Leadership, Social Memory and Judean Discourse in the 5th-2nd Centuries BCE

Edited by

Diana V. Edelman [+–]

University of Oslo

Diana V. Edelman is Professor Emerita of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oslo. Her own research focuses on the history, archaeology, and literature of the southern Levant, the development of early forms of Judaisms, and ancient Near Eastern literature viewed from the perspective of social memory. She has thirteen seasons of excavation experience in Israel. While her research tends to focus on the Iron Age and Persian period, she is interested in earlier and later periods and a wide range of topics. Current interests include local responses to imperialism, royal ideology, the development of technology and agriculture, everyday life, issues involving religion and ritual, burial and afterlife beliefs, diaspora studies, migration studies, frontier studies, social memory, ancient economies, and ancient political organization. Her numerous publications include 17 authored or edited books, 44 chapters in edited volumes, 14 articles in refereed journals, 58 dictionary and encyclopedia articles, and 128 book reviews (as of 2/2015).

Ehud Ben Zvi [+–]

University of Alberta

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Ehud Ben Zvi is a Professor Emeritus in the department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta. He has written extensively on Social Memory in Ancient Israel and the latter’s past-shaping texts, esp. prophetic literature, ‘historical’ books and particularly Chronicles. For list of publications see https://sites.ualberta.ca/~ebenzvi/ebz-publications.html

Although the nature and limitations of kingship, both native and foreign, is a central theme of many of the essays, the volume includes discussions of both official and unofficial local leadership within an empire setting, alternatives to royal leadership like theocracy, charismatic judgeship, and Greek-style tyrants, as well as considerations of Greek political discourse on the best type of leadership.

Series: Worlds of the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean

Preliminaries

List of contributors [+–] vii

Diana V. Edelman,Ehud Ben Zvi FREE

University of Oslo

University of Alberta

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Abbreviations [+–] viii

Diana V. Edelman,Ehud Ben Zvi FREE

University of Oslo

University of Alberta

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Chapter 1

Introduction [+–] 1-7

Diana V. Edelman £17.50

University of Oslo

The theme of leadership played an important role in ancient Israel and its discourse. It was explored time and again through memories of proper, improper and in-between leaders and through memories of particular institutions like monarchy, priesthood, and prophethood. The ways in which this theme was shaped, reflected, and above all explored through social memory and how, in turn, those memories played a socializing role within the community is the focus of this collection of seventeen essays, which grew out of the 2013 research program of the group, Israel and the Production and Reception of Authoritative Books in the Persian and Hellenistic Periods of the European Association of Biblical Studies. The editors were co-chairs of the research group from 2005–2013. Additional papers were invited on selected topics in order to round out the collection and further internal dialogue among the contributions. Although, as anticipated, the nature and limitations of kingship, both native and foreign, is a central theme of many of the essays, the volume includes discussions of both official and unofficial local leadership within an empire setting, alternatives to royal leadership like theocracy, charismatic judgeship, and Greek-style tyrants, as well as considerations of Greek political discourse on the best type of leadership. Authors include the following biblical scholars or historians of ancient Israel: Ehud Ben Zvi, Kåre Berge, Thomas M. Bolin James Bos, Lorenzo DiTomasso, Diana Edelman, Beate Ego, Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley, Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher, Reinhard Müller, Christophe Nihan, Wolfgang Oswald, Anne-Mareike Schol-Wetter, Ian D. Wilson. In addition, there are two contributions from the Stuyvesant P. Comfort Professor of Law at New York University, Geoffrey Parsons Miller, and from a well-known classicist, Lynette Mitchell.

Chapter 2

Memory and Political Thought in Late Persian/Early Hellenistic Yehud/Judah: Some Observations [+–] 9-26

Ehud Ben Zvi £17.50

University of Alberta

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Political thought involving negotiating the various strengths and weaknesses of various political regimes was alive and well in this period, at least, among the literati, despite and perhaps even more because of the lack of an “independent” polity. To be sure, they did not carry out this endeavor through “treatises” but primarily through narratives and particularly narratives that shaped their overall social memory. Narrative memory became a kind of playground in which different political structures could and did demonstrate, from their viewpoint, their relative strengths and weaknesses. There were social mnemonic constrains within that playground. For instance, the Davidic/Solomonic time had to be (at least partially) lionized, because it was associated with the building of the temple. The monarchic period as a whole had to be vilified to explain the catastrophe of 586. The centrality of the divine instruction—as understood by the literati—had to be maintained since after all, this was a community that construed itself as a text-centered group. Necessary mechanisms to contain what was seen as a normal tendency for society and people to go astray over time (i.e., “social entropy”) had to be constantly entertained, and memories of an utopian future to come, not only of the problematic past, had to play central roles too. At the same time, constrains were always negotiated and often had to inform and balance each other. This essay discusses ways in which studying the memories of the past and future held by the community contribute to our understanding of their political thought and leads to the conclusion that these memories suggest the addition of a complementary category for understanding the political thought of the community, that of what we may call, “guardianship.”

Chapter 3

Memories of Judah’s Past Leaders Utilized as Propaganda in Yehud [+–] 27-40

James Bos £17.50

University of Mississippi

Propaganda is a messaging technique utilized by any given elite to obtain, maintain, and bolster their legitimacy, their privilege, their power, and their access to resources. This is accomplished through shaping and constructing an ideology that confers these advantages to the elite. The production of literature was one method of propaganda employed by the leadership of ancient Judah. In producing this propaganda, the scribal elite and their employers mined the Judahites’ shared memories about their past and often reshaped them to serve their favored ideology. Cultural or social memory is thus a primary component of propaganda, and this paper seeks to examine how Judahite memories about their past leadership have been reshaped in the Persian period and beyond and employed for propagandistic purposes.

Chapter 4

Mystified Authority: Legitimating Leadership Through “Lost Books” [+–] 41-56

Kåre Berge £17.50

Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo

Kåre Berge is Professor emeritus and guest researcher at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo. His studies cover the Pentateuch, especially Genesis, Exodus and Deuteronomy, focusing on cultural memory, politics of identity, didacticism, and symbolization of power-relations. In particular, “Dynamics of Power and the Re-invention of ‘Israel’ in Persian Empire Judah.” Pages 293–321 in Levantine Entanglements. Edited by T. Stordalen and Ø.S. LaBianca. Sheffield: Equinox, 2021; and “Cities in Deuteronomy: Imperial Ideology, Resilience, and the Imagination of Yahwistic Religion.” Pages 77–96 in Deuteronomy in the Making. Edited by D. Edelman, B. Rossi, K. Berge, P. Guillaume. BZAW 533; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2021.

This article investigates how some biblical books, in particular Deuteronomy, legitimate leadership authority in post-exilic Yehud. It is part of the question: What mechanisms are at work when books legitimate social power? My point is that the biblical books studied in this article (Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah) are “sites of memory” of lost books, or rather of lost imprints of words from God. Starting from the physicality of scrolls that were there, got lost, and are replicated in the new physicality of the biblical texts, the article focuses on biblical texts as “things,” that is, how these physical objects create an embodied encounter with “divine alterity” and how they make the sacred present. It is inspired by recent studies on how “things” mediate belief. By combining the ideas of mystification, mimesis, and alterity with the “thingly turn,” I try to understand how representations of lost books can make these very representations an embodied encounter with the biblical divinity for those confronted with them; that is, how mimesis and alterity legitimize and authorize these writings as “divine” books. In turn, this legitimizes leadership.

Chapter 5

Israel’s King as Primus Inter Pares: The “Democratic” Re-conceptualization of Monarchy in Deut 17:14–20 [+–] 57-76

Reinhard Müller £17.50

University of Munich

The article analyzes the law on kingship in Deut 17:14-20 in relation to the redaction history of Deuteronomy and the Former Prophets. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between Deuteronomy 17 and Israel’s request for a king in 1 Samuel 8. Deuteronomy 17, which is part of Deuteronomy’s constitutional proposal, programmatically transforms the traditional royal ideology with respect to Deuteronomy’s idea of Israel as YHWH’s chosen people and to the failure of the Israelite monarchy that is described in Samuel and Kings. Deuteronomy 17, in marked contrast with 1 Samuel 8, strictly delimits the power of the king and, by depicting him as primus inter pares, creates a concept of a royal institution that is in accordance with Israel’s singular identity among the peoples.

Chapter 6

The Kingdom of God in Samuel [+–] 77-87

Geoffrey Parsons Miller £17.50

New York University

This paper argues that the idea of the kingdom of God in the Hebrew Bible refers to theocracy – the political system in which authority is exercised by God’s representative on earth. The Bible’s treatment of this topic is subtle and nuanced, recognizing virtues in theocratic rule but concluding, overall, that it does not deliver sustainable and effective governance in the real world. The Bible’s rejection of theocratic rule is a key step in its political theory that the best form of government for ancient Israel was a monarchy limited by constitutional norms.

Chapter 7

Reconsidering Davidic Kingship in Ezekiel 89-110

Christophe Nihan £17.50

University of Lausanne

Chapter 8

Imagining the Memory of an Elder: Job 29–30 [+–] 111-126

Terje Stordalen £17.50

University of Oslo

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Terje Stordalen is professor of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament studies at the University of Oslo, Norway. He also holds a chair as Obel Visiting Social Science professor at Aalborg University, Denmark.

Job 29–30 reflects an imaginary memory of Job as an elder in a city gate, but in a world that in some respects is different from that of the intended audience. This article makes an attempt to mine this clearly artistic memory for any realistic reflections of social leadership of local elders in the world of the historical reader. Using comparative historical material and especially comparative social theory (Pierre Bourdieu and Fei, Xiaotong), the essay argues that the space for exerting leadership in a traditional local society was very structured and limited. Basically, and elder would lead by putting striking words and action to sentiments and opinions that were in accordance with the predominant local tradition and the local habitus.

Chapter 9

At the Hands of Foreign Kings: Divine Endorsement of Foreign Rulers in the Hebrew Bible in the Memory of Persian and Hellenistic Yehud [+–] 127-145

Thomas Bolin £17.50

St. Norbert College

Thomas M. Bolin is Professor of Religious Studies at St. Norbert College, De Pere, WI. He works in the areas of ancient Israelite history and wisdom literature.

Biblical texts from the Persian and Hellenistic periods view Yahweh’s attitude toward foreign kings to be, on the one hand, a continuation of pre-exilic texts’ portrayal of these kings as tools used by Yahweh to punish the disobedient Israelites and Judeans. Social memories also shape traditions to remove any ambiguity about the role of Yahweh in Israel’s dealing with foreign kings. So the death of Josiah in 2 Chronicles is expanded to resolve the ambiguity of his death at the hands of Necho in 2 Kings, At the same time, post-exilic texts use traditional fol tale types to portray foreign kings as pawns of Yahweh, most notably in the depiction of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel.

Chapter 10

At the Crossroads of Persian and Hellenistic Ideology: The Book of Esther as “Political Theology” [+–] 147-163

Beate Ego £17.50

Ruhr-Universität Bochum

The Esther narrative can be interpreted as containing the memory of Persian imperialism as well as the Hellenistic worship of rulers. In this context, it surveys the possibilities and limits of Israel’s existence under the reign of foreigners. While Israel can come to terms with the concept of a human king, because of the commandments and customs through which it differentiates itself from other people, it will always be in tension with its surroundings. The precedent par excellence in which this difference is supposed to be expressed is divine kingship. By means of intertextual references and the use of reversal, the author of the book of Esther clarifies that even in the Diaspora, it is the God of Israel who holds the individual threads of events in his hands. Reading aloud the Esther narrative during the festival of Purim creates a kind of mental positioning to counter real or potential enemy threats through the remembrance of this tradition. On the one hand, the Esther narrative aims to convey courage for behavior that is loyal to both its own tradition and to its political and social environs. On the other hand, it creates a counterbalance to the threat and persecution of the Jewish people. In this way, the Festival of Purim functions as a medium of collective consciousness, which demonstrates appropriate Jewish behavior when encountering different leadership and which makes the memory of overcoming the crisis and of being saved topical for all time and newly inscribed in the consciousness.

Chapter 11

Models of Local Political Leadership in the Nehemiah Memoir [+–] 165-199

Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley £17.50

Trinity College Dublin

Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, Trinity College Dublin. She is the author of monographs on Torah and on the Nehemiah memoir as well as of a number of articles on the Persian and Ptolemaic period.

The Persians will not have described their rule in Yehud and Samaria as based on a system of patron-client type of relationships, but essentially it is just that system that we see operating in the background of the story of Nehemiah in the Nehemiah Memoir (NM). This multi-layered, informal structure was deeply embedded in traditional and long-established socio-political relations in the region and was not formally recognized by the Persian administration. It was a hierarchical system, with Sanballat of Samaria at the top of the socio-political ladder and Eliashib the high priest of Jerusalem fairly low down; he was, after all, only indirectly a client of Sanballat’s through his clientship to the Ammonite ruler Tobiah, to whom he and other rulers of Jerusalem had sworn an oath. Thus, in Yehud, Samaria, and Ammon, we see the same multiple layers of leadership that can be witnessed in other Persian-ruled districts, such as parts of Asia Minor. Apart from these rulers named in the Memoir, through the narrative we glimpse many other layers of political leadership, such as rulers of districts and half-districts and “the leading men of Jerusalem” who, although not even important enough to be named in the text (apart from on a couple of occasions), played a significant role in attempting to prevent Nehemiah from replacing Tobiah as patron of the rulers of Jerusalem. Of all the named and unnamed leaders in the Memoir, Nehemiah is the one remembered in later traditions, such as Sirach and 2 Maccabees, but not as a Persian official who set out to establish a troop in the birta in Jerusalem. Rather he is remembered as a heroic leader of the return from Exile, who rebuilt the great city of Jerusalem and re-established its traditions.

Chapter 12

The Three Constitutions in Greek Political Thought [+–] 201-218

Lynette Mitchell £17.50

University of Exeter

Lynette Mitchell is Professor of Greek History and Politics in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter. She is the author of Greeks Bearing Gifts: The public use of private relationship 431-323 BC (CUP, 1997); Panhellenism and the Barbarian in Archaic and Classical Greece (Classical Press of Wales, 2007); and The Heroic Rulers of Archaic and Classical Greece (Bloomsbury, 2013). Her current project is on Cyrus the Great of Persia.

Stemming from an interest in constitutionalism in the Greek world dating from the archaic period (ca. 800–500 BCE), this chapter is concerned with the development of the abstraction in Greek political thought of the three constitutions, the rule of the one, the rule of the few, and the rule of the many, which by the fifth century was formalized in terms on monarchy, oligarchy and democracy. It will then consider how this notion of three constitutions was taken forward in the fourth century BCE, in the first instance in terms of positive and negative types, but then in terms of the mixed constitution, in which various combinations of the three basic types were combined in order to create another form of ruling that could ensure social harmony. This chapter will also reflect upon the role of social and political memory to creating these idealized forms of political organization. It will conclude by arguing that the abstraction of constitutions played an important part in the ability (and need) to critique “governance” in the Greek world.

Chapter 13

Monarchy, Oligarchy, and Democracy in the Constitutional Debate in Herodotus and in 1 Samuel 8 [+–] 219-229

Wolfgang Oswald £17.50

University of Tübingen

This chapter compares two early samples of political theoretical reasoning: (1) the discussion on monarchy between the prophet Samuel and the elders of Israel in 1Samuel 8 and (2) the so-called Constitutional Debate in Herodotus III:80–82. For both texts the form of government is no longer considered to be divinely ordained or determined by tradition, rather it is a matter of dispute and deliberate decision. Herodotus’ Constitutional Debate is an outcome of the emergence of the citizen states in archaic Greece. 1Samuel 8 is part of the deuteronomistic History and thus an attempt to reconstitute the Judean society after the downfall of the monarchy in 587 BCE. Both texts dismiss monarchy, while they critically advocate some early form of democracy.

Chapter 14

Remembering Samson in a Hellenized Jewish Context (Judges 13–16) [+–] 231-247

Diana V. Edelman £17.50

University of Oslo

Whatever the originating context and desired impact of the Samson story in Judges 13–16, for Jews versed in Hellenistic culture, literature, and worldview, it is likely that the story called to mind in varying degrees the Greek hero Herakles and King Alexander, who was depicted widely on Greek coinage in the guise of Herakles, wearing the skin of the Nemean lion. These associations likely would have represented a value assigned by a subsection of the larger religious community only, but shared social memories can bear different meanings and messages within a society. Samson’s negative evaluation in the biblical text could have been understood by Hellenized Jews to have been a rejection of the idea of the Greek semi-divine hero and of tyranny, exemplified by Alexander, as a form of leadership.

Chapter 15

Judith Maccabee? On Leadership, Resistance, and the Great Deeds of Little People [+–] 249-261

Anne-Mareike Schol-Wetter £17.50

Dutch Bible Society

Anne-Mareike Wetter obtained her PhD from Utrecht University (On Her Account: Reconfiguring Israel in Ruth, Esther and Judith, T&T Clark, 2015). In her current position as head of the department of Bible engagement at the Dutch Bible Society, she focuses on making insights from biblical scholarship available for a wider audience.

‘Judith Maccabee’ compares the book of Judith and 1 Maccabees in terms of the ideals of leadership and resistance brought forward in each book. Playfully linking the protagonists of both texts to characters from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, it argues that Judith and Judas Maccabee not only pursue different tactics and different political aims, but also handle different definitions of the enemy against whom their resistance is staged. Both figures are described as acting with ‘zeal’; however, their very different appropriation of zealous figures from Israel’s past socialises the readers of both works are into contrary models of action: consent and compliance with the establishment of dynastic kingship and priesthood in 1 Maccabees versus grassroots resistance in the book of Judith. More importantly, 1 Maccabees teaches its readers a porous concept of Israel: enemies can be found both within and without – as can friends. Reversely, Judith treats everyone outside Israel as enemies – ‘orcs’, so to speak – shunning the idea of any form of contact that is not aimed at eliminating the latter.

End Matter

Index of Ancient Sources [+–] 263-277

Diana V. Edelman,Ehud Ben Zvi FREE

University of Oslo

University of Alberta

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Author Index [+–] 278-284

Diana V. Edelman,Ehud Ben Zvi FREE

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University of Alberta

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Reviews

The volume ... is for the attention of all concerned with the theme of "dominion" in the Old Testament and its Greek-Hellenistic context.
Zeitschrift für alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

Achieves its overall goal of opening up discussion of Judaean political thought of the period and all those wishing to explore this topic will need to interact with these papers.
Journal of Semitic Studies

There is much thoughtful material here.
Society for Old Testament Study Book List

The essays of Bos, Berge, and Fitzpatrick-McKinley are the primary reasons for reading this volume and provide the broadest perspective on the research question of the construction and remembering of political leadership in Judaea in the late Persian and early Hellenistic periods. Many of the other essays have technical details useful for the study of a specific biblical book or theme.
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research

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Books and Journals in Humanities, Social Science and Performing Arts

Diana V. Edelman [+–]

University of Oslo

Ehud Ben Zvi [+–]

University of Alberta

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