Israel in Exile After Thirty Years
Israel in Exile after Thirty Years
Ralph W. Klein
November 2008
- Israel in Exile: a Retrospective (Fortress Press, 1979; Sigler Press, 2002)
Chapter 1: Yahweh, King and Enemy: Lamentations
Chapter 2: The Secret Things and the Things Revealed: Deuteronomistic History
Chapter 3: Saying Yes to Exile—and No! Jeremiah: The Prophet Himself and his
Deuteronomistic Redactors
Chapter 4: Yahweh Faithful and Free: Ezekiel
Chapter 5: Yahweh Willing and Able: Second Isaiah
Chapter 6: When Memory is Hope: The Priestly Writing
- What is Exile? When is it?
Jill Middlemas
Daniel Smith-Christopher
- Which of the canonical writings are exilic? When are they to be dated within the exilic timeline?
A conversation with Rainer Albertz, Israel in Exile. The History and Literature of the Sixth Century B.C.E. (2001; English translation 2003).
Passages that (only) fit a particular historical context according to Albertz
- Gen 26:2 Isaac, don’t go down to Egypt (large scale migrations to Egypt)
- Jeremiah 30-31 and Second Isaiah (impossible before 539?)
- Jer 30:18-22 (possible only in the aftermath of the Egyptian invasion of Cambyses)
- Condemnation of Egyptian Golah in Jeremiah 40-44 (emigration to Egypt threatened to bleed war-weary Judah to death)
- Ezekiel’s judgment, in 13:9, that the false prophets of salvation shall not remain in the council of my people or enter into the land of Israel (unimaginable before Cyrus’s victorious campaign in Lydia in 547/546)
- Detailed plans for new temple in Ezekiel 40-48 (make sense only after fall of Babylon in 539 at earliest, but probably after Cambyses’ Egyptian campaign)
Other points of discussion with Albertz and with this consultation
- Is some form of P an exilic voice?
- The Four Prophets Book (Hosea, Amos, Micah, and Zephaniah) as an exilic voice
- The (excessive) layering of Jeremiah
- How distant is Ezekiel from 587?
- How late is Second Isaiah? The time of Darius and even later?
- The social location of the tradents of exilic literature
The Proposal of Albertz for specific dates for exilic voices
Literature within the “normal” dates of the exile 597-539 BCE according to Albertz
- 597-587 Psalm 44
- 587-582 Lamentations 2; Psalm 79
- 582-562 Psalm 75; Lamentations 5
- 563-539 Lamentations 4; The Book of Lamentations; Psalm 137 (in Babylon)
- 550 The First Deuteronomistic Redaction of Jeremiah (in Palestine)
- The First Redaction of the Patriarchal History of Genesis 12-50 (in Babylon)
- Before 547 The Deuteronomistic History (also much material from later times; in Palestine)
- The Four Prophets Book (Hosea, Amos, Micah, and Zephaniah; in Judah)
- 545-540 The Second Deuteronomistic Redaction of Jeremiah (in Palestine)
Literature within the extended dates of the exile 539-520 according to Albertz
- 539-529 Isaiah 51:9-10; Isaiah 63-64; Psalm 85 (Where?)
- 539-521 The Second Redaction of the Patriarchal History (in Babylon)
- 525-520 The Third Deuteronomistic Redaction of the Book of Jeremiah (in Palestine; 31:31-34 and other passages in chs. 30-34; 46-51 in part)
- 522/521 The Book of Habakkuk
- 521 The First Edition of Second Isaiah (in Palestine, after earlier work in Babylon)
- 525-515 The Book of Ezekiel (some redactional work as early as 545; most of the process in Babylon, but the final phase in Palestine)
Post Exilic Literature according to Albertz
- After 515 the Fourth Servant Poem
- 6th/5th Century The second edition of Second Isaiah (includes Fourth Servant Poem; Second Isaiah joined to First Isaiah [in Palestine])
- 5th century Late Deuteronomistic additions to Jeremiah (17:19-27; 24; 52?)
- 5th century Priestly document or Priestly recension of the Pentateuch
- 5th/4th century. Post Deuteronomistic additions to Jeremiah (e.g., 23:5-6; 33:14-26).