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20JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURESVanderhooft compares the very limited amount of inscriptional materialavailable from the Neo-Babylonian kings with the testimony providedby the late Judahite prophets. 9 Vanderhooft's position is much morenuanced and focused on a particular set of issues than those advocatedby the aforementioned scholars, but his work overlaps with theirs in sofar as he questions the extent to which one can posit a continuouslyactive and coherent Babylonian administrative presence in the land ofJudah during the exilic period.The general background of these scholarly debates provides asuitable context for understanding the force of Lipschits' work. Hepresents a highly-nuanced picture of the various regions in Judah thatwere affected by the events of the late eighth, late seventh, and earlysixth centuries BCE. Although destruction levels have been detected atmany Judahite sites dating to the sixth century, there is also evidence forcontinuation of settlement at others, especially north of Jerusalem. AsLipschits points out, large areas of Benjamin and some areas of thenorthern Judahite hill country, including the area south of Jerusalem,seem to have been unaffected by the early sixth century destructions.Indeed, a Benjaminite town—Mizpah—becomes the administrativecapital of Judah during Gedaliah's rule in the wake of the destruction ofJerusalem and the downfall of the Davidic dynasty (2 Kgs 25:22-24; Jer40:5-12; Neh 3:7).According to the author, Jerusalem and its environs remainedcompletely empty during the Neo-Babylonian period. There is thus acertain irony in the title of Lipschits’s book. According to hisreconstruction, the fall of Jerusalem was swift and disastrous in allrespects, but the rise of Jerusalem was very much a long and drawn-outprocess. If the demise of the city occurred within just a few decadestime, the recovery took centuries to complete. Even at its peak duringthe Persian period, Jerusalem did not exceed 3,000 people. The bulk ofhis book is thus not about Jerusalem per se, but about the rest of theareas traditionally associated with Judah and Benjamin. In hisestimation, the kingdom of Judah suffered a decline of approximately60% in settled area and a precipitous decrease in population from about110,000 down to approximately 40,000 in the transition from the Neo-Babylonian to the Persian era. Many of those who survived theBabylonian campaigns no longer lived in large urban centers, but ratherin small villages and rural areas. Judah suffered from a markedreduction in geographic area (especially in its frontier areas, such as theNegev, the Jordan Valley, and the Shephelah), a sharp drop-off inresidential population, devastation to many large towns, and a largetransfer of the remaining inhabitants from urban to rural areas. Thisprocess of ruralization was never effectively reversed duringAchaemenid times. Most Judaeans continued to reside on farms and insmall villages and hamlets.Nevertheless, the land was hardly empty. In fact, the abovestatistics are deceptive in some respects, because there was terribledamage in some areas, but hardly any damage in others. In this respect,9 The Neo-Babylonian Empire and Babylon in the Latter Prophets (HSM 59;Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999).
“IN CONVERSATION WITH ODED LIPSCHITS” 21the area of Benjamin plays a crucial role in Lipschits’ study. Benjamin’srelative prominence during the Neo-Babylonian era diminishedsomewhat during the course of the Persian period as other areas andsites, such as Jerusalem, began to recover from the Babylonianonslaughts, but Benjamin retained significant importance in the largercontext of the province of Judah. In sum, Lipschits argues that both theextent of the Babylonian deportations and the extent of the returnsduring the Achaemenid era have been greatly exaggerated in much ofbiblical scholarship.2. SPECIFIC COMMENTSIn what follows, I would like to offer a series of questions andreflections on select aspects of Lipschits’s work. Some of thesecomments will reinforce points made by the author, while others willseek further clarification or qualification. Recognizing that othersreviewing this book will focus on archeology and the relevance ofcertain literary texts, such as Ezra-Nehemiah, I will focus most, albeitnot all, of my attention on Kings, Jeremiah, and Chronicles.First, with respect to the archaeology of the region during the lateIron Age and early Persian period, Lipschits draws upon the results ofboth site surveys, which try to capture long-term demographic trends,and rural archaeology, which studies life in small towns, villages, andfarmsteads. Both of these approaches promise to inform us aboutdemographic trends and have the potential to correct some of thebroader historical claims made by those focusing solely on the results oftell-centered archaeology.In this context, I think that it would be helpful if Lipschits wouldengage the results of Avi Faust’s research in a more sustained way. 10Faust’s work in rural archaeology draws a contrast between the situationin rural Judah and that in rural Samaria, discussing a large number offarmsteads—as well as some hamlets and villages—that have beenexcavated in the Samaria highlands. Almost all of these Iron Age ruralsites exhibit continuity into the Persian period. By contrast, there is adramatic drop-off in Judah. This is an important comparison, becausesome have claimed that the Neo-Babylonian campaigns only involvedthe larger urban sites and not many of the smaller villages and10 Among the relevant studies are Faust’s “The Rural Community inAncient Israel during Iron Age II,” BASOR 317 (2000) 17-39; idem,“Jerusalem’s Countryside during the Iron Age II—Persian Period Transition,”in New Studies on Jerusalem: Proceedings of the Seventh Conference, ed. A. Faust and E.Baruch (Ramat-Gan: Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jewish Studies, Bar IlanUniversity, 2001) 83-89 (Hebrew); idem, “Judah in the Sixth Century B.C.E.: ARural Perspective,” PEQ 135 (2003) 37-53; idem, “The Farmstead in theHighlands of Iron Age II Israel,” in The Rural Landscape of Ancient Israel, ed. A.M. Maeir, S. Dar, Z. Safrai (BAR International Series 1121; Oxford:Archaeopress, 2003) 91-103; idem, “Farmsteads in the Foothills of WesternSamaria: A Reexamination;” in “I will speak the riddles of ancient times”:Archaeological and Historical Studies in Honor of Amihai Mazar on the Occasion of hisSixtieth Birthday, eds. A.M Maeir and P. De Miroschedji (Winona Lake, Ind. :Eisenbrauns, 2006). All of these works deal with the insights afforded by ruralarchaeology.
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