[B-Greek] PAIS v DOULOS

Stephen Baldwin stbaldwi at hotmail.com
Mon Jan 26 21:25:49 EST 2009


Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am curious, reading in the LXX (Ex21:2) about Hebrew slaves to see the noun PAIS where, being a rookie, I was fully expecting to see a DOULOS. I was wondering whether anyone might be able to help my word study.
In my library [such as it is], there seems to be very little on the meaning of PAIS as servant/slave. Lots about it being a young man etc. Louw&Nida imply (87.77) that a PAIS [=slave/servant] might have had a better status "implication of kind regard". Kittel goes on at very great length about the PAIS QEOU etc. but not a great deal else.

But I would be interested to know the differences [if any] between these words, and any other tidbits anyone might want to offer. I've just noticed in Ex21:7 the mention of female hAI DOULAI which causes the plot to thicken a bit more...

As an off-topic aside, I'd be interested in anyone's recommendations [off-list please] for further reading on the issue of slavery in the OT and the other codes of that era. The work most mentioned is Isaac Mendelsohn's book from 1949 I believe. Being a book of high-regard and oft-quoted, it is of course out of stock or out of print and very hard to obtain at a price commensurate with a recession :-)

Rgds
Steve Baldwin
stbaldwi at hotmail.com


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