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Reconstructing Jerusalem: Persian-Period Prophetic Perspectives

2018; Eisenbrauns; Volume: 28; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/bullbiblrese.28.1.0109

2576-0998

Gary V. Smith,

Ristau rejects the view that Jerusalem was well populated with many institutions intact during the exilic period and concludes that the western hill in Jerusalem was largely unsettled in Persian Period. This conclusion is partially based on the lack of architectural evidence and the scarcity of material finds in that area. His investigation of the eastern hill (Mount Moriah, the Ophel, and City of David) analyzed the archeological discoveries by Kenyon (1968), Reich and Shukron (2005, 2007), Macalister and Duncan (1926, 1931), Shiloh (1984), Lipschits (2009), and others in order to detect the status of Jerusalem’s fortifications during the Persian Period. He supplements these archeological reports with drawings, pictures of a wall, tower, or the remains of a house. This information is helpfully summarized in a series of colored maps (pp. 53–60) and an impressive series of charts (pp. 76–85). Ristau adds epigraphic data on ostraca, stamp impressions (582 examples) with the word Yehud, seals, coins, a letter (dated to 407 BC) and a memorandum from Elephantine, plus a few assemblages in tombs. His conclusion is: “The overwhelming impression of the archeological evidence is that Jerusalem in the Persian Period and early Hellenistic periods was small” (p. 72). Mizpah would have been the main administrative center, although later in the mid- to late 5th-century Jerusalem gained greater importance. Unfortunately, little of this information is integrated into the discussion in the following chapters.Chapter 3 investigates Isaiah’s perspective on the reemergence of the central role of Jerusalem from a cultural-historical and ideological perspective. Ristau’s interpretation of the laments in Pss 44, 69, 74, 79, 89, 102, and 137 and problems in Ezra 4 and Neh 4 suggest that the defeat of Jerusalem created a crisis of confidence in God, questioned the view that Jerusalem was the only place to worship, and made some wonder about the ideological justification for reconstruction (p. 89). He finds little reference to Jerusalem in the Torah, which he dates to this era, so this created doubts about the importance of Jerusalem. This raised a question: “What if Yahweh had altogether abandoned the Davidic covenant and with it, Jerusalem as a sacred site?” (p. 90) In contrast to this negative view of Jerusalem, the prophetic oracles of Isa 40–55 and 56–66 were full of hope for the devastated city (Isa 40:2). Restoration (Isa 40-48) will come via an international connection (Cyrus) as well a return of the people to Zion.At times, Ristau’s interpretation raises questions, and many of his conclusions are suspect. For example, Isa 40:1–8 never mentions the reconstruction of the temple, but Ristau claimed it “is necessarily in view” (p. 92), because the glory of God is coming. Later, he admits that the destruction of Babylon in Isa 46–47 do not fit Cyrus’s peaceful occupation of Babylon. Rather than looking for an alternative explanation, he rationalizes the inconsistency as an “over-exuberant metaphor” (p. 97). His case for the restoration of Zion more clearly emerges from his analysis of Deutero-Isaiah (Isa 49–55). He maintains that Trito-Isaiah focused on the constitution of the community of righteous servants and surprisingly hypothesizes that the Babylonian creation epic (the Enuma Elish) and the Hymn of Enlil exerted an influence on the ethical insights in these chapters.Haggai’s perspective on revitalizing Jerusalem (ch. 4) was about reconstructing not Jerusalem but the temple. Ristau does not follow those who distinguish between an in-group and out-group, but he does find several hints of literary dependence on curses in Deuteronomy as well as its call for centralized worship. He concludes that the “temple’s function to generate and store wealth was one of its essential characteristics” (p. 130) and that temple construction was essential to unifying the community and a catalyst to receiving God’s blessing. He thinks Hag 2:23 anticipated Zerubbabel’s move from being governor to a king.The author devotes chs. 5 and 6 to Zech 1–8 and 9–14. He frequently uses Halpern’s idea that underlying the visions in 1:8–6:15 was a temple song, which had affinities to Mesopotamian temple rebuilding rituals that stressed purification and consecration rites (visions 4–5), plus a divine combat cycle emphasizing the defeat of an enemy (the horns; the great mountain). He believes that some of the visions present rather utopian expectations of reconstruction and restoration. He interprets the vision of destroyed horns (2:1-4) from an agricultural background, takes the stone in 3:9 and 4:7 as the capstone (bringing in the ANE background), and views the two olive trees primarily as symbolic of angelic attendants and secondarily as referring to Zerubbabel and Joshua. The chiasm in Zech 7–8 emphasizes the sociopolitical and cultic values of the reconstructed city of Jerusalem. The revitalization of the community and the reconstruction of the temple were characterized as a national renewal with a legitimate high priest and a Davidic leader.Ristau holds that Zech 9–14 and Malachi came from different historical contexts and views both the king in Zech 9:9 and the one who was pierced in 12:10 as allusions to the people of Judah (p. 176). His analysis attempts to provide “a foundation for the diachronic interpretation of the Jerusalem-centric textual strategies deployed in all Persian-period prophetic texts” (p. 170). He adopts a historical rather than a proto-apocalyptic approach to Zech 9–14 and relates the shepherd sign act in Zech 11 to a historical controversy (see Ezra 4:6–23), which culminated in the events in chs. 12–14. Ristau finds evidence to locate Malachi in a late Persian Period after the temple was already rebuilt. He identifies several aspects of his messages that are different from Zechariah.Although many will have difficulties following some of Ristau’s conclusions, the final chapter attempts to summarize how Isaiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi confronted the threats to the identity of Judah caused by its destruction and exile. These prophets, he believes, refused to neglect the importance of Jerusalem and confronted those who were reluctant to rebuild Jerusalem and restore the temple with theological arguments about the centrality of Jerusalem, the Davidic covenant, and worship at the temple.