Judah And The Judeans In The Persian Period

In July 2003, a conference was held at the University of Heidelberg (Germany), focusing on the people and land of Judah during the 5th and early 4th centuries B.C.E.-- the period when the Persian Empire held sway over the entire ancient Near East. This volume publishes the papers of the participants in the working group that attended the Heidelberg conference. Participants whose contributions appear here include: Y. Amit, B. Becking, J. Berquist, J. Blenkinsopp, M. Dandamayev, D. Edelman, T. Eskenazi, A. Fantalkin and O. Tal, L. Fried, L. Grabbe, S. Japhet, J. Kessler, E. A. Knauf, G. Knoppers, R. Kratz, A. Lemaire, O. Lipschits, H. Liss, M. Oeming, L. Pearce, F. Polak, B. Porten and A. Yardeni, E. Stern, D. Ussishkin, D. Vanderhooft, and J. Wright. The conference was the second of three meetings; the first, held at Tel Aviv in May 2001, was published as Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period by Eisenbrauns in 2003. A third conference focusing on Judah and the Judeans in the Hellenistic era was held in the summer of 2005, at M nster, Germany, and will also be published by Eisenbrauns.

During the past decade, the period from the 7th century B.C.E. and later has been a major focus because it is thought to be the era when much of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament was formed. As a result, there has also been much interest in the historical developments of that time and specifically in the status of Judah and its neighbors. Three conferences dealing roughly with a century each were organized, and the first conference was held in Tel Aviv in 2001; the proceedings of that conference were published as Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period. The second volume was published in early 2006, a report on the conference held in Heidelberg in July 2003: Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period. Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E. is the publication of the proceedings of the third conference, which was held in Muenster, Germany, in August 2005; the essays in it focus on the century during which the Persian Empire fell to Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic kingdoms came to the fore. Participants whose contributions are published here are: R. Achenbach, R. Albertz, B. Becking, E. Ben Zvi, J. Blenkinsopp, E. Eshel, H. Eshel, L. L. Grabbe, A. Kloner, G. N. Knoppers, I. Kottsieper, A. Lemaire, O. Lipschits, Y. Magen, K. Schmid, I. Stern., O. Tal, D. Vanderhooft, J. Wiesehöfer, J. L. Wright, and J. W. Wright.

In April, 2008, an international colloquium was held at the University of Heidelberg—the fourth convocation of a group of scholars (with some rotating members) who gathered to discuss the status of Judah and the Judeans in the exilic and postexilic periods. The goal of this gathering was specifically to address the question of national identity in the period when many now believe this very issue was in significant foment and development, the era of the Persian/Achaemenid domination of the ancient Near East. This volume contains most of the papers delivered at the Heidelberg conference, considering the matter under two rubrics: (1) the biblical evidence (and the diversity of data from the Bible); and (2) the cultural, historical, social, and environmental factors affecting the formation of national identity. Contributors: K. Schmid, J. Schaper, A. C. Hagedorn, C. Nihan, J. Middlemas, D. Rom-Shiloni, J. Wöhrle, Y. Dor, K. Southwood, D. N. Fulton, P.-A. Beaulieu, L. E. Pearce, D. Redford, A. Lemaire, J. F. Quack, B. Becking, R. G. Kratz, O. Tal, J. Blenkinsopp, R. Albertz, J. L. Wright, D. S. Vanderhooft, M. Oeming, and A. Kloner. Earlier volumes in the series of conferences are: Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, and Judah and the Judeans in the in the Fourth Century B.C.E.

This volume is the outcome of an international conference held at Tel Aviv University, May 29-31, 2001. The idea for the conference germinated at the fifth Transeuphratene colloquy in Paris in March 2000. The Tel Aviv conference was organized in order to encourage investigation into the obscure five or six decades preceding the Persian conquests in the latter part of the 6th century. The essays here are organized in 5 parts: (1) The Myth of the Empty Land Revisited; (2) Cult, Priesthood, and Temple; (3) Military and Governmental Aspects; (4) Archaeological Perspectives on the 6th Century B.C.E.; and (5) Exiles and Foreigners in Egypt and Babylonia. Contributors: H. M. Barstad, B. Oded, L. S. Fried, S. Japhet, J. Blenkinsopp, G. N. Knoppers, Y. Amit, D. Edelman, Y. Hoffman, R. H. Sack, D. Vanderhooft, J. W. Betlyon, A. Lemaire, C. E. Carter, O. Lipschits, A. Zertal, J. R. Zorn, B. Porten, and R. Zadok.

(Some Connected Questions of the Persian Empire).

In the first of four volumes on A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Lester Grabbe presents a comprehensive history of Yehud - the Aramaic name for Judah - during the Persian Period. Among the many crucial questions he addresses are: What are the sources for this period and how do we evaluate them? And how do we make them 'speak' to us through the fog of centuries? This first volume, Yehud: A History of the Persian Province of Judah offers the most up to date and comprehensive examination of the political and administrative structures; the society and economy; the religion, temple and cult; the developments in thought and literature; and the major political events of Judah at the time.

In the first of four volumes on A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Lester Grabbe presents a comprehensive history of Yehud - the Aramaic name for Judah - during the Persian Period. Among the many crucial questions he addresses are: What are the sources for this period and how do we evaluate them? And how do we make them 'speak' to us through the fog of centuries? This first volume, Yehud: A History of the Persian Province of Judah offers the most up to date and comprehensive examination of the political and administrative structures; the society and economy; the religion, temple and cult; the developments in thought and literature; and the major political events of Judah at the time.

It has long been recognized that the Persian period is crucial to the history of the formation of the biblical corpora. The essays presented in this volume explore this critically important era, reconstructing the socio-economic shifts that took place as well as the religio-theological environment of the Judean community and its neighbours. The topics of this volume, sociological, archaeological and theological, include: ethnicities and administration in Persian-era Palestine (Yigal); the historical origin of the concept of the piety of the poor at Qumran (Ro); the development of the theological concept of Yhwh's punitive justice (Ro); social, cultural and demographic transformations in Persian-period Judah (Faust); changes in Judah and its neighbouring provinces in the fourth century BCE (Fantalkin and Tal); some Greek views of the Persian empire (Sano). The papers collected in this volume were presented at an international conference held at International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo, February 17-19, 2011, a testimony to the fruitfulness of this unusual Asian-Israeli scholarly dialogue.