Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period.

• Author: Holm, Twanyh L.
• Position: Book review

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...