Available From UC Press

In Behind Ancient Bars, law professor and rabbinical student Hadar Aviram challenges the conventional assumption that incarceration is an artifact of modernity by looking back to depictions of detention and confinement in the Hebrew Bible. Aviram takes readers on a journey through the Hebrew Bible's carceral landscape through creative rereadings of five stories: Joseph in Egypt, Esther in Persia, Daniel in Babylonia, Samson in Gaza, and Jeremiah in Jerusalem. Drawing on her experience as a leading voice against mass incarceration, she finds connections between antiquity and the contemporary understanding of incarceration that encompasses not just the prison itself but also pretrial/immigration detention, bail, electronic monitoring, parole, and postrelease supervision. Infusing ancient biblical stories with fresh life through modern punishment theories, Aviram shows how incarceration has much to teach us about government, the experience of people in confinement, and the strength and resilience of the human spirit across millennia.

"This short volume nimbly traverses thousands of years of incarceration with impressive erudition and insight, and even humor. Hadar Aviram sheds light on both the Hebrew Bible and its many stories of confinement and on modern American mass incarceration. Highly recommended."—Margo Schlanger, Wade H. and Dores M. McCree Collegiate Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School"This beautifully written book is a major contribution to the study of incarceration and social control—indeed, two major contributions. It provides a careful reading of biblical accounts of the arbitrary power that leads to incarceration, the strategies for enduring its horrors, and accounts of transformation, redemption, and release. Then it moves to the modern era to revisit the vast literature on governmentality and the nature and function of the ‘new’ prison. Aviram reports that there is nothing new under the sun: the tropes remain the same. In throwing light on the past, she also creates a new future that merges past and present, and opens new realms of scholarship. A stunning contribution."—Malcolm M. Feeley, Claire Sanders Clements Dean's Professor Emeritus, Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, School of Law, University of California, Berkeley“In one fell swoop, Aviram introduces us to a new Biblical genre: carceral stories. Through deft and brilliant analysis, her carceral frame yields unforgettable insights regarding biblical storytelling: its commentary upon empire, the dynamics of exile, and the psychology of its protagonists. You will never read biblical stories the same way again.”—Deena Aranoff, Director of the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies and Senior Lecturer in Medieval Jewish Studies, Graduate Theological Union