RBL 08/2010 Blenkinsopp, Joseph Judaism, the First Phase: The Place of Ezra and Nehemiah in the Origins of Judaism Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009. Pp. xiv + 262. Paper. $30.00. ISBN 9780 8028 64505. Joshua Schwartz Bar-Ilan University Ramat-Gan, Israel This is the latest volume of Joseph Blenkinsopp, the John A. O Brien Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at the University of Notre Dame, who has for decades been gracing us with works noted for erudition and breadth of learning on the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, early Christianity, and early Judaism. 1 The present work does not, of course, represent his first attempt at unraveling the many difficulties of the Persian period but rather continues along the lines he established in his 1988 OTL commentary on Ezra- Nehemiah and in numerous other publications. 2 Blenkinsopp, on the one hand, has long 1. See the comments of Robert Wilken, in Introduction, in Priests, Prophets and Scribes: Essays on the Formation and Heritage of Second Temple Judaism in Honour of Joseph Blenkinsopp (ed. Eugene Ulrich, John W. Wright, Robert P. Carroll, and Philip R. Davies; JSOTSup 149; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), 13 18. 2. Joseph Blenkinsopp, Ezra-Nehemiah: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988). See also, to cite just a few examples, his Interpretation and the Tendency to Sectarianism: An Aspect of Second Temple History, in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, II, Aspects of Judaism in the Graeco-Roman Period (ed. E.P. Sanders; London: SCM, 1981), 1 26; A Jewish Sect of the Persian Period, CBQ 52 (1990): 5 20; Temple and Society in Achaemenid Judah, in The Persian Period (vol. 1 of Second Temple Studies; ed. Philip R. Davies; JSOTSup 117; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 22 53; and The Nehemiah Autobiographical Memoir, in Language, Theology and the Bible: Essays in Honour of James Barr (ed. Samuel E. Balentine and John Barton; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 199 212.
championed the creativity of the postexilic era in the formulation and development of Judaism and, on the other hand, has battled against distorted portrayals of the Persian period and subsequent Second Temple period Judaism as being a decline from the glory of preexilic prophecy and as reflecting a transformation of that glory into mere legalism. 3 In the present work Blenkinsopp seeks to move beyond ideological issues 4 and to concentrate on matters of a more practical concern and asks when a distinctive social group identity emerged in the aftermath of the liquidation of the Judean state and how that identity is to be construed. When does it become proper to translate yehudim as Jews rather than Judeans? How should we assess the degree of continuity-discontuity between national identity before the great divide and membership of several distinct groups competing for legitimacy after it? Finally, what historical realities lie behind the idea of a return to Zion? For Blenkinsopp, Judaism qua Judaism first shows up on the screen of history during the two centuries of the Persian Empire, and this makes the focus on canonical Ezra-Nehemiah, supported by 1 Esdras and Josephus, a sine qua non for the understanding of this Judaism as well as for subsequent developments. Blenkinsopp, of course, also makes use of all other relevant material, biblical, Jewish and non-jewish. The book contains six chapters as well as a summary chapter of sorts (entitled Provisional Conclusion in Four Propositions ). The first chapter deals with origins. Blenkinsopp concludes that the two centuries from the fall of Babylonia in 539 B.C.E. to the conquests of Alexander in 332 B.C.E form the transitional period in which Judaism emerged from the rubble of the destroyed city of Jerusalem and its temple and the subsequent deportations. The key for understanding all this is in the terminology of Ezra- Nehemiah, which claims that the Israel that inherits the promises, commitments, and privileges to which the traditions testified is now limited to the members of the golah, those who came back from Babylonia. All other claims, including those of the inhabitants of Samaria and Judeans who had never left the land, and even those elsewhere in the diaspora whose religious beliefs and practices differed from the golah leadership, were excluded. The second chapter deals with Ezra. It begins by attempting to put Ezra-Nehemiah in perspective and then analyzes the Ezra story, which is composed of the following: Ezra s mission (Ezra 7:1 8:34), reading and interpreting the law (Neh 7:73b [72b] 8:18), and the intermarriage crisis (Ezra 9 10). The chapter concludes with a profile on Ezra and a 3. See Tamara C. Eskenazi s review of Ezra-Nehemiah in JBL 109 (1990): 525 27. 4. See, e.g., Joseph Blenkinsopp, Prophecy and Canon: A Contribution to the Study of Jewish Origins (University of Notre Dame Center for the Study of Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity 3; Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977).
discussion of Ezra and the golah. The most telling verses of Ezra s mission actually come right afterward (Ezra 8:35 36). They recount the last stages of the relocation from Babylonia and are no longer in the first-person discourse of Ezra. Sacrifices are offered, and the king s instructions are delivered to the local authorities. The emphasis here is not on Ezra but rather on the exiles back from the captivity. They are the ones who have inherited the ancient traditions, and they are the true descendants of the twelve-tribe Israel. However, there were failures in this group. Thus, the campaign against intermarriage was directed against members of the golah elite, both lay and clerical, who had married into local families. At this point Blenkinsopp connects those who tremble or tremblers (ha-haredim) of Isa 66:5 ( Hear the word of Yahweh, you who tremble at his word! ) with Ezra 9:4 ( Then there gathered round me all those who trembled at the word of the God of Israel ) and Ezra 10:3 ( And of those who tremble at the commandment of our God ). Perhaps the return to Zion was not a resettlement but rather a settlement with the religious core of this group dedicated to a rigorist interpretation of the law, a group segregated from the world outside, Jewish and non-jewish, and perhaps also motivated by some eschatological expectation. Chapter 3 is devoted to Nehemiah and includes a discussion of the Nehemiah story, the Nehemiah memoir in its contemporary setting, the memoir compared with Egyptian commemorative inscriptions, a study of the genre and literary character of the Nehemiah memoir, the memoir in the context of the rest of the book, and the Nehemiah profile. Nehemiah is presented not only as a member of the upper-class golah but also as a supporter of the rigorous legalism that characterized Ezra. Nehemiah represented a counter to the power and prestige of the priestly aristocracy and maintained good relations with the lower orders of temple clergy, particularly the Levites. Chapter 4 moves on to examine Ezra-Nehemiah s ideology and includes the following subjects: the Diaspora situation, projections of a restored past in postdisaster prophecy, the prehistory of the ideology in Ezra-Nehemiah, the temple and divine presence, and, finally, Ezekiel s law of the temple (the status of foreigners, marriage policy and ritual purity, temple priests and altar priests, the privileges and duties of the secular ruler, and the land). The agendas of both Ezra and Nehemiah, in their different situations and according to their different functions, were incubated in the Babylonian Diaspora. Deuteronomic laws defining group membership and proscribing intermarriage were of great importance. There was an affinity between the respective agendas of Ezra and Nehemiah and the temple law in Ezek 40 48.
Chapter 5 places Ezra-Nehemiah ideology within the framework of history. Included within this discussion are such topics as Ezra and Nehemiah as ideological points of reference; a study of related texts such as Chronicles, 1 Esdras, and Josephus; an examination of those texts that praise Nehemiah in Ben Sira and 2 Maccabees; rabbinic attestations; and an attempt to determine how long the achievements of Ezra and Nehemiah lasted. Blenkinsopp shows that Ezra and Nehemiah are presented in the other texts and works just as they are in the canonical book: Ezra is the priest and Nehemiah the layman, a mere Israelite, even if he was the governor of the province. In their respective spheres of influence, though, they were motivated by the same ideology and agenda originating in the Babylonian Diaspora. Nehemiah came into his own as patron of the Hasmoneans, both from a religious and political standpoint. The record on Ezra is more complex, although Blenkinsopp concludes that the practice of ritual segregation associated with Ezra and his party found expression in the sectarian or quasi-sectarian groups and movements that emerged in the Hasmonean and early Roman period. All of the previous chapters of the book ultimately serve to lead into a discussion of the sectarian element in early Judaism, the topic of chapter 6. Blenkinsopp first defines a sect and establishes the guidelines for recognizing one. Then he examines aspects of sectarianism in Ezra-Nehemiah and establishes their origins in the Babylonian Diaspora. He concludes the chapter with observations on legal interpretations and practice in Ezra- Nehemiah and late Second Temple period sects. He comes to the conclusion that, both in terms of ideology and practice, lines of continuity can be traced between the ambient described in Ezra-Nehemiah and the overt sectarianism of the late Second Temple period. He is less certain, however, whether this continuity can be translated into social terms. As mentioned above, the erudition and breadth of learning in this book, as well as in other works by Blenkinsopp, is worthy of much praise. There are, however, a few issues in this volume that might arouse discussion, and perhaps disagreement, among scholars. I shall briefly point out two possibilities. The first relates to Blenkinsopp s claim that Judaism qua Judaism existed already in the Persian period. Indeed, as we saw above, one of the major points of this work is that the Persian period was one of the most prominent in the creative process of Judaism. Quite early in the work Blenkinsopp takes issue with the view of Shaye J. D. Cohen that Jewishness evolved from Judeaness in the Hellenistic period (and not in the Persian period). 5 Before the Hellenistic period, the term Ioudaios (and its equivalents in Hebrew 5. Shaye J. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999). Cf. Gabriele Boccaccini, Middle Judaism: Jewish Thought 300 B.C.E. To 200 CE (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), Boccaccini claims that the creative phase of Judasim was between the third century C.E. and the second century C.E. While Blenkinsopp mentions this work, there is
and Aramaic), according to Cohen, were ethnic and geographic markers, not religious ones. Since much of Blenkinsopp s theories is based on seeing yehudim, for example, in a religious sense, there is a clear disagreement between the two scholars. Blenkinsopp never deals with Cohen s claims themselves; it is easier to claim that Blenkinsopp deals with religious ideology (in spite of his claim at the beginning of the book to be dealing with practical matters), not with social history per se. It is not clear, however, at least to me, that religious ideology can be severed from social history. It is not enough to postulate that the Persian period shows us this or that. Rather, it is necessary also to deal with the question as to why Cohen s claims on matters of the origins of Judaism (or Jewishness, the phrase he prefers) in the Hellenistic period are not applicable. This is especially important because Blenskinsopp does deal with the Hellenistic period to some extent as an outgrowth of his claims. Also missing from the discussion is any reference to the claims of Steve Mason regarding the origins of Judaism. Mason argues that there was no category of Judaism in the Greco- Roman world, no religion, and he also argues that the Ioudaioi of our sources were understood until late antiquity as an ethnic group comparable to other ethnic groups with distinctive laws, traditions, customs, and gods. They were Judeans, not Jews or proponents of Judaism. If this is true regarding the later Greco-Roman world, how much more so is it true regarding the earlier Persian period? 6 This is potentially not a matter of a disagreement regarding a chronological boundary line, as in the case of Cohen, but rather of total disagreement in principle and substance. The second issue to be discussed is that of sectarianism. While Blenkinsopp is not the first to finds the roots of Second Temple period sectarianism in the Persian period, 7 most work on this issue begins with the Maccabean period and following and especially with the first century C.E., when there are clearly extant sectarian works and clear-cut references to sectarians. There might not always be agreement about details, small or large, but it is clear that sectarianism existed in Jewish society from that time onwards. no real discussion. See also Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998); and idem, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism: An Intellectual History, from Ezekiel to Daniel, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). 6. Steve Mason, Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History, JSJ 38 (2007): 457 512. Cf., however, Daniel R. Schwartz, Judaean or Jew? How Should We Translate IOUDAIOS in Josephus? in Jewish Identity in the Greco-Roman World (ed. Jörg Frey, Daniel R. Schwartz, and Stephanie Gripentrog; AJEC 71; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 3 27. 7. See Lester L. Grabbe, Yehud: A History of the Persian Provence of Judah (vol. 1 of A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period; Library of Second Temple Sources 47; London: T&T Clark, 2004), 256 61 (= The Question of Sectarianism ), and p. 259 on Blenkinsopp and studies cited ad loc.
The situation regarding the Persian period is far more complex. There are a relatively small number of texts, and they are not by definition sectarian. Differences of opinion and polarity might be turned into sectarianism through hyper-exegesis and dependence on sociological models. Ultimately much depends on silence. Conclusions on sectarianism regarding the Persian period are at best problematical. Blenkinsopp s claims that Isa 66 ( those who tremble ) testifies to the rise of sectarianism already following the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. and that this might be connected to the golah group is ultimately as speculative as all the other theories pertaining to the Persian period. This being the case, it is rather surprising to find no reference to Albert Baumgarten s The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era (JSJSup 55; Leiden: Brill, 1997). While one might argue that this is not relevant to the Persian period, however, since Blenkinsopp continues his discussion of sectarianism beyond Persian times and indeed also into Maccabean times, the work is quite relevant. The fact is that Baumgarten, even though he for the most part refrains from dealing with the speculations on the Persian period, when he does, looks quite favorably on Blenkinsopp s views regarding Persian period sectarianism and sects, and Blenkinsopp s analyses might have benefited from Baumgarten s models and parallels. 8 None of this, however, diminishes from the contribution of Blenkinsopp s newest volume, and, as always, it makes an important contribution to the study of not only the Persian period but of ancient Judaism in general, however one seeks to define it or whenever one seeks its origins. 8. Baumgarten, Jewish Sects (see in text above), 18 n. 49, 51 n. 44, 115 n. 6.