and law children were not persons but possessions, without legal rights, and were often victims of abortion, infanticide, exposure, and other forms of mistreatment that Jews, and then Christians, condemned. Even Jews, however, did not equate children with adults but ascribed to them a subordinate status and significance. Throughout the ancient Mediterranean world children were most often seen as immature, intellectually weak, and of far less significance and status than adults.— The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant, page 107

<idle musing>
So what has changed in 2000 years? Not a whole lot, I would say...
</idle musing>

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