Archaeology and the Hebrew Bible

[OCaptain]

This is a slight derail (prompted, i assume, by the reference to Mazar's politics), but the Jews weren't driven out of the Levant under the Romans; they lost sovereignty, yes, but the area was hardly devoid of Jews.

A 2010 article by Dr. Bob Becking on Bible and Interpretation called "The Exile from a Bird's Eye View".

It seems topical, given our discussion.

http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/exile357917.shtml

 

[TimCallahan]

A 2010 article by Dr. Bob Becking on Bible and Interpretation called "The Exile from a Bird's Eye View".

It seems topical, given our discussion.

http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/exile357917.shtml

Those taken into exile would have been taken only from Jerusalem. This was a fairly common practice. The Assyrians took about 25,000 people from Samaria, capitol of the northern kingdom of Israel. Of the descendants of those taken by the Chaldeans, most, having been born in the vicinity of Babylon had no desire to leave. Since the exile began in 587 BCE, and the decree of Cyrus was in 538 BCE, a period of 49 years those who were 20 at the beginning were nearly 70, if they were even alive, when Cyrus made his decree.

There seem to have been about four "returns" under succeeding Persian kings. These would have been, in all probability, small groups of self-selected zealots. Their intolerance toward those they didn't consider sufficiently Jewish is highlighted in this passage from the Book of Nehemiah (Neh.13:23 - 25):

In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab; and half their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, the the language of each people. And I contended with them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair; and I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, "You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves."

 

[TimCallahan]

This is a slight derail (prompted, i assume, by the reference to Mazar's politics), but the Jews weren't driven out of the Levant under the Romans; they lost sovereignty, yes, but the area was hardly devoid of Jews.

You're quite right, of course. However, following the Bar Kochba revolt a large number of them were deported. Also, they not only lost sovereignty but had to share Palestine with a lot of non-Jews. Finally, when the Muslims took the Levant in the 600s, they probably converted many of the Jews still in the region to Muslims.

 

[Piggy]

Those taken into exile would have been taken only from Jerusalem. This was a fairly common practice. The Assyrians took about 25,000 people from Samaria, capitol of the northern kingdom of Israel. Of the descendants of those taken by the Chaldeans, most, having been born in the vicinity of Babylon had no desire to leave. Since the exile began in 587 BCE, and the decree of Cyrus was in 538 BCE, a period of 49 years those who were 20 at the beginning were nearly 70, if they were even alive, when Cyrus made his decree.

There seem to have been about four "returns" under succeeding Persian kings. These would have been, in all probability, small groups of self-selected zealots. Their intolerance toward those they didn't consider sufficiently Jewish is highlighted in this passage from the Book of Nehemiah (Neh.13:23 - 25):

In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab; and half their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, the the language of each people. And I contended with them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair; and I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, "You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves."

And let's not forget the famous curse in Psalm 137:

Remember, Yahweh, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
“tear it down to its foundations!”
Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

Of course the Edomites / Idumeans were later converted at the point of the sword to Judaism. And eventually, they were installed as priests and High Priest in the Temple, at the command of Rome, even though they were not scripturally authorized to serve those roles.

At one point, a Galilean end-timer, a holy roller from Galilee, would curse the Edomite-led Temple and claim that God was soon coming to throw them into the fires of destruction like weeds, at which point his following, the true Israel, would enter into the Kingdom of God on Earth.

The next morning he was crucified by Pilate for rabble-rousing.

 

[Brainache]

And let's not forget the famous curse in Psalm 137:

Remember, Yahweh, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
“tear it down to its foundations!”
Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

Of course the Edomites / Idumeans were later converted at the point of the sword to Judaism. And eventually, they were installed as priests and High Priest in the Temple, at the command of Rome, even though they were not scripturally authorized to serve those roles.

At one point, a Galilean end-timer, a holy roller from Galilee, would curse the Edomite-led Temple and claim that God was soon coming to throw them into the fires of destruction like weeds, at which point his following, the true Israel, would enter into the Kingdom of God on Earth.

The next morning he was crucified by Pilate for rabble-rousing.

It's bizarre isn't it, that two thousand years later this Galilean rabble rouser is being invoked by people winning Oscars, Grammys and Superbowls...

I sometimes wonder what kind of punishment Jesus would have seen fit for some of these people...

"Jesus, meet J-Lo... She's your biggest fan..."
"..." (I'm not sure what Jesus would say, but I'm pretty sure it would include the Aramaic words for "unclean" and "whore"... I don't think he was a big booty fan.

 

[David Swidler]

Those taken into exile would have been taken only from Jerusalem. This was a fairly common practice. The Assyrians took about 25,000 people from Samaria, capitol of the northern kingdom of Israel. Of the descendants of those taken by the Chaldeans, most, having been born in the vicinity of Babylon had no desire to leave. Since the exile began in 587 BCE, and the decree of Cyrus was in 538 BCE, a period of 49 years those who were 20 at the beginning were nearly 70, if they were even alive, when Cyrus made his decree.

There seem to have been about four "returns" under succeeding Persian kings. These would have been, in all probability, small groups of self-selected zealots. Their intolerance toward those they didn't consider sufficiently Jewish is highlighted in this passage from the Book of Nehemiah (Neh.13:23 - 25):

In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab; and half their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, the the language of each people. And I contended with them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair; and I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, "You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves."

The leadership was certainly devout, but the masses who came were much less so - essentially, those who didn't have it so good in Babylon. During the entire Second Commonwealth the Jewish population grew, but didn't come anywhere near that of Babylon/Persia. Nevertheless, there was always a Jewish community in Palestine from that point forward - albeit small, oppressed and poor, especially under the Byzantines.

 

[TimCallahan]

What it meant to be a Jew gradually varied. Compare the policies of the Maccabees to quote I used in an earlier post from the Book of Nehemiah (Neh.13:23 - 25):

In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab; and half their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, the the language of each people. And I contended with them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair; and I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, "You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves."

Among those who were targets of Nehemiah's wrath was Tobiah the Ammonite (see Neh. 13:4 - 9). The section on Tobiah is prefaced by a statement in Neh. 13:1 - 3 that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly. The implication is that Tobiah, in taking a chamber in the temple complex was committing a sacrilege. It's interesting to note, however, that the name Tobiah means "Yahweh is good." Both he and his parents would, then, seem to have been worshippers of Yahweh.

The Maccabees, in contrast to Nehemiah's policy of exclusion, forcibly converted those in areas they conquered to the worship of Yahweh.

 

[OCaptain]

Some more regarding Ain Dara, from my notes on Iron Age surveys of the temple:

The temple’s embellishments, executed in a style that clearly owes much to the artistic traditions of the Hittite Empire, appear to offer paradoxical grounds for dating. Some regard them as “Late Hittite” or “Syro-Hittite”, belonging to a time relatively early in the Iron Age, shortly after the collapse of the Hittite Empire, ca. 1200 B.C. (Seirafi, Kirichian and Dunand 1965:19; Orthmann 1971: 136-138). In his most recent publications, the excavator argues that some of the sculptures may belong to the Empire itself, but others were carved as late as the mid Eighth Century, B.C. (Abu ‘Assaf 1990:39-41; 1994:3). Even a consensus that the ‘Ain Dara sculptures are “early” Neo-Hittite art would not give them a precise date, since the absolute chronology of the sequence is a matter of controversy.