The phenomenon of prostitution in the Old Testament in ethical assessment of biblical authors

Abstract

The article discusses the problem of prostitution in Old Testament texts. First it analyses the vocabulary znh and qᵉdēšāh (qādēš) and then legal, narrative, prophetic and wisdom texts. The analysis shows that the phenomenon of prostitution was quite common in the ancient world. Narrative texts show that although accepted the prostitutes lived on the fringe of society. Moreover legal, prophetic and wisdom texts always give negative assessment of prostitution.

Keywords

• Prostytucja, nierząd, prawo, niewierność, cudzołóstwo, Dina, Tamar, Rachab