Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period.

Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period. Edited by ODED LIPSCHITS and JOSEPH BELENKINSOPP. Winona Lake, Ind.: ESENBRAUNS, 2003. Pp. xii + 612. $49.50.

This volume publishes the proceedings of a conference of the same title held at the University of Tel Aviv, May 29-31, 2001. The conference in its turn had its origins in the ongoing Transeuphratene colloquy, which "deals with various aspects of the history and culture of the western regions of the Persian Empire" (p. vii), and was planned specifically in order to seek the answers to several problems about Achaemenid Judah in the preceding decades of Babylonian rule. Subsequent volumes from similar conferences, Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, and Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E., appeared in 2005 and 2007, respectively.

The nineteen contributions by well-known archaeologists, historians, and biblical scholars, are divided into five sections: 1) "The Myth of the Empty Land Revisited," 2) "Cult, Priesthood, and Temple," 3) "Military and Governmental Aspects," 4) "The Sixth Century B.C.E.: Archaeological Perspectives," and 5) "Exiles and Foreigners in Egypt and Babylonia."

The chapters of part one all deal with Hans M. Barstad's book The Myth of the Empty Land: A Study in the History and Archaeology of Judah during the "Exilic" Period (Oslo: Scandinavian Univ. Press, 1996), and include a paper by Barstad himself contending that the Babylonian period in Judah meant some destruction, but no significant discontinuity of life in Judah. Of special period in Judah ment some destruction, but no significant discontinuity of life in Judha. Of special interest is the paper by Sara Japhet, "Periodization: Between History and Ideology: The Neo-Babylonian Period in Biblical Historiography," She reviews Kings, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles, and 1 Esdras and finds that these four historiographical works had different views of the Neo-Babylonian period (for instance, Kings gives some sparse historical data while Chronicles understands the time of exile theologically as a Sabbatical hiatus), but all four share a general indifference to defining it as a distinct era in the history of ancient Judah, in contrast to modern scholars. B. Oded's chapter in the same section ("Where is the Myth of the Empty Land to Be Found? History versus Myth") however, defends the view that the Bible preserves historical memory of a "significant gap" in activity during the exile.

Several other papers in the volume are in dialogue with Barstad and each other. C. Carter ("Ideology and Archaeology in the Neo-Babylonian Period: Excavating Text and Tell") modifies Barstad: There was neither continuity nor total disruption, but the evidence from archaeology (however minimal) and text do testify to "a substantial disconnect" because of the absence of a monarchy (p. 311). While D. Vanderhooft ("Babylonian Strategies of Imperial Control in the West") contends that the Babylonians utilized an entirely different strategy of imperial control than the Assyrians, R. Sack ("Nebuchadnezzar II and the Old Testament: History versus Ideology") sees the Babylonians as taking over a provincial system from the Assyrians. Sack also discusses how traditions about Nabonidus in particular became associated with Nebuchadnezzar II. O. Lipschits ("Demographic Changes in Judah between the Seventh and the Fifth Centuries B.C.E.") argues that the population of Jerusalem, the Shephelah, and the Negev declined considerably after the Babylonian conquest, but that the northern Judean hills and Benjamin did not see such a severe reduction. For a fuller account of Lipschits' views, see now also his The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005).

The papers having to do with cult are concerned with rivalries and tensions between religious centers and priestly families during the Neo-Babylonian period. J. Blenkinsopp ("Bethel in the Neo-Babylonian Period") discusses the conflicts between the Aaronide priests of Bethel and the Levitical-Zadokite priests of Jerusalem due to the fact that Bethel served as an alternative religious sanctuary. G. Knoppers ("The Relationship of the Priestly Genealogies to the History of the High Priesthood in Jerusalem") addresses the negotiations between competing priestly families apparent in the genealogies of Chronicles. D. Edelman ("Gibeon and the Gibeonites Revisited") views the anti-Gibeonite polemic pervading the Deuteronomistic History as a response (by the pro-David, pro-Jerusalemite returnees from the exile) to an attempt by the pro-Saulide Gibeonites to make Gibeon the cult center in the sixth century.

The final section contains two important papers concerning Semites in Egypt and Babylon. B. Porten's "Settlement of the Jews at Elephantine and the Arameans at Syene" traces the establishment of a Jewish military settlement and its temple at Elephantine to the days of King Manasseh's supposed support for Psammetichus in ca. 650 b.c.e. The foundation of the Aramaean settlement at Syene is more difficult to date, but based on information especially from the Papyrus Amherst 63 (the unique Aramaic text in Demotic script) Porten finds their origins to have been Arash/Rash (a land between Babylonia and Elam), as well as southern Syria (Bit Agusi and Hamath), with a migration to Samaria in the days of Assurbanipal before they came to Egypt. The chapter by Ran Zadok on "The Representation of Foreigners in Neo-and Late-Babylonian Legal Documents (Eighth through Second Centuries B.C.E.)," is published here as the first of what became a series of three articles devoted to the West Semites in Babylonia, See now the other two: "West Semites in Administrative and Epistolary Documents from Northern and Central Babylonia," in Shlomo: Studies in Epigraphy, Iconography, History and Archaeology in Honor of Shlomo Mousaieff, ed. R. Deutsch (Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publication, 2003), 255-71; and "West Semites in Southern Babylonia According to Administrative and Epistolary Documents from the 9th-2nd Centuries BCE," in T[sup.e] shurot LaAvishur: Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, in Hebrew and Semitic Languages: Festschrift Presented to Prof. Yitzhak Avishur (Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publications, 2004), 199-228; as well as The Earliest Diaspora: Israelites and Judeans in Pre-Hellenistic Mesopotamia (Tel Aviv: Diaspora Research Institute, 2002).

Until recently, the Neo-Babylonian or exilic period in Judah has often been regarded simply as an obscure phase, about which little was known with certainty. In this volume, the collaboration between scholars from different fields has shed considerable light on this period of Judean history.

TWANYH L. HOLM INDIANA UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

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Author:	Holm, Twanyh L.
Publication:	The Journal of the American Oriental Society
Date:	Oct 1, 2006
Words:	1030
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