EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
The Bible's Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future
Dr. Jacob L. Wright, Emory University
 |
C O U R S E L E C T U R E Factors Leading to the Depopulation Of Israel Notes taken on October 16, 2015 by Edward Tanguay |
•
how can we explain the demographic decline of Judah after the Babylonia conquest
•
where did everyone go?
•
were they all deported to Babylon?
•
wars in antiquity
•
death tolls were usually quite high, due to:
•
lack evacuation
•
lack medicine
•
lack of sanitation
•
siege warfare
•
in Judah, wars usually meant people in countryside taking refuge behind municipal fortifications in cities
•
waiting it out
•
contributed to death toll
•
famine
•
epidemics
•
long after enemy had returned home, the population was still struggling to survive
•
invading army sought to destroy the life support systems of their enemy city
•
cutting off or polluting the water sources
•
laying the fields to waste
•
cutting down fruit trees and orchards that took many years to grow
•
sowing salt in the ground
•
what an invading army did not intentionally destroy was often inadvertently ruined
•
if the fields were not regularly ploughed, locusts could hatch and become catastrophic plagues
•
years of siege interfered with the delicate balance of tilling, planting and harvesting
•
Rib-Adda, example from 14 century BCE
•
king of Byblos during the mid fourteenth century BCE, known from the Amarna Letters
•
Amarna letter to Egyptian rule
•
he is trapped in his city like a bird in a cage
•
enemy was at his doorstep, planting is impossible
•
for lack of cultivation, my field is like a woman without a husband
•
people had sold household objects and children to buy provisions
•
starvation during winter
•
once there is collapse of governmental administration
•
no police
•
chaos
•
safety is undermined
•
voluntary migrations to places where conditions were better
•
once city had capitulated
•
invading army would often perform public executions
•
usually elites and administrative officials
•
people in the palace
•
often indiscriminate
•
we have some attestations of such burials from the 8th century
•
Fall of Ashdod
•
successful Egyptian assault on the city of Ashdod in Palestine in around 635 BC
•
known of through Greek historian Herodotus
•
during wars with Assyria
•
2,444 remains of human beings unearthed
•
22% of them were less than 15 years of age when they died
•
other finds show that heads were separated from bodies
•
deportations may have led to depopulation
•
but are many other factors as above
•
Book of Jeremiah
•
Judahites fleeing across the Jordan after the Babylonian conquest
•
made their way to Egypt
•
a place that refugees fled in times of political turmoil and natural catastrophes
•
the reason that hear these stories in the Bible is that the Biblical authors regard the abandonment of the promised land is one of the worst things imaginable
•
deportations in the Assyrian empire
•
moved subjugated populations around their empire
•
moving them to regions which they wanted to develop
•
King chapter 17
•
Assyrians brought populations from the East and settled them in Israel's territories
•
likely did this in the northern regions of Israel
•
they may have done this in Judah as well when they went to war against Hezekiah (ruled 715-686 BC)
•
the reason the Biblical authors do not tell us whether the Assyrians brought in people into Judah
•
the Judahite authors were in competition with the people in Samaria
•
by claiming that people in the north were foreigners, they could deal an deal an ideological blow to their competitors in Samaria
•
Samaria: based on the borders of the biblical Northern Kingdom of Israel and especially the Israelite tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh
•
the rivalry between Jerusalem and Samaria was one of the major communal challenges that Biblical authors face
•
it was useful for them to say that the population of Israel were actually foreigners
•
they can say that these were not true Israelites
•
this is just the Book of Kings
•
this view is also expressed a bit in Ezra and Nehemiah
•
even if the Assyrians practiced deportations on a much larger scale than the Babylonians
•
we should not image that they deports any more than 20% of the population
•
they kept families intact and moved ethnic groups together
•
this means:
•
1. we must imagine many communities that persisted in the former territory of the Kingdom of Israel who contributed substantially to the formation of the Biblical writings
•
2. the deported Israelite families and communities most likely maintained their identity over generations and came into contact with Judahites which had been deported into various places in Mesopotamia