The Ethics of Job: Case Study

Children of the Dungheap

Infant exposure (expositio) was a common and legal practice1 in the Greco-Roman world from the 5th C. BCE to 2nd C. CE whereby unwanted children were left along roadsides to die from exposure to the elements2 or to be picked up by slavers who actively sought them out, raising them to be sold as slaves or prostitutes.3 These abandoned infants came to be known as children of the dungheap.4 Occasionally, a foundling (exposed infant) would be incorporated into a family and cared for, but this was not generally the case.5 This practice was so widespread and common in the Greco-Roman world that writings of Tacitus express amazement at the one people group who did not engage in it the Jews.6 In Carthage, when infant sacrifice was practiced, wealthier Carthaginians would sometimes buy children from poor people to sacrifice in place of their own children.7 Infant Exposure may have been seen as a preferable alternative possibly because, in contrast to those sold for sacrifice, these abandoned infants at least had a chance to live. Is there a solution which better reflects the biblical ethics of compassion, integrity, and justice? Discuss possible responses to this situation which reflect a biblical ethic.
1

The earliest known Roman law code, the Twelve Tables, dates to about 450 B.C.E. and allows the paterfamilias to expose any female infant and any malformed or weak male infant. It is not entirely clear how much earlier the practice dates to. The biblical account of Mosess exposure (Exodus 2:1-10) is not reflective of an established or usual practice for that time. 2 John Eastburn Boswell, Expositio and Oblatio: The Abandonment of Children and the Ancient and Medieval Family. American Historical Review 89, no. 1. (Feb 1984): 12-14. 3 Justin Martyr, First Apology (150 C.E.), 27. 4 Paul Perdrizet, Copria (1921); cited in Pomeroy, Sarah B. Copronyms and the Exposure of Infants in Egypt. Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A. Arthur Schiller (A. Arthur Schiller, Roger S. Bagnall, and William Vernon Harris, eds.; E. J. Brill, 1986), 147 ; cf. Gnomon of the Idios Logos, 41, 92, 107. 5 David L. Balch, Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003), 260. 6 Tacitus, The Histories (ca. 98 C.E.), 5.5. 7 Plutarch, De Superstitione 171; cf. Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History, Book XX: 14.
Derived from Brian Tice, Children from the Dungheap: A Treatise Exploring the Motivation behind and Justification for Infant Exposure in Egypt in the Roman Age (unpublished, 2008).