Anthropology offers no model of “the gift” and provides no single definition, but it alerts us to the dynamics of reciprocity, power, and obligation that have been common in gift-relations, but are easily missed or misconstrued. Studies of gift-giving in pre-modern societies are of particular heuristic value in raising questions worth testing against ancient sources.—J. M. G. Barclay,
Paul and the Gift, 183
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