Covering over a thousand years of history (from the Assyrian exile in the eighth century BCE to late Roman times), this book makes an important contribution to the fields of Jewish studies, biblical ...studies, ancient Near Eastern studies, Samaritan studies, and early Christian history by challenging the oppositional paradigm that has traditionally characterized the historical relations between Jews and Samaritans. The research is multidisciplinary, engaging exciting new discoveries in archaeology, such as the site surveys of ancient Samaria and the major excavations at the holy site of Mt. Gerizim in central Israel; new discoveries in epigraphy, such as the publication of the Samaria papyri dating to the late Persian period (375–335 BCE), the publication of hundreds of late Persian-period Samarian coins, and the publication of hundreds of fragmentary Mt. Gerizim inscriptions (dating mostly to the late third and early second centuries BCE); and last, but certainly not least, new discoveries in biblical studies, such as the diverse collection of Pentateuchal manuscripts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Only by appreciating the close ties that developed between Samaria and Judah during the middle centuries of the first millennium BCE can one explain how the two communities became so similar in belief and practice, even sharing a common set of foundational scriptures (the Pentateuch). To put it another way, accounting for how two such similar groups as the Samaritans and Jews became alienated from one another during the Maccabean and Roman periods involves explaining how the two were so closely related in the first place. The solution to this puzzle is to be found in earlier Israelite and Judean history.
This volume presents collected essays of Gary N. Knoppers (1956-2018) on the historical books of the Hebrew Bible, among them seven thoroughly revised and eight newly published ones. An introduction ...by H.G.M. Williamson acknowledges their significance for Knoppers' oeuvre.
This essay explores how Ezra–Nehemiah partially inverts the traditional paradigm of exile found in other biblical writings. When one community is formed at some distance from another in antiquity, ...the derivative community normally appears as a dependent community (or colony). Yet, in Ezra–Nehemiah the homeland repeatedly experiences renewal through initiatives undertaken by diaspora Judeans. Particular attention is given to how the vertical alliances forged within the Achaemenid administration by two diaspora leaders—Ezra and Nehemiah—are deployed to benefit Yehud. The commendation of Ezra and Nehemiah raises fascinating issues about developing notions of Judean ethnicity and identity in a world dominated by imperial interests.
The 22 essays in this new and comprehensive study explore how
notions of covenant, especially the Sinaitic covenant, flourished
during the Neo-Babylonian, Persian, and early Hellenistic periods.
...Following the upheaval of the Davidic monarchy, the temple's
destruction, the disenfranchisement of the Jerusalem priesthood,
the deportation of Judeans to other lands, the struggles of Judeans
who remained in the land, and the limited returns of some Judean
groups from exile, the covenant motif proved to be an increasingly
influential symbol in Judean intellectual life. The contributors to
this volume, drawn from many different countries including Canada,
Germany, Israel, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States,
document how Judean writers working within historiographic,
Levitical, prophetic, priestly, and sapiential circles creatively
reworked older notions of covenant to invent a new way of
understanding this idea. These writers examine how new conceptions
of the covenant made between YHWH and Israel at Mt. Sinai play a
significant role in the process of early Jewish identity formation.
Others focus on how transformations in the Abrahamic, Davidic, and
Priestly covenants responded to cultural changes within Judean
society, both in the homeland and in the diaspora. Cumulatively,
the studies of biblical writings, from Genesis to Chronicles,
demonstrate how Jewish literature in this period developed a
striking diversity of ideas related to covenantal themes.
