RBL 07/2012 Grabbe, Lester L., and Oded Lipschits, eds. Joshua Schwartz Bar-Ilan University Ramat-Gan, Israel

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1 RBL 07/2012 Grabbe, Lester L., and Oded Lipschits, eds. Judah between East and West: The Transition from Persian to Greek Rule (ca BCE) Library of Second Temple Studies 75 New York: T&T Clark, Pp. xviii Hardcover. $ ISBN Joshua Schwartz Bar-Ilan University Ramat-Gan, Israel This volume represents the proceedings of a conference held at Tel-Aviv University in 2007 under the joint auspices of Tel-Aviv University and the Academic Study Group for Israel and the Middle East, an organization promoting cooperation between British and Israeli scholars. The editors provide the program for the conference, including information on breaks, coffee breaks, and lunch breaks. Of the seventeen scholars who presented papers at the conference, thirteen submitted them for publication; three Israelis and one British scholar did not publish their contributions. While it is somewhat unusual to mention papers that were not subsequently published, and even before the published papers are mentioned, I shall do so since the editors did, after all, provide us with the program. I also do so because some of these papers might have provided a contra to some of the topics discussed and subsequently published. Gabriel Barkay lectured on the history of archaeological research of Persian period Palestine. Barkay represents undoubtedly the more conservative approach to the archaeology of that time, and his article probably would have provided a nice contra to that of Israel Finkelstein (see below) beyond that of Lipschits (see below). Yuval Shahar lectured on the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim, a paper that might have served as a foil to that of Menahem Mor (see below). Moshe Fisher, the excavator and expert on

2 Yavneh Yam presented the site as a test case for transition between the Persian and Hellenic periods, a paper that would have fit in nicely with the contribution of Oren Tal (see below), and Jill Middlemas discussed the book of Esther, which would have added the Persian perspective on identity. One can only hope that these scholars will publish their papers in a different forum. 1 The thirteen published studies deal with the following six themes and topics: Judah in the transition period, Hellenism and Hellenization, language and literature in the transition period, Jewish identity, relating text and archaeology, and Josephus and events under Alexander. The articles, however, are presented in alphabetical order of their authors names. Lester Grabbe provides a thirty-page introductory chapter in which he provides detailed summaries of the articles, a discussion of themes and topics, and conclusions. He also points out occasionally when he disagrees with a particular paper or approach. While all this might be a godsend for the potential reviewer, it is somewhat of a spoiler to have his personal views interjected before the reader has a chance to read the articles, and the conclusions might have been placed in a brief conclusion chapter at the end so the reader can draw his or her own conclusions first. My guess is that many readers will read the introduction only after having read the volume, all or parts, and that it will function instead as a summary chapter. I shall briefly deal with the articles in their order of appearance. James Aitken, in his discussion of Jewish identity ( Judaic National Identity ), asks whether B.C.E. is a transition period, a time of innovation, or a catalyst for earlier ideas. He also asks whether Hellenism had substantial influence on the nature of Judah or Judaism. After discussing the methodological problems of the era, he focuses on Ben Sira, seeking clues there regarding Judaic identity. Ultimately, the themes of national identity might have already begun in the Persian period, but they sprung up with new vigor by the beginning of the second century B.C.E. Israel Finkelstein ( Geographical Lists in Ezra and Nehemiah in the Light of Archaeology: Persian or Hellenistic? ) postulates the rather radical idea that the description of the building of the wall of Jerusalem in Neh 3 is totally nonhistorical, whether utopian, a Persian period source based on Iron Age II, or inspired by the Late Hellenistic, Hasmonean city wall. Jerusalem during the Persian period was, according to Finkelstein, a sparsely settled ridge populated by no more than four hundred to five hundred people. This is an instance in which Grabbe in his introduction points out that Finkelstein s controversial paper is not without difficulty, as, for example, Finkelstein s failure to discuss Neh 4 in which the wall is also central, and unlike Neh 3, which can be 1. Or in English. For the time being, see the Hebrew language article of Gabriel Barkay, Another View of Jerusalem in the Days of Nehemiah [Hebrew], in New Studies in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and Its Region: Collected Papers 2 (2008):

3 isolated from the Nehemiah Memorial, chapter 4 cannot. A different view of Jerusalem is presented by volume co-editor Oded Lipschits ( Jerusalem between Two Periods of Greatness: The Size and Status of the City in the Babylonian, Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods ), and here we depart from the alphabetical order of articles. Lipschits points out that not many Persian period building remains have been discovered in Yehud in general, and this of course is also the case in Jerusalem. Persion period pottery, however, has been discovered in the City of David in Jerusalem, and there are indications of the Persian period wall, a fictitious wall, as we remember, according to Finkelstein. The Jerusalem of Lipschits is larger than that of Finkelstein; in the view of Lipschits, it might have had 1,000 1,250 residents. 2 Lester Grabbe deals with the enigmatic history of Judah during the Ptolemaic period ( Hyparchs, Oikonomoi and Mafiosi: The Governance of Judah in the Ptolemaic Period ) and especially how the region was governed. As the Ptolemaic government tried to avoid interfering with arrangements that worked, it is likely that Persian period administration continued under the rule of the Ptolemies, and this meant a considerable amount of autonomy at both the local and regional levels, with power in the hands of the high priest or his priestly brethren. Sylvie Honigman ( King and Temple in 2 Maccabees: The Case for Continuity ) begins her study with a reevaluation of terminology, particularly hellenismos in 2 Maccabees, and comes to the conclusion that, in terms of the cultural encounter between Greeks and non-greeks in the Hellenistic East, the model of acculturation no longer applies and that this term and process should be replaced by interculturation or cultural receptivity. These ideas stress the receiving culture, not the giving culture related to the term and concept of acculturation. Moreover, it is important to remember that not all changes in Judea after Alexander the Great resulted from Greek cultural influence. The following article, by the late Aryeh Kasher, discusses Alexander s visit to Jerusalem ( Further Revised Thoughts on Josephus Report of Alexander s Campaign to Palestine [Ant ] ), seeking to prove once again the historicity of the visit of Alexander as described by Josephus. Grabbe subscribes to the commonly accepted view that the account of Josephus, or of other Jewish sources, is not reliable and that, if such a visit had taken place, then it is inconceivable that no other ancient historian would have mentioned it. From a geographical point of view, the rabbinic traditions placing the meeting of Alexander and the high priest at the (anachronistic) Antipatris makes more 2. See also Ziony Zevit, Is There an Archaeological Case for Phantom Settlements in the Persian Period, Palestine Exploration Quarterly 141 (2009): ; and Eilat Mazar, The Wall That Nehemiah Built, Biblical Archaeology Review 35.2 [2009]:

4 sense, but Grabbe s point regarding the omission from non-jewish sources applies here too. Amos Kloner, in a rather short piece ( The Introduction of the Greek Language and Culture in the Third Century BCE, according to the Archaeological Evidence in Idumaea ) discusses the Aramaic and Greek finds in the Maresha area. What are most interesting are the Greek inscriptions and graffiti from the third-century B.C.E. (and afterwards) site Khirbet Za aquqa, about 6 km east of Maresha. Everything is in Greek, no Aramaic here, and the onomasticon is purely Greek with no identifiable regional characteristics. Either there was total acculturation (cf. Honigman above) or the site was inhabited by Greek settlers. There is no good reason or explanation for either of these explanations in spite of the fact that the tomb was published twenty years ago. 3 Menachem Mor ( The Samaritans in Transition from the Persian Period to the Greek Period ) discusses four issues: (1) the building of the Samaritan temple; (2) Samaritan leadership; (3) from Samaria to Schechem; and (4) land disputes between Jews and Samaritans. Hebrew readers will be familiar with a good deal of the material here from Mor s 2003 From Samaria to Schechem: The Samaritan Community in Antiquity [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2003). Much of the discussion in this volume is a response to Yitzhak Magen, Haggai Misgav, and Levana Tsfania, The Aramaic, Hebrew and Samaritan Inscriptions (vol. 1 of Mount Gerizim Excavations; Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2005), and specifically the claim of Magen that the Samaritan temple was built in the mid-fifth century B.C.E., in 444 B.C.E., when Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, not at the end of the Persian period or the beginning of the Hellenistic period, in keeping, more or less, with Josephus, Ant The underlying principle is that Josephus is reliable in spite of the numerous attendant difficulties to his depiction in Ant. 11. John Ray ( The Alphabet That Never Was: A Possible Egyptian Influence on the Near East ) discusses a number of Egyptian demotic alphabets. In spite of Ray s attempts to make this comprehensible to the nonspecialist, it is not easy reading. Occurrences of the HLH alphabet in Arabia, Beth Shemesh, and Ugarit could be explained by sea trade routes. Ultimately, however, we know less about these alphabets than previously thought. The article of Eveline van der Steen ( Empires and Farmers ) is somewhat of an enigma to me. She seeks to examine the impact that power changes on a region have on local 3. Amos Kloner, Dalit Regev, and Uriel Rappaport, A Hellenistic Burial Cave in the Judean Shephelah, Atiqot 21 (1992): See also Yitzhak Magen, A Temple City (vol. 2 of Mount Gerizim Excavations; Jerusalem: Staff Officer of Archaeology, Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria, 2008); and idem, The Samaritans and the Good Samaritan (Jerusalem: Staff Officer of Archaeology, Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria, 2008).

5 populations. This in itself is fine. However, she seeks models in other periods, starting from the Arab conquest of Palestine and through the Ottoman period and afterwards. These periods provide more data than one can find in the study of the ancient world. She seeks to point out similarities in the relationship between conquers and conquered in different circumstances and suggests that such a comparison might provide insights not apparent in the sources. While all this might be quite stimulating and while she has used such methodologies in her Rijksuniversiteit, Groningen, dissertation and subsequent publication (Tribes and Territories in Transition [Leuven: Peeters, 2004]) in the study of part of the Jordan Valley in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages, it seems very difficult to apply these ideas to the Persian or Hellenistic period. This would be a good time to depart from the alphabetic order of articles and to cite now the back-to-the-basics contribution of Oren Tal ( Hellenistic Foundations in Palestine ), who examines coins, weights, and archaeological evidence in general regarding the foundation of cities and poleis in Hellenistic Palestine and concludes that in most cases the Hellenistic foundation in Palestine was a refoundation of an existing urban settlement. Many were coastal cities, with Jerusalem as a notable exception, and had an Achemenid past. Loren T. Stuckenbruck, who has long written on Second Temple Judaism and its literature, particularly Enoch, discusses a passage (1 En ) from the Book of Watchers (1 En. 1 36) in Early Enochic Tradition and the Restoration of Humanity: The Function and Significance of 1 Enoch 10. The particular passage he examines is often referred to as a conversion of all nations. He examines this from a threefold framework: the nations in the Hebrew Bible; the role and function of 1 En in the Book of the Watchers; and 1 En in the Enoch tradition and in Second Temple literature. He comes to the conclusion that this text was addressing the wider challenges of Jewish self-definition being posed by Hellenization. The final article of the volume, by Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer ( Will the Prophetic Texts from the Hellenistic Period Stand Up, Please! ), provides a brief overview of the various prophetic texts that are normally viewed as stemming from late Persian and early Hellenistic times (parts of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Joel). Her goal is to elucidate and evaluate the criteria for dating these texts. While the level of articles in any collection is usually uneven, the editors of this volume, the conveners of the original conference, have produced a volume of importance for the study of Judah and its environs in both the Persian and Hellenistic periods. For some reason I seemed to have missed the conference. I am glad that I have read the book.