New Historical Perspectives on the Babylonian Exile
Abraham Winitzer2020, HeBAI 9
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The Neo-Babylonian Empire: The Imperial Periphery as Seen from the Centre
JANEH, 2020
The paper examines the cuneiform evidence from sixth-century Babylonia (and beyond) for information on the form and aims of Neo-Babylonian imperial rule over its western provinces. While new texts, which hitherto have not been considered in this context, can be brought to bear on the issue, direct evidence from these provinces is still scarce. These documents will thus be supplemented by drawing on the rich information concerning state institutions and resource extraction in the imperial centre. It is argued that in the first half of the Neo-Babylonian period, until ca. 585 BCE, Babylonian imperial rule in the western periphery can be conceptualized primarily as a straightforward exploitative tributary regime. From about the mid-reign of Nebuchadnezzar onwards, however, there is a shift towards a more sustainable resource extraction through the creation of stable pockets of Babylonian presence in the periphery. This diachronic shift was meant to steady and organize the initial ad hoc Babylonian approach. These measures, however, did not prevail, and the chaotic years which followed the 43 years reign of Nebuchadnezzar illustrate the fragility of the relatively short-lived Babylonian imperial age.
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A Manual of the Ancient History of the East to the Commencement of the Median Wars: Comprising the history of the Israelites, Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians Vol 1 -FRANCOIS LENORMANT (Archaic Biblical reading)
J. B. Lippincott & Co, 1869
Phoenician art, intermediate between that of Egypt and Assyria, has been revealed to us, and invaluable treasures have been recovered from the catacombs. Bold explorers, too, have made us acquainted with the traces of all the various nations so closely packed in the narrow territory of Asia Minor. Cyprus with its strange writing and the sculptures of its temples ; Lycia with its peculiar language, its inscriptions, coins, sepulchral grottoes; Phrygia with its great rock, sculptured bas-reliefs, and the tombs of the kings of the family of Midas ; Arabia contributes to science ancient monuments of times anterior to Islamism, texts engraven by pilgi-ims on the rocks of Sinai, and the numerous inscriptions which abound in Yemen. Nor let Persia be forgotten with the remains of its kings, Achaemenid and Sassanian Nor India, where our knowledge has been entirely renewed by the study of the Vedas. But it is not only the length of the coui'se that has been increased, the progress of science has been so great that its domain is now also widely extended. Everywhere, by new routes, enterprising and successful pioneers have pushed their researches, and thrown light into the darkest recesses. Europe in our age takes definite possession of the world. What is true of the events of tlie day, is also true in the region of learning ; science regains possession of the ancient world, and of ages long forgotten. This resuscitation of the earliest epochs of civilisation commenced with Egypt. The hand of Champollion has torn down the veil which concealed mysterious Egypt from our eyes, and has added lustre to the name of France by the greatest discovery of our age. Thanks to him, we have at last the key to the enigma of the Hieroglyphs. And henceforth we may tread boldly on solid and well-known ground, where those who preceded us wandered among swamps and pitfalls. Champollion's discovery has been the starting point for those learned and ingenious researches to which we owe the restoration of Egyptian History. Through the whole extent of the Nile Valley the monuments have been examined, and in reply they have told us all the deeds of the kings who governed Egypt from the most ancient times. Science has penetrated the dark catacombs where sleep the Pharaohs, and has restored to us many dynasties whose only traces were to be found in some mutilated remains of the old historian Manetho. At the commencement of the present century, we knew little beyond the names of a few sovereigns, whose reigns were far apart and connected with but a small number of events, distorted by the statements of credulous Greek travellers, or magnified by national vanity. We now know nearly the whole series of monarchs who reigned over Egypt during more than 4,000 years ( higher today) CONTENTS BOOK I.—PRIMITIVE TIMES. Chap. I. — The Bible Narrative. Section I. The Human Race before the Deluge i ,, II. The Deluge 5 „ III. The Confusion of Tongues 7 Chap. II. — Traditions parallel to the Bible Story. Section I. The Creation. The Fall and the Antediluvian Patriarchs 8 ,, II. The Deluge 13 ,, III. The Cradle^ of Postdiluvian Humanity ig ,, IV. The Tower of Babel 22 Chap. III. — Material Vestiges of Primitive Humanity. Section I. Remains of the Archreolithic Epoch 24 ,, II. Remains of the Neolithic Epoch 30 ,, III. Chronology of these two Epochs 35 ,, IV. Prehistoric Archaeology of the Bible 39 Chap. IV. — Human Races and their Languages. Section I. The Unity of the Human Race and its Varie- ties 48 ,, II. The Four Great Races of Mankind 54 III. The Descendants of Noah according to llie Book of Genesis 57 ,, IV. The Principal Families of Languages 65 ,, V. The Semitic Languages 70 ,, VI. The Indo-European Languages 73 BOOK II.—THE ISRAELITES. Chap. I. — The Patriarchs—The Israelites in Egypt —Moses. Section I. Abraham 79 „ II. Isaac and Jacob 85 ,, III. Joseph in Egypt ... 89 ,, IV. The Israelites in Egypt and the Exodus 91 ,, V. The Israelites at Sinai 96 ,, VI. The Law of Moses 98 „ VII. The Tabernacle 103 ,, VIII. Sojourn in the Desert 105 ,, IX. Conquest of the Country East of the Jordan... 10 ClIAl\ TT. —KSTAHMSHMENT OK THE ISRAELITES IN TLand—The J u hoes. Saliou I. Conquest of llie Land of Canaan—Josluia IIO' ,, IL Period of Repose—l"'irst Serviliulc—Commencement of the Judges 114 ,, in. Ehud, Shamgar, Deboiali, Gideon, Barak ... 1 19, IV. Eli and Sanniel 123 Chap. III.— Kingdom of Israel—Saul, David, Solomon.Section I. Establishment of Royalty—Saul 130,, II. David 136,, III. Solomon 142 Chap. IV.—Separation of the Ten Tribes—Kingdoms OF Israel andJudah—Fall of Samaria and Jeru.salem. Section I. Rchoboam and Jeroboam—Separation of the Ten Tribes 147, II. Disorders and Reverses in the Kingdom ofIsrael 153,, III. Ahab, Jehoshaphat and their Sons 156 ,, IV. The Kingdoms of Judah and Israel from the reign of Athaliah to the death of Azariah... 165,, V. Intervention of the Assyrians in Palestine — Decline of the Kingdom of Israel and Fall of Samaria 171 ,, VI. The Kingdom of Judah from the Capture of Samaria to the Battle of Megiddo 176 VII. Last Days of the Kingdom of Judah —Nebuchadnezzar—Capture of Jerusalem 185 BOOK III.—THE EGYPTIANS. Chap. L—Egypt—The Nile and its Inundations— The Kings of the Old Empire. Section I. Physical Geography of Egypt—The Nile, its Inundations 193,, II. Principal Sources of the History of Egypt ... 195 ,, III. Foundation of the Monarchy—First Dynasties 201 ,, IV. Fourth and Fifth Dynasties—Age of the Great Pyramids 205 „ V. From the Sixth to the Eleventh Dynasty — Temporary Decline of Egyptian Civilisa- tion 210 Chap. II. — The Middle Empire. Section I. Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties—The Laby- rinth and Lake Moeris 213 ,, II. Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties 217 ,, III. Invasion and Dominion of the Shepherds 219 ,, IV. Expulsion of the Shepherds 223 CiiAr. III. — The Great Conquerors of the New Em- pire—Foreign Influence of Egyi'T. Section I. Eighteenth Dynasty—First Successors of Ahmes—Seventeentli Century n.c 226 ,, II. Continuation of tlic Eighteenth Dynasty — Thothmes III 229 ,, III. Last Kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty—Re- hgious Troubles 236 ,, IV. Commencement of the Nineteenth Dynasty — .Seti I. —Fifteenth Century B.C 240 ,, V. Ramses II. (Sesostris) 245 ,, VI. End of the Nineteenth Dynasty—Foreign Invasions—The Exodus 259 ,, VII. Commencement of the Twentietli Dynasty —Ramses III 264 Chap. IV. —Decline and Fall of the Egyptian Empire. Section I. End of the Twentieth Dynasty—Twenty-first Royal Family 269 ,, II. Twenty- second, Twenty-third and Twenty- fourth rjynasties 273 ,, III. Ethiopian Dynasty 277 ,, IV. The Dodecarchy—The Saite Kings 281 Chap. V. —Civilisation, Manners and Monuments of Egypt. Section I. Social Constitution 289 ,, II. Political Organisation and Administration ... 294 ,, III. Laws 299 ,, IV. Manners and Customs 301 , , V. Writing 302 ,, VI. Literature and Science 307 ,, VII. Religion 317 ,,VIII. Arts 327 , , IX. Principal Monuments 330 BOOK IV.—The ASSYRIANS AND BABYLONIANS. Chap. L—The Primitive Chaldean Empire. Section I. The Tigro-Euphrates Basin 339 ,, II. The Primitive Population of Chalda^a 341 ,, III. Origin of the States of Assyria and Chaldaea —Nimrod—The First Cushite Empire ... 347 ,, IV. Dynasties of the Chalda;an Empire according to Berosus 351 ,, V. Royal Names supplied by the Inscriptions ... 353 ,, VI. Monuments of the Primitive Chaldean Empire 357 ,, VII. Period of Egyptian Preponderance and of the Arab Kings 360 Chap. II. — The First Assyrian Empire. Section I. Foundation of the First Assyrian Empire — Fabulous Stories about that Empire — Ninus and Somiramis 364 ,, II. First Assyrian Dynasty 370 ,, III. First Kings of the UjTiasty of Belelaras Asshurnazirjial 376 ,, IV. From Sliahiianeser IV. to Binlikhish and Samniuramat (Semiramis) 379 V. Asshur-hk-liish or Sardanapalus—Fall of the First Assyrian Empire 384 >> f Chap. III. — The Second Assyrian Empire. Section I. Reign of Phul—Re-establishment of the As- syrian Empire 387 „ II. Sargon 392 ,, III. .Sennacherib 398 , , IV. Esarhaddon and Asshur-bani-pal 404 ,, V. End of the Second Assyrian Empire—Final Fall of Nineveh 415 Chap. IV. — Civilisation, Manners and Monuments of Assyria. Section 1. Political and Social Organisation 417 ,, II. IManners and Customs 426 1— »5 III. Writing 431 IV. Literature and Science /i/|/| V. Religion 452 VI. Arts 456 Chap. V.—The New Chaldean Empire. Section I. Survey of the History of Babylon under the Supremacy of the Assyrians 468 ,, II. Nabopolassar 472 ,, III. Nebuchadnezzar 476 V. The Successors of Nebuchadnezzar—Fall of the Babylonian Empire 4S7 J5 Chap. VI. — Manners and Religion of Babylon. Section I. Manners 492 ,, 11. The Caste of the Chaldceans 493 ,, III. Commerce of Babylon 495 ,, IV. Religion 497 ,, V. Cosmogony 500 „ VL Arts 505 Index 509 List of Scripture Texts Quoted 533 List OF Passages from Herodotus Quoted 535
Hebrew Bible and
Ancient Israel
1
Volume 9
2020
New Historical Perspectives
on the Babylonian Exile
Abraham Winitzer
Editorial Introduction: New Historical Perspectives
on the Babylonian Exile
Paul-Alain Beaulieu
Judah in the Shadow of Babylon
Michael Jursa and Ran Zadok
Judeans and Other West Semites: Another View
from the Babylonian Countryside
David S. Vanderhooft
Babylon as Cosmopolis in Israelite Texts
and Achaemenid Architecture
Ronnie Goldstein
Casting Nets and Burning Temples: The Babylonian
and Persian Background of Jer 43:8–13
Mohr Siebeck
Digital copy – for author's private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2020
Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel
Volume 9 (2020), Issue 1
Edited by Sara Milstein, Oded Lipschits, Konrad Schmid,
and Jakob Wöhrle
Contact: Phillip Michael Lasater, Theologische Fakultät der Universität Zürich
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ISSN 2192-2276 (Print Edition)
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Digital copy – for author's private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2020
Abraham Winitzer
Editorial Introduction: New Historical Perspectives
on the Babylonian Exile
The Babylonian exile was by all accounts a watershed in Israel, a turning
point that would thereafter demarcate two basic eras for this community and
consequently provide important shape to her history. Understandably then,
details of the broader historical events and their reflection in and effects on
Israel’s writings have been the subject of extensive interest and debate, beginning with the events themselves and continuing to the present day. The
possibility of revisiting such longstanding matters in the light of new findings represents therefore a most welcome occasion.
This is the goal of the current issue of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel,
toward which the four contributions appearing below have been commissioned. These contributions represent voices committed to a historical consideration of different aspects of the Babylonian exile, one that makes use
of and, indeed, introduces new data and findings to the overall conversation. Of these, the initial two (Paul-Alain Beaulieu; Michael Jursa and Ran
Zadok) are more contextual in nature, with a focus on the Babylonian history of this period and its intersection with Judah and the Judean community, while the latter two (David Vanderhooft; Ronnie Goldstein) turn to the
biblical text and consider its impression of and reaction to the remarkable
and turbulent events of the day.
The first contribution by Beaulieu is the broadest in contextual terms,
employing biblical and varied extra-biblical sources to gain insight about
Babylonia’s strategic and economic interests in the Levant. According to
Beaulieu, Babylonian imperial strategy, though it followed in some of Assyria’s administrative footsteps, nonetheless broke with the earlier Assyrian
vassal-state system approach with respect to the Levantine city-states most
proximate to Egypt. Against the earlier model, the Babylonian policy that
emerged under Nebuchadnezzar II favored the establishment of a large
buffer zone between Egypt proper and the Egyptian-Babylonian border demarcation to the north, in the Syro-Phoenician region. In this light, Beaulieu
contends that the main political developments of the Babylonian exile – i. e.,
HeBAI 9 (2020), 1–3
ISSN 2192-2276
DOI 10.1628/hebai-2020-0002
© 2020 Mohr Siebeck
Digital copy – for author's private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2020
2
Abraham Winitzer
Judah’s destruction, its (partial) depopulation, and the resettlement of exiles
in the east – appear derivative of a Babylonian Realpolitik, though one with
devastating consequences for the city-states of the southern Levant in the
late seventh and early sixth centuries.
Though his effort centers on the Levant, Beaulieu turns eastward as well
and makes brief mention of the exiled Judeans in Babylonia, reaffirming the
significance of the recently published Al Yahūdu and related texts for our
appreciation of the fate of Judah’s deportees in this period. The finding of
new evidence of Judeans in Babylonia in the study by Jursa and Zadok thus
represents an important supplement in this regard. Yet it is the qualitative
nature of this new evidence and the new perspective it offers that is especially noteworthy and significant. As Jursa and Zadok observe, information
concerning Judean settlement in Babylonia has come by and large from a
limited sphere in north and central Babylonia, around Nippur. The authors’
finding of Judeans considerably to the south, in the vicinity of Uruk, thus
sheds new light on the exilic Judean community and its manifest social and
economic interactions in that cosmopolitan environment, and perhaps even
beyond.
With the contribution of Vanderhooft the focus shifts to the biblical text
itself and its place in assessments of questions relating to the broader topic.
The specific issue at hand involves impressions on external witnesses, including those from Israel, of the city of Babylon and its stateliness. According to Vanderhooft, clues gathered from the prophetic corpus and especially
the famed story of Babylon’s tower in Genesis 11 attest cumulatively to a
fascination with this global city and a concession to its monumentality. To
such interest he suggests a parallel in the newly discovered remains of a
massive gate west of Persepolis whose construction seemingly dates to the
earliest years of Achaemenid rule; that this gate appears to be a replica of the
celebrated Ištar Gate in Babylon implies to him a certain homage by the new
Persian political order to the Babylonian edifice and all it represents. For
Vanderhooft the shared nature of such interest in the splendor of Babylon
underscores the significance of the phenomenon itself and the manner by
which Babylon’s contemporaries came to terms with it. For the Biblical text
this was propelled by attempts to make sense of what befell its community
at Babylon’s behest.
Though it is still heavily committed to history, the most text-oriented approach appears in the final contribution by Goldstein, which explores Jeremiah’s prophecy about Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of Egypt (Jer 43:8–13).
The difficult text, following Goldstein’s analysis, is revealed to contain evidence of Mesopotamian rhetoric in what is taken to anchor the prophecy’s
Digital copy – for author's private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2020
Editorial Introduction: New Historical Perspectives on the Babylonian Exile
3
original core, a core rooted in the day’s events. This core is then shown to
have undergone redaction that is equally illuminating of the Biblical text’s
awareness of contemporary historic developments. Indeed, Goldstein finds
indication of the prophecy’s ongoing redacting, a process that apparently
strove to update the original core in accordance with reports of dramatic
events from Nebuchadnezzar’s day to later, Persian times. Parallels to this
editing process elsewhere in the prophetic writings aid Goldstein in explaining the overall development of the text. The text, in turn, testifies to the
seminal place of events from the period of Babylonian exile in the formation
of Biblical literature.
It is thus hoped that both individually and together these works offer a
sense of some of the new evidence and avenues of research on the Babylonian exile and the manner by which these shed new light on the history of
this period and its literature. It is a pleasure to thank the authors for their
work and effort and especially Prof. Konrad Schmidt, chief editor of Hebrew
Bible and Ancient Israel, for his invitation to put together this special issue.
Andrew King of Notre Dame, who provided assistance in the final editing
of this volume, deserves credit and thanks as well. Prof. Gary Knoppers,
lamented colleague and friend, was among the more thoughtful students of
Israel’s history in the period under consideration, and it is hoped that these
pages would have brought a smile to his face. It is a small token of our communal loss to dedicate this volume to his memory.
Digital copy – for author's private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2020
Hebrew Bible and
Ancient Israel volume 9 (2020), no. 1
Edited by
Sara Milstein (Vancouver), Oded Lipschits (Tel Aviv),
Konrad Schmid (Zürich), and Jakob Wöhrle (Tübingen)
Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel is a peer-reviewed, quarterly journal
focusing primarily on the biblical texts in their ancient historical contexts,
but also on the history of Israel in its own right. Each issue has a topical
focus. The primary language is English, but articles may also be published
in German and French. A specific goal of the journal is to foster discussion
among different academic cultures within a larger international context
pertaining to the study of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel in the first
millennium b.c.e.
Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel erscheint vierteljährlich, die Beiträge
werden durch einen Peer-review-Prozess evaluiert. Ihr Thema sind die
Texte der hebräischen und aramäischen Bibel in ihren historischen
Kontexten, aber auch die Geschichte Israels selbst. Jedes Heft wird einen
thematischen Fokus haben. Die meisten Beiträge werden in Englisch
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erscheinen. Ein besonderes Ziel der Zeitschrift besteht in der Vermittlung
der unterschiedlichen akademischen Kulturen im globalen Kontext,
die sich mit der Hebräischen Bibel und dem antiken Israel im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. beschäftigen.
Associate Editors (2020–2023)
Carly Crouch, Pasadena; Guy Darshan, Tel Aviv; Peter Dubovsky, Rom;
Christian Frevel, Bochum; Shuichi Hasegawa, Tokyo; Corinna Körting,
Hamburg; Alice Mandell, Baltimore; Lauren Monroe, Ithaca; Bruce Wells,
Austin; Abraham Winitzer, Notre Dame
Mohr Siebeck
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