Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period.

• Author: Jigoulov, Vadim

Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period. Edited by ODED LIPSHITS and MANFRED OEMING. Winona Lake, Indiana: EISENBRAUNS, 2006. Pp. xxii + 721, illus. $59.50.

The volume under review is a collection of papers originally presented at a 2003 Heidelberg conference, "Judah and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period." As an attempt to further our understanding of the Persian period, the book is a logical continuation of the research spearheaded by the volume "Judah and Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period" (Lipshits and Blenkinsopp, eds.; Eisenbranuns. 2003). Although separated from the Heidelberg conference by the passage of three years, the book is a timely volume, significant not only for the study of religious, but also social and political issues, in Persian-period Judah and the entire Levantine coast.

The book is divided into two major parts: "Historical, Epigraphical, and Archaeological Perspectives" and "Biblical Perspectives." As one can perceive from the title of part one, its contributors are wrestling with the problem of the correspondence of biblical accounts, primarily found in Ezra and Nehemiah, with the scanty archaeological data from Yehud and elsewhere in the Levant. Some of the major issues raised in this part of the volume are the validity of the biblical concept of the "return" (Becking), Achaemenid imperial policy in the Levant (Lipshits, Fried, Fantalkin and Tal, Dandamayev), identity and ethnicity in "postcolonial" Yehud (Berquist, Kessler), geographical boundaries of, and archaeological evidence for, Yehud and Jerusalem (Wright, Ussishkin), socio-religious developments (Stern, Kratz, Knoppers), Yehud's neighbors (near and far) in the Persian period (Edelman, Pearce), language and writing (Knauf, Lemaire, Porten and Yardeni), and Greek and Neo-Babylonian historiography (Vanderhooft).

The second part of the volume is concerned mainly with biblical texts that are traditionally associated with the Persian period. Japhet and Eskenazi problematize ideology and chronology in the books of Ezra-Nehemiah and the missions of these two biblical characters. Grabbe examines the authenticity of the Persian imperial documents mentioned in Ezra. Among other contributions in this part of the book are a proposal that Nehemiah 9 is a theological interpretation of the Persian period (Oeming), a socio-linguistic analysis of the Late Biblical Hebrew language (Polak), an investigation into the persistence of tribal consciousness in the early...