The Oxford History of the Biblical World (57 page)

The events alone, even without the prophets’ yearnings and the editors’ evaluations,
convey a sense of lost opportunity. Justice and rectitude might have prevailed. More perhaps than is usually recognized, the ways in which the division of the monarchy is presented in the Bible and even in the annals of other nations of the period—the Moabite Stone, the Assyrian inscriptions, the Dan stela—inform the reflections of historians of other eras and places as they ponder the human pilgrimage.

Alt, Albrecht. “The Monarchy in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah.” In
Essays on Old Testament History and Religion,
trans. R. W. Wilson, 241–59. Oxford: Blackwell, 1966. The classic statement on differing ideologies of monarchy in Israel and Judah.

Boling, Robert G., and Edward F. Campbell. “Jeroboam and Rehoboam at Shechem.” In
Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Memory of D. Glenn Rose,
ed. Leo G. Perdue, Lawrence E. Toombs, and Gary Lance Johnson, 259–72. Atlanta: John Knox, 1986. A study of text variations in 1 Kings 12 in conversation with the archaeology of Shechem in the tenth century.

Bright, John.
A History of Israel.
3d ed. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981. A history that takes the biblical accounts as generally reliable, the prophets as making a historical difference, and archaeology as a signal resource.

Coote, Robert B.
Amos among the Prophets.
Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981. A reconstruction of Amos’s message and the way it was augmented to apply to Judah, with special attention to socioeconomic conditions.

——.
In Defense of Revolution: The Elohist History.
Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991. An interpretation of E as the ideological apologia for Jeroboam’s monarchic style.

Cross, Frank Moore.
Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973. Valuable essays on Israel’s religious history, notably on the priestly houses and the ideologies of monarchy.

Dearman, J. Andrew.
Religion and Culture in Ancient Israel.
Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1992. Resource for the material and religious culture, including a chapter on Deuteronomy’s agenda.

King, Philip J.
Amos, Hosea, Micah
—
An Archaeological Commentary.
Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988. Resources from archaeology for interpretation of the eighth-century prophets.

Knoppers, Gary N.
Two Nations under God: The Deuteronomistic History of Solomon and the Dual Monarchies. 2
vols. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993–94. Fresh attention to the purposes of the Deuteronomic History in portraying the monarchy.

Miller, J. Maxwell, and John H. Hayes.
A History of Ancient Israel and Judah.
Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986. Miller’s chapters on the Divided Monarchy give lucid treatment of the interpretive problems, extended quotations of nonbiblical texts, and helpful maps.

Pitard, Wayne T.
Ancient Damascus: A Historical Study of the Syrian City-State from Earliest Times until Its Fall to the Assyrians in 732
B.C.E
.
Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1987. A detailed presentation of Syria’s history; the second half deals with Syria in relation to Israel.

Stager, Lawrence E. “The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel.”
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
260 (1985): 1–35. A stimulating exploration of archaeological and anthropological clues to Israelite family life.

——, and Samuel R. Wolff. “Production and Commerce in Temple Courtyards: An Olive Press in the Sacred Precinct at Tel Dan.”
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
243 (1981): 95–102. An analysis of the industry that produced fine-grade oil for cultic use.

Tappy, Ron E.
The Archaeology of Israelite Samaria.
Vol. 1,
Early Iron Age through the Ninth Century
BCE
.
Harvard Semitic Studies, 44. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992. A fresh analysis of the stratigraphy at Samaria, making use of Kathleen Kenyon’s unpublished daybooks from the 1932–35 excavations.

Wilson, Robert R.
Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel.
Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980. A thorough investigation of the social role of the prophets and their place in Israelite life.

From the Assyrian Conquest of Israel to the Fall of Babylon

MORDECHAI COGAN

B
y all accounts, Judah’s century-long vassaldom to Assyria had its beginnings in the reign of Ahaz (743–727
BCE
). After half a century of sporadic appearances in Syria, Assyria had renewed its sustained westward drive to the Mediterranean coast under the vigorous leadership of Tiglath-pileser III (745–727). The Assyrian monarch was clearly bent on a policy of imperial expansion and incorporation. His early wars were confined mostly to northern Syria, but by 734 Tiglath-pileser was drawn to campaign against a coalition of rebellious vassals that included Tyre, Aram-Damascus, and Israel. Ahaz had come under pressure to join the rebel cause, but as he wavered the coalition set out to force the issue, laying siege to Jerusalem with the intention of replacing him with a more compliant ruler (2 Kings 16.5, 7–9; Isa. 7.1–6). The neutrality urged on him by the prophet Isaiah (Isa. 7.4–6; 8.1–8) seemed ill-advised, and in the end Ahaz decided to submit to the Assyrian yoke. Ahaz’s abject message to Tiglath-pileser says it all: “I am your servant and your son. Come up, and rescue me from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me” (2 Kings 16.7). This move, and the king’s responsibility for Judah’s new status, are strongly criticized in the biblical book of Kings: it was the servile plea from Ahaz to Tiglath-pileser for protection that was Judah’s undoing. But from the Assyrian point of view, Tiglath-pileser would have moved against the anti-Assyrian element even without Ahaz’s submission. Intimidation and the fear of entanglement, exhibited so markedly by Ahaz, were to dominate relations between Judah and Assyria over the next hundred years. And the gifts that accompanied the plea for aid were only the first of a continuous stream of tax and tribute payments exacted by Assyria’s rapacious rulers.

A side feature of Israel’s new political status was the opening of the kingdom to
the cultural trends and fashions of other regions of the Near East. We are told that Ahaz had an altar erected in the Solomonic Temple in Jerusalem, modeled after one he had seen in Damascus during an audience with Tiglath-pileser. The traditional offerings were transferred to the new, larger altar, and the original bronze altar was set aside for the king’s private use (2 Kings 16.10–16). This has sometimes mistakenly been seen as an act of compliance, either imposed or desirable, with Assyrian imperial norms. But Assyria did not impose its forms of worship on vassal states, nor did it interfere in their internal affairs, as long as imperial obligations were acknowledged and met. Incorporation into the provincial system of the empire was another story, to be recounted below in connection with Samaria.

As these introductory remarks imply, re-creating so tempestuous a period calls for critically reading a variety of sources. Their assessment, combined with sound judgment and a modicum of imagination, stands modern historians in good stead as they face knotty questions, including the ever-so-many undocumented years during the century of Assyria’s domination.

Our most important sources, in addition to the Bible, are the texts recovered from the mounds of the ancient Near East. In several instances these texts supplement the Bible by reporting events or specifying dates that biblical writers did not include in their accounts. When they overlap with a biblical account, the nonbiblical texts provide a valuable comparison with the views expressed by Israelite writers, even though most of their comments are restricted to matters of war and its aftermath. In the end, however, for Israel and Judah—especially in light of their relative insignificance from a geopolitical perspective—the Bible remains the main and often the only resource at the disposal of historians.

Two historical works, the book of Kings and the book of Chronicles (later divided by tradition into two books each), survey the monarchic age in Israel. Kings is by and large a product of the late seventh century
BCE
, whereas Chronicles seems to have been written in the fourth century, toward the close of the Persian period—some three hundred years after the last king reigned in Judah. Each bears the distinctive stamp of its author(s), and of the two, Chronicles is less serviceable, being a didactic explication of Kings with little in the way of additional documentary material from preexilic days.

Not to be slighted are the large prophetic collections of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, as well as the smaller tracts of Micah, Zephaniah, Nahum, and Obadiah. Their rich lode of inspired preaching and reflections on the moral state of Israelite society pose serious problems for modern historians. Questions of source evaluation hinder our every step. How are we to distinguish between the authentic words of the prophet and those of his disciples and of the later editors and compilers responsible for the final shape of the prophetic “book”? In only one instance do we learn how a prophet’s words were collected: Jeremiah dictated them (from memory or from written notes) to his scribe Baruch, the son of Neriah (Jer. 36.4), under circumstances and with an outcome that are discussed below.

The relevant source material from Assyria consists of historical inscriptions and administrative documents, originally deposited in the state archives in the capital,
Nineveh, whose recovered items number in the tens of thousands. Annalistic texts record the victorious military pursuits of Assyria’s monarchs, at the same time praising their loyalty to the gods and their good works in building temples and palaces. These annals may be classified as royal propaganda, highly selective in their presentation, careful to justify the king’s deeds before both the gods and his subjects. For modern researchers they open a window into the world of the court scribes, their goals and techniques, and are suggestive of similar literary phenomena in Israel. Complementing these “official” texts is the vast correspondence received by the palace from all corners of the empire, together with business and judicial records and oracular and magical texts, to name just a few of the types of texts available. This wealth of material adds to our understanding of the daily pursuits of those who lived at the center of the vast and imposing Assyrian empire.

From Babylonia, the most valuable historical source is the Neo-Babylonian Chronicle Series, only a small portion of which has been recovered. It presents the summary record, year by year, of the major military undertakings of the reigning king, with little editorial bias. The Babylonian scribe, unlike his Assyrian counterpart, could describe the defeat of the sovereign without apology, and often does. (The Assyrian scribe turned every setback of the imperial army into a victory.) As for Egypt—that ever-present threat to the Mesopotamian powers lying just beyond the Sinai Peninsula and the Nile Delta—relevant source material is rare. When available, it focuses on internal affairs, so that it is only from non-Egyptian sources that we know of even such key moves as the appearance of Egyptian forces in fulfillment of pledges of aid to Israel and Judah against Assyria and Babylonia, or Egypt’s support of Assyria itself.

Finally, archaeological remains from Israel during the latter part of the Iron Age (Iron IIC, ca. 722—586
BCE
) illuminate aspects of life not touched on by written sources. Out of the jumbled ruins of destroyed cities emerge the outlines of rooms and buildings, streets, walls, and gates, together with the artifacts that served their dwellers. These are the silent witnesses to ancient life that await interpretations and integration into the historical picture. To our delight, embossed Assyrian wall reliefs preserve contemporary illustrations of several cities in Israel and Judah. From the palace of Tiglath-pileser at Nimrud, depictions of the attack on the city of Gezer in the foothills of Judah and on Ashteroth in Transjordan have been recovered. And from Sennacherib’s “palace without rival” at Nineveh are the wonderfully detailed reliefs of his siege of Lachish, from which we learn not only about the techniques of ancient warfare but also observe the very exit of Judeans from their city on the long road to exile. Their story and that of their compatriots follows.