97 THE BAAL PEOR EPISODE REVISITED In one sense, however, the situation was the contrary of what Hecataeus affirms, beginning with the marriage of Moses himself. The ancestors favoured endogamy and cross-cousin marriage within the broader kinship network but without any ideological overlay. We have unfortunately little information on marriage customs during the time of the kingdoms, but if, as seems probable, the Aramaic marriage contracts from Elephantine reflect Syro-Palestinian practice during those centuries, the situation would have been the antithesis of the Ezra reforms, not to mention the Phineas approach to intermarriage 19. If the policy advocated by Ezra and his associates who trembled at the word of God had been successful, Ruth from Moab would never have been accepted into the Israelite community, and Achior from Ammon would never have been converted to the Jewish faith (Jdt 14,10). During the Second Temple period endogamous marriage remained an ideal for some, perhaps for many, but the extreme approach embraced by Nehemiah, Ezra, and his putative ancestor Phineas found a future of sorts only in the sectarian movements of the Graeco-Roman period. 1201 Riverside Drive Joseph BLENKINSOPP South Bend, Indiana 46616, U.S.A. SUMMARY The Baal Peor episode (Num 25,1-18), followed by the second census (Num 26), marks the break between the first compromised wilderness gen- eration and the second. This episode is a “covenant of kinship” between Is- raelites and Midianites resident in Moab, sealed by marriage between high-status individuals from each of these lineages. The violent repudiation of this transaction by the Aaronid Phineas is in marked contrast to the Midi- anite marriage of Moses, for which an explanation is offered, and is paradig- matic of the attitude to intermarriage of the Aaronid priesthood during the mid- to-late-Achaemenid period. 19 For the texts see B. PORTEN – A. YARDENI, Textbook of Aramaic Docu- ments from Ancient Egypt (TADAE, I-IV; Jerusalem 1986-1999). The issue is discussed by E. LIPIŃSKI, “Marriage and Divorce in the Judaism of the Per- sian Period”, Transeuphratène 4 (1991) 63-71.