Because the pie was limited...
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Because the pie was "limited" and already distributed, an increase in the share of one person automatically meant a loss for someone else. Honorable people, therefore, did not try to get more, and those who did were automatically considered thieves. Noblemen avoided such accusations of getting rich at the expense of others by having their affairs handled by slaves. Such behavior could be condoned in slaves, since slaves were without honor anyway.
The third slave buried his master's money to ensure that it remained intact. This, of course, was the honorable thing for a freeman to do; was it honorable behavior for a slave? Later rabbinic customary law provided that since burying a pledge or deposit was the safest way to care for someone else's money, if a loss occurred, the one burying money had no responsibility.
(From Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaug describing the "limited good" economic theory -- based on the assumption that there was only so much wealth in the world, and an economy could not grow -- commonly held by Jesus and his contemporaries, in Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Fortress Press, p. 149)
The third slave buried his master's money to ensure that it remained intact. This, of course, was the honorable thing for a freeman to do; was it honorable behavior for a slave? Later rabbinic customary law provided that since burying a pledge or deposit was the safest way to care for someone else's money, if a loss occurred, the one burying money had no responsibility.
(From Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaug describing the "limited good" economic theory -- based on the assumption that there was only so much wealth in the world, and an economy could not grow -- commonly held by Jesus and his contemporaries, in Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Fortress Press, p. 149)
