The Myth of the Empty Land.

• Author: TALMON, SHEMARYAHU
• Position: Review

The Myth of the Empty Land. By HANS M. BARSTAD. Symbolae Osloensis Facs. Supplement no. 28. Oslo: SCANDINAVIAN UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996. Pp. 113. $25.

This monograph grew out of the author's "interest in the question of the Babylonian provenance of chapters 40-55 in the Book of Isaiah," basically a literary problem, which soon led him to consider the historical and socio-religious problem of how to assess "life in Judah in the years following the Babylonian conquest in 586 B.C." (Introduction). The term "myth" in the title of his book sets the tone for the author's ever so often stressed aim to disprove the "fairly negative view of biblical scholars" that after the conquest of Jerusalem Judah became an "empty land," denuded of its population and bereft of spiritual leaders, in sum a tabula rasa in respect to religious and cultural creativity. This negative view is rooted in nineteenth-century scholarship, but its impact "may be felt strongly also today" (p. 15). It derives from an uncritical reliance on biblical reports of the practically total exiling of the Judaean population in the wake of Nebuchadnezzar's conquest of the land, and the ensuing transfer of the center of Jewish life from Jerusalem to Babylonia (p. 17). The stricture is well taken. But in his attempts to drive home the point, the author overstresses the presumed adherence of contemporary scholarship to that approach, setting up windmills against which to go to war. [1]

Barstad sets out to rectify these conclusions, which are almost exclusively based on biased literary sources, by having recourse first and foremost to "objective" historical and archaeological evidence concerning "Judah During the 'Exile' Period" (as stated in the subtitle of his study) that came to the attention of scholars only in the twentieth century. In his "Preliminary Remarks" (pp. 13-23) he offers a compressed summary of the main thrust of his investigation, which he recapitulates and underpins in his "Conclusions" (pp. 77-82), at the culmination of a detailed discussion.

In a first chapter on the "Biblical Evidence" (pp. 25-45), the author deals with the Palestinian scene. This is followed by a presentation of information gained from "The Archaeology of Judah during the 'Exilic' Period" (pp. 47-55), and a concise survey of "The Evidence from Transjordan" (pp. 57-60). He then turns his attention to the exilic community by bringing under scrutiny the relation of "The Neo-Babylonian Empire and Judab" (p...