The house of the god who dwells in Jerusalem.

• Author: Fried, Lisbeth S.
• Position: Temple Restoration in Early Achaemenid Judah - Priester und Leviten im Achamenidischen Juda - Book review

The appearance of a review years after the publication of the books in question may be odd, but can be justified by the nature of the books and the issues they raise. P. Bedford's Temple Restoration in Achaemenid Judah and J. Schaper's Priester und Leviten im achamenidischen Juda discuss Persian and Jewish motivations for the return to Jerusalem and for rebuilding the temple to YHWH there. They express views that differ from those of one another and from my own.

Bedford asks who built the second temple, when, and why, whereas Shaper concentrates on the history of the relationship, or as he interprets it, the rivalry, between the priests and the Levites in Achaemenid Judah. The period of the return provides the framework for that rivalry however, and Schaper devotes the major portion of his work to that period. The last third of his book concerns the time of Nehemiah and Ezra, but because Bedford does not deal with this later period, and because space is limited, this review will not treat that portion. If the reader accepts the premises and deductions that Schaper carefully builds up in the first two-thirds of his work, the final third flows naturally. This review therefore addresses these premises and deductions.

These two books and hence this review focus on two primary areas: the existence and source of the conflict between rival groups at the time of the Jewish return to Judah, and the source of the impetus and motivation for (re-)building the temple of YHWH in Jerusalem.

CONFLICT AT THE TIME OF THE RETURN

Schaper's primary goal is to understand the source of the conflicts depicted in Ezra-Nehemiah, and in particular in Ezra 1-6. He interprets them as arising between the returning gold and the descendants of those who had not been deported. These include the "poor of the land" and the non-Zadokite, Levitical, priests.

THE POOR OF THE LAND

Bedford (pp. 43-45) and Schaper (p. 162) agree that the royal court, the residents of Jerusalem, the Jewish nobility, and the 'am ha'aretz (the landed aristocracy) were deported to Babylon at the time of the conquest. They agree that although the Babylonians destroyed cities throughout Judah and deported the urban elites, the poor and the inhabitants of rural areas were not affected. According to Schaper, the poor even benefited from the deportations. The Babylonians distributed the vacated land to the poor and the needy; consequently the poor lived a freer and more comfortable life under the Babylonians than previously. Conflict arise between the returning elites who wanted their land back and the poor about to be impoverished once more.

This seemingly reasonable theory has been challenged. Vanderhooft (1999) has demonstrated that the Babylonians had no such policy of distributing vacant land to the poor. Assyrians administered the areas they conquered. They appointed Assyrian governors and overseers, turning the conquered areas into Assyrian provinces. This was not the case with the Babylonians. After the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, the military, economic, and administrative structure of the Judean kingdom collapsed (Lipschits 1999: 174; Stern 2001; 2004; Tainter 1988). Many escaped deportation by fleeing to Mizpah and other cities of Benjamin which had not suffered from the invasion, as well as to Ammon and Moab (Jer. 11, 12). According to the biblical text, Gedaliah, not the Babylonians, distributed vacated land to those who remained with him in Mizpah (Jer. 40:10). However, after Gedaliah's assassination, probably in 582 (Carroll 1986: 707), those at Mizpah and other cities of Benjamin were also deported to Babylon (Jer. 52:30) or escaped to Egypt or other neighboring states (Jer. 43:5, 6). After this third wave of deportations, the Babylonians abandoned Benjamin (Vanderhooft 1999; Fried forthcoming). Benjamin too became a post-collapse society, lacking an administrative center (Tainter 1988).

The theory that life continued as before under Babylonian domination is based on excavations at four specific sites in Benjamin: Bethel, Gibeah (Tell el-Ful), Mizpah (Tell en-Nasbeh), and Gibeon (el-Jib) (Barstad 1996; Lipschits 1999; 2003; Stern 2001). These sites were excavated in the first part of the twentieth century, poorly by recent standards. The conclusions of their excavators are considered unreliable (Dever 1971). The presence of both Iron Age and Persian-period pottery and the absence of a destruction layer between them have been used to conclude that they were inhabited in the intervening Babylonian period. But such a conclusion is not warranted in the absence of identifiable Babylonian artifacts (De Groot 2001; Faust 2003; in press; Master 2005). Although survey data must be used cautiously, they support the presence of a settlement gap in the sixth century. Finkelstein and Magen (1993) surveyed most of the area of Benjamin and found no evidence of habitation during the Babylonian period. Their survey reveals significant population in Iron II, ending at the beginning of the sixth century, and modest population in the Persian period (mid-fifth and fourth centuries). No Babylonian period population is in evidence.

Avraham Faust (2001; 2003; in press; Greenhut 1994) has tested the hypothesis that habitation continued in rural areas in and around the modern city of Jerusalem during the Babylonian period. For assessing continuity of settlement, the advantage of rural sites over urban ones is obvious. The number of locations that can house a large urban population is small, so that later cities are built on top of earlier ones. This is how tells come into being. The presence of Iron II cultural material directly below Persian-period material cannot prove continuity between them. It may simply indicate that returnees in the Persian period built their cities over previous ones. Nor can the absence of a destruction level between periods indicate continuity. The earlier population may have abandoned the city prior to battle, leaving it to be repopulated later.

Rural sites, on the contrary, tell a different story. Farmsteads can be located almost anywhere. It would be very unlikely for one farm to be located on top of another by chance. If a farmstead reveals both Persian and Iron II occupation levels, it is more likely that there was continuity of settlement between the periods. The results are compelling. Out of eleven rural sites excavated around Jerusalem, nine showed habitation only in the Iron Age, with no later occupation (Faust 2003). One revealed occupation only in the Persian period with no earlier occupation. Only one revealed material culture from both periods. The one out of eleven farmsteads showing habitation in both the Iron Age and the Persian period may well represent the result of chance. These data demonstrate that one cannot assume occupation in the rural sector around Jerusalem during the period of the exile. They also indicate a very low overall level of settlement even in the Persian period, which is consistent with other findings (Greenhut 1994: 140; Lipschits 1999; 2001; 2003; Finkelstein and Magen 1993). In fact, Greenhut found no evidence of occupation during either the Babylonian or the Persian period in his excavations of rural areas around Jerusalem.

The same holds true for rural areas in other parts of Judah and Benjamin. Of the excavations of thirteen rural sites outside of the Jerusalem area, only one exhibited occupation in both the Iron Age and in the Persian period (Faust 2003). Again, this is what would be expected to occur by chance alone. The other twelve areas did not reveal any Persian-period remains. One must conclude that there was an absence of continuity between Iron Age and Persian-period occupation in the rural areas of Judah and Benjamin. There was a settlement gap in the Babylonian period even in the rural areas. It cannot be assumed, therefore, that the "poor of the land" cultivated estates abandoned by the deportees. Rather, the archaeology indicates that the destruction of urban sites by the Babylonians brought about a collapse of the economic and administrative infrastructure that permitted agriculture to flourish. The poor of the land did not continue to plant and till. Judah and Benjamin must be considered a post-collapse society in the mid-sixth century, a society which began to recover only gradually in the Persian period (Faust 2003). Tainter (1988: 20) has defined a post-collapse society:

... [T]here is typically a marked, rapid reduction in population size and density. Not only do urban populations substantially decline, but so also do the support populations of the countryside. Many settlements are concurrently abandoned. The level of population and settlement may decline to that of centuries or even millennia previously. THE RIVALRY OF THE LEVITES

In addition to the "poor of the land," Schaper argues that those Levitical priests who were not in Jerusalem at the time of its destruction also escaped deportation. Both Bedford (p. 46) and Schaper (p. 163) assume that activities continued at the ruined temple during the Babylonian period. They assume that it is unlikely that the residents of Judah could have lived from 586 to 516 without YHWH and the YHWH cult. Schaper (p. 163) argues that large numbers of Levites at the high places outside of Jerusalem, plus the Aaronide priests residing at Bethel, and the great majority of the Abiatharides living in Anathoth would all have been spared and would have officiated at the ruined temple in Jerusalem after the Zadokite priesthood was deported. Jer. 41:5 is offered as evidence of worship at the ruined temple and the presence of non-Zadokite priests to carry out the sacrifices. Schaper assumes that those priests who remained in the land would have opposed the claims of the returning Zadokites. These Levitical priests (the bamot-priests of the high places, the Aaronides, and the Abiatharides) would finally have been able to officiate in Jerusalem free from...