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46JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURESacknowledging the danger of getting problematic and erroneous resultswhile using the data in partial or tendentious ways.In this connection I recall Prof. Knoppers' request to explain whyI can't agree with Faust’s study, where he argues for an extremely lowcontinuity in the rural settlement in Judah. 39 The main methodologicalproblem with Faust's study is the discussion of all the territory of theformer kingdom of Judah without any attention to the different fates ofthe different regions. I think it is a mistake for Faust to focus on regionsin Judah known to have been destroyed at the beginning of the sixthcentury B.C.E. and which had no settlement continuation in the Persianperiod (the Jordan valley, the Negev, the southern Shephelah, etc.),combined with only a minor representation of the areas where,according to the excavations of the main sites (e.g., the region ofBenjamin) and the surveys (e.g., the northern Judean hills), there is aclear continuity. Against the background of an overly general discussionof the entire territory of the kingdom of Judah, without division intodifferent regions and without discussion of the different fate of thoseregions, Faust chose the Samaria foothills as a control group. This is avery limited and defined area, part of the Samaria province since theend of the 8 th century BCE, and one of the most stable regions indemographic and political terms from the 7 th to the 4 th centuries BCE,with clear continuity between the end of the Iron Age and the Persianperiod. The Samaria data, thus, provide no control for assessingprocesses in Judah.In the overall archaeological picture I have tried to present in thebook under review, one can criticize specific details, but the generalpicture of significant regional differences within Judah in the sixthcentury is one of the strongest and best documented facts in thematerial culture of Judah at the end of the Iron Age. This is a point ofgreat importance for biblical studies, and can be used in discussionsabout the significance of Benjamin, the Simeonite territory, the locationof Beth-El, Mizpah, Gibeon, or even about the status of Jerusalem inbiblical texts from the exilic and post-exilic periods. The notes made byProf. Knoppers, using the three examples from the book of Chronicles;the way Prof. Eskenazi invoked archaeology to reassess Ezra 1-6; theway Prof. Albertz considered the history of the time of Josiah and thedescription of his cultic reform; or Prof. Blenkinsopp's treatment ofJudahite-Benjaminite hostility: 40 all are examples of the value ofarchaeological and historical observations in Biblical studies. The sameis true, as emphasized by Prof. Williamson, with the attempt to explainhow the pattern of the Babylonian destruction was clearly linked to theBabylonian military and political strategy near the western border ofJudah and around Jerusalem, and how it was as a consequence of thecollapse of the military and administrative power of the kingdom in the39 Among A. Faust's papers on the rural settlement, see especially: “Judahin the Sixth Century B.C.E.: A Rural Perspective,” PEQ 135 (2003), 37-53, andmy response: “The Rural Settlement in Judah in the Sixth Century BCE: ARejoinder,” PEQ 136 (2004), 99-107.40 J. Blenkinsopp, “Bethel in the Neo-Babylonian Period,” O. Lipschits andJ. Blenkinsopp (eds.), Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (WinonaLake, Ind: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 93-107.