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FROM BABYLON to BETHLEHEM the Jewish People from the Exile to the Messiah

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FROM BABYLON to BETHLEHEM the Jewish People from the Exile to the Messiah FROM BABYLON TO BETHLEHEM The Jewish People from the Exile to the Messiah by H. L. ELLISON, B.A., B.D. ~PATlRHDSTlR EXETER: THE PATERNOSTER PRESS LTD. ISBN: 0 85364 190 0 Copyright © 1976, The Paternoster Press All Rights Reserved. No part ofthis publication may be repro­ duced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of THE PATERNOSTER PRESS AUSTRALIA: Emu Book Agencies Pty., Ltd., 63, Berry St., Granville, 2142, N.S. W. SOUTH AFRICA: Oxford University Press, P.O. Box 1141, Cape Town This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way oftrade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or other­ wise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form ofbinding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Made and Printed in Great Britain for The Paternoster Press Paternoster House 3 Mount Radford Crescent Exeter Devon by Redwood Burn Limited Trowbridge & Esher CONTENTS ABBREVIATIONS VI PREFACE VU THE IMPORTANCE OF THE INTER-TESTAMENTAL PERIOD 2 THE SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE BABYLONIAN EXILE 3 3 THE RETURN FROM EXILE 8 4 THE REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE 13 5 THE WORK OF HAGGAI AND ZECHARIAH 18 6 FROM ZERUBBABEL TO EZRA AND NEHEMIAH 23 7 NEHEMIAH 28 ADDITIONAL NOTE: THE RELATIONSHIP OF EZRA TO NEHEMIAH 39 8 EZRA 41 9 THE JEWS IN THE PERSIAN DISPERSION 55 10 JUDEA IN THE LATE PERSIAN PERIOD 62 I I THE COMING OF THE GREEKS 68 12 HELLENISM COMES TO JERUSALEM 75 13 GROWING TENSIONS 84 14 THE SLIDE TO RUIN 90 ADDITIONAL NOTE: THE SYNAGOGUE 96 15 THE LONG SHADOW OF ROME 99 16 THE JEWISH DISPERSION 106 I7 HEROD THE GREAT III ADDITIONAL NOTE: THE RELIGIOUS POSITION AT THE DEATH OF HEROD 117 18 IcHABOD 120 BIBLIOGRAPHY 126 GENEALOGICAL TABLES 127 GENERAL INDEX 13 1 INDEX OF REFERENCES 134 ABBREVIA TIONS The normal literary abbreviations and those for the names of Biblical and Apocryphal books have been used. The following call for special mention. Ant. Josephus, Antiquities ofthe Jews AV Authorised, or KingJames Version of the Bible, 16II ContraAp. Josephus, Against Apion DOTT D. Winton Thomas, Documents from Old Testament Times JB The Jerusalem Bible, 1966 LXX The Septuagint-translation of OT into Greek before Chris­ tianera Moffatt J. Moffatt translation of the Bible, 1913, 1924, revised 1935 NEB New English Bible, 1961, 1970 NT New Testament OT Old Testament RSV Revised Standard Version, 1946, 1952 RV Revised Version, 1881, 1884 Vita Josephus, Life War Josephus, The Jewish War Note: The Genealogical Tables on pp. 127-130 incl. are taken, by kind permission of the author, from Israel and the Nations by F. F. Bruce. PREFACE By a strange quirk of history until recently the average Christian has tended to know more about the period between the Babylonian exile and the time of Jesus than has the average Jew. Because of the presence of the Books of the Maccabees in the Apocrypha some of their leading characters were regarded as pre-Christian heroes and martyrs along with the mighty men of the Old Testa­ ment. The works ofJose ph us , especially after Whiston's translation in Author­ ised Version style (1736), became recognized Sunday reading in stricter Christian homes. Both these sources remained unknown to the average Jew, until the rise of Zionism brought the story of the Maccabees back into favour. Knowledge has seldom, however, meant understanding, even of the Biblical sources involved. This was partly due to the anti-Judaism which so quickly reared its ugly head in the Church. This was intensified last century by Wellhausen's views on post-exilicJudaism derived from his Hegelian presup­ positions; this prevented several generations of scholars from doing justice to the ever increasing volume ofinformation on the period. This book seeks to serve a double purpose. On the one hand it tries to make the post-exilic books of the Bible more comprehensible so far as this can be done without a detailed exegesis. On the other it seeks to discover the main reasons why Palestinian Jewry rejected Jesus at least in the person of its leaders and why it went down to ruin less than forty years later. It is not one more his­ tory of the period, for there are enough of them, nor is it a description of the Judaism that lies behind the New Testament and modern Jewish Orthodoxy alike. Here again sufficient work has been done by others. Most of the material has appeared in The Hebrew Christian, the quarterly journal of the International Hebrew Christian Alliance. In its present form the work is intended as a tribute to the organization for its Jubilee. Since the book is intended for non-technical readers, Jehovah is used in pre­ ference to Yahweh and the traditional form of reference will be found for Josephus, for most readers will find Whiston's translation most readily avail­ able. Though the name Palestine was not applied to the whole country until after Bar Kochba's revolt, it has been used for the sake ofsimplicity. Since there has been no desire to provide a detailed picture of the New Testament background, the last chapter could have been omitted. It was felt, however, that a brief outline of the last tragic years of the Jewish common­ wealth was in place. Owing to the way in which the work came into being a certain amount ofrepetition was unavoidable, but it is hoped that it will not be found disturbing. Vll Vl11 Preface Those wishing a more directly historical presentation of the subject will fmd it in, among others, E. Bevan,Jerusalem under the High Priests and F. F. Bruce, Israel and the Nations. The most thorough treatment is in Vol. II of Oesterley and Robinson, A History ofIsrael. For those wishing details of the Qumran dis­ coveries F. F. Bruce, Second Thoughts on the Dead Sea Scrolls is probably the most suitable work. Dawlish, Devon H. L. Ellison Lent 1975 CHAPTER 1 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE INTER-TESTAMENTAL PERIOD We have probably all heard the gibe against much traditional Old Testament exegesis, "It takes all the blessings for the Church and leaves all the curses for the Jews." Proof for this attitude is found most readily in the chapter and page headings of Isa. 40--66 in older editions of the A V. That this attitude used to exist almost universally and is still to be widely found needs no proof. After all, it was the logical outcome of the assumption that the Church is Israel. Our recognition that many past and present theologians and expositors have been wrong, does not justify our looking on them as fools. They were moti­ vated by more than a blind, logical working out of their assumptions. When we compare the glowing descriptions in Isa. 4<r-55 with the humble reality in Ezra and Nehemiah, it is natural to ask ourselves whether there is really any link between them. Isa. 43: 16-21 compares the return from Babylonia with the Exodus from Egypt and suggests that it will be even greater and more glo­ rious. From Babylonia there returned about 50,000 together with 7,537 slaves (Ezr. 2:64,65). The total given in Ezr. 2 :2-60 is 29,818, in Neh. 7:6-62 31,089, but both agree in a grand total of42,360 (Ezr. 2 : 64, Neh. 7: 66); the difference is to be explained by the larger figure including the women. The parallel passage in 1 Esdras 5 : 41 says, probably correctly, that these were those over twelve years of age. If we allow for the children as well, we reach the round figure suggested above. A four month journey (cf. Ezr. 7: 9) for such a largejarty was a very diffi­ cult undertaking, and it may very well be, as suggeste by the internal struc­ ture of the list of those who returned, that they came in a number of groups. It was in any case a pitifully small number to restart the history ofIsrael, and there is no suggestion that they encountered any signal signs of God's favour to en­ courage them. They returned to a Judea that stretched from Bethel to about Beth-zur, north of Hebron, and from Jericho to the fringe of the coastal plain. Not a vestige ofpolitical independence was granted them, and until the time of Nehemiah they apparently formed part of the area under the Persian governor in Samaria, himself subject to the governor or satrap of the province "Beyond the River (Ezr. 5: 63)." Their change of status has often been expressed by saying that they went into exile a nation and returned a church. The purpose of this book is to show, as least in part, why there is such an ap­ parent disparity between Isa. 4<r-55 and the events of the return and their sequel. It should not be forgotten that even in Isa. 4<r-48 there are darker pass­ ages, e.g. 48: 1-5, 17-19, while the promises of 49-55 clearly depend on the 2 From Babylon to Bethlehem work of the Servant. By the end of the book it may be clearer to the reader why the Servant was recognized by so few when he came, and why, therefore the to us mysterious Inter-Testamental period is of the utmost importance in the working out of God's purposes.
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