Christoph Levin

Ehud Ben Zvi

Revised versions of papers from a workshop held at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) in Munich from June 27 to July 1, 2011.

Remembering and Forgetting in Early Second Temple Judah

Diana V. Edelman

Ancient cities served as the actual, worldly landscape populated by “material” sites of memory. Some of these sites were personal and others were directly and intentionally involved in the shaping of a collective social memory, such as palaces, temples, inscriptions, walls, and gates. Many cities were also sites of social memory in a very different way. Like Babylon, Nineveh, or Jerusalem, they served as ciphers that activated and communicated various mnemonic worlds as they integrated multiple images, remembered events, and provided a variety of meanings in diverse ancient communities. Memory and the City in Ancient Israel contributes to the study of social memory in ancient Israel in the late Persian and early Hellenistic periods by exploring “the city,” both urban spaces and urban centers. It opens with a study that compares basic conceptualizing tendencies of cities in Mesopotamia with their counterparts in ancient Israel. Its essays then explore memories of gates, domestic spaces, threshing floors, palaces, city gardens and parks, natural and “domesticated” water in urban settings, cisterns, and wells. Finally, the studies turn to particular cities of memory in ancient Israel: Jerusalem, Samaria, Shechem, Mizpah, Tyre, Nineveh, and Babylon. The volume, which emerged from meetings of the European Association of Biblical Studies, includes the work of Stéphanie Anthonioz, Yairah Amit, Ehud Ben Zvi, Kåre Berge, Diana Edelman, Hadi Ghantous, Anne Katrine Gudme, Philippe Guillaume, Russell Hobson, Steven W. Holloway, Francis Landy, Daniel Pioske, Ulrike Sals, Carla Sulzbach, Karolien Vermeulen, and Carey Walsh.

Memory and the City in Ancient Israel

The exile is a central turning point in Israel’s construction of the past as it is recorded in the Hebrew Bible. The latter’s concept/s of exile are involved, among others, in constructions of patriarchal narratives, the Egyptian sojourn and slavery that led to the Exodus, and the motif of “the empty land” during the Babylonian period. Moreover, ancient Israelite concepts of exile have exerted much influence in later Christian and Jews discourses. This volume gathers papers presented at two workshops organized by the University of Munich and the University of Alberta.

The Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel and its Historical Contexts

Diana Vikander Edelman

"This volume highlights and advances new developments in the study of Edom and Idumea in eighteen essays written by researchers from different disciplines"--

Recent Research and Approaches from Archaeology, Hebrew Bible Studies and Ancient Near Eastern Studies

About Edom and Idumea in the Persian Period

Water is a vital resource and is widely acknowledged as such. Thus it often serves as an ideological and linguistic symbol that stands for and evokes concepts central within a community. This volume explores ‘thinking of water’ and concepts expressed through references to water within the symbolic system of the late Persian/early Hellenistic period and as it does so it sheds light on the social mindscape of the early Second Temple community.

Thinking of Water in the Early Second Temple Period

In this new and refreshing approach to the story, Ben Zvi starts with the premise that Jonah, like most books, was written to be read. He therefore concentrates on intended and unintended readership(s) of Jonah and the network of messages that they were likely to derive through their reading and rereading. He starts with the historical and social matrix of the production and reading of the book in antiquity, analyzes its self-critical approach and its metaprophetic character as a comment on the genre of prophetic books and on prophets. How does the historical fact of Nineveh's destruction acually shape the reading? Or the perception of Jonah as a runaway slave?Ben Zvi demonstrates the malleability of interpretation of the Book of Jonah and its limitations, as attested in different communities of readers. He asks why certain messages are easily accepted by particular historical communities, whereas others are not raised at all.

Reading and Rereading in Ancient Yehud

The Signs of Jonah

The book examines the range of associations and symbolic values evoked by twenty-one biblical figures when viewed across the range of biblical books that eventually formed an authoritative collection for the emergent Jewish community. The figures are grouped under ancestors and founders, kings, female characters, and prophets. The introduction and the concluding essay deal more specifically with theoretical and methodological issues that arise from analysing theHebrew Bible in the framework of memory studies. By viewing these biblical figures as sites of group memory for members of the ancient religious community of Israel, one better understands how thestories contained in the texts perpetuate selected memories deemed central for on-going group identity and values and how the characters involved in those memories create sometimes limited and sometimes complex networks of associations that aid in creating and reinforcing shared memories.

Social Memory and Imagination

Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods

Ehud Ben Zvi has been at the forefront of exploring how the study of social memory contributes to our understanding of the intellectual worldof the literati of the early Second Temple period and their textual repertoire. Many of his studies on the matter and several new relevant works are here collected together providing a very useful resource for furthering research and teaching in this area. The essays included here address, inter alia, prophets as sites of memory, kings as sites memory, Jerusalem as a site of memory, a mnemonic system shaped by two interacting ‘national’ histories, matters of identity and othering as framed and explored via memories, mnemonic metanarratives making sense of the past and serving various didactic purposes and their problems, memories of past and futures events shared by the literati, issues of gender constructions and memory, memories understood by the group as ‘counterfactual’ and their importance, and, in multiple ways, how and why shared memories served as a (safe) playground for exploring multiple, central ideological issues within the group and of generative grammars governing systemic preferences and dis-preferences for particular memories.

Social Memory among the Literati of Yehud

Aaron W. Hughes

David M. Gunn

Claudia V. Camp

In this volume, a list of esteemed scholars engage with the literary readings of prophetic and poetic texts in the Hebrew Bible that revolve around sensitivity to the complexity of language, the fragility of meaning, and the interplay of texts. These themes are discussed using a variety of hermeneutical strategies. In Part 1, Poets and Poetry, some essays address the nature of poetic language itself, while others play with themes of love, beauty, and nature in specific poetic texts. The essays in Part 2, Prophets and Prophecy, consider prophets and prophecy from a number of interpretive directions, moving from internal literary analysis to the reception of these texts and their imagery in a range of ancient and modern contexts. Those in Part 3, on the other hand, Texts in Play, take more recent works (from Shakespeare to Tove Jansson's Moomin books for children) as their point of departure, developing conversations between texts across the centuries that enrich the readings of both the ancient and modern pieces of literature.

Studies in Biblical Poetry and Prophecy in Honour of Francis Landy

Poets, Prophets, and Texts in Play

The exile is a central turning point in Israel s construction of the past as it is recorded in the Hebrew Bible. The latter s concept/s of exile are involved, among others, in constructions of patriarchal narratives, the Egyptian sojourn and slavery that led to the Exodus, and the motif of the empty land during the Babylonian period. Moreover, ancient Israelite concepts of exile have exerted much influence in later Christian and Jews discourses. This volume gathers papers presented at two workshops organized by the University of Munich and the University of Alberta. "

The Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel and Its Historical Contexts

The Persian and Hellenistic periods saw the production and use of a variety of authoritative texts in Israel. 'The Production of Prophecy' brings together a range of influential biblical scholars to examine the construction of prophecy and prophetic books during the Persian period. Drawing on methodological and comparative research and studies of particular biblical texts, the volume explores biblical prophecy as a written phenomenon, examining the prophets of the past, setting this within the general history of Yehud. The relationship between prophetic and other authoritative, written texts is explored, as well as the general social and ideological setting in which the prophetic books emerged.

Constructing Prophecy and Prophets in Yehud

The Production of Prophecy

History, Literature and Theology in the Book of Chronicles presents a new way of approaching this key biblical text, arguing that the Book employs both multiple viewpoints and the knowledge of the past held by its intended readership to reshape social memory and reinforce the authority of God. The Book of Chronicles communicates to its intended readership a theological worldview built around multiple, partial perspectives which inform and balance each other. This is a worldview which emphasizes the limitations of all human knowledge, even of theologically "proper" knowledge. When Chronicles presents the past as explainable it also affirms that those who inhabited it could not predict the future. And, despite expanding an "explainable" past, the Book deliberately frames some of YHWH's actions - crucial events in Israel's social memory - as unexplainable in human terms. The Book serves to rationalise divinely ordained, prescriptive behaviour through its emphasis on the impossibility of adequate human understanding of a past, present and future governed by YHWH.

Ehud Ben Zvi

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