Babylon

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
John2
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Re: Babylon

Post by John2 »

Dr. Filip Vukosavovic, Chief Curator of the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem, spoke with Arutz Sheva about a new exhibit just opened at the museum which displays ancient relics from the Babylonian exile, roughly 2,600 years ago. The exhibit, "By the Rivers of Babylon," is being opened with meaningful timing, as Tuesday marked the Tenth of Tevet fast day when the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem began 2,604 years ago ... The exhibit covers all facets of Jewish life in the exile, displaying vessels, texts, weapons and other items from the period.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/205316
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
John2
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Re: Babylon

Post by John2 »

More notes.

From Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction:
Judah was small country, and the number of its educated and skilled citizens could not have been great. Second Kings 24 claims that Nebuchadnezzar took away between eight and ten thousand people in his first attack of 598, but the parallel account in Jeremiah 52 lowers the total amount to three thousand. Several thousand more would have been taken to Babylon in later deportations in 586 and 582 BC. According to some modern estimates, the exiles numbered 20,000 out of a total population of 200,000 by one reckoning, or 80.000 by another; thus representing 10 percent or 25 percent, respectively, of the population of Judah in its final years. These would have been by far the great majority of all leading persons in the nation.

It is probable that the Babylonians left sufficient Judeans in Judah to maintain the agricultural economy for the purpose of taxation and the production of olives and grapes. Archaeology reveals that Jerusalem and towns south of it were heavily damaged, whereas the towns north of Jerusalem -Gibeah, Gibeon, Mizpah, and Bethel- were left intact. Edomite encroachment in the southern part of Judah suggests that the Babylonians did not control that area. This helps explain the great hostility toward Edom in some exilic and postexilic biblical texts. Many exiles were settled near Nippur, about fifty miles from the city of Babylon. The river or canal Chebar, near which Ezekiel had his great vision (Ezek 1:1-3), runs through Nippur. The exiles may have been tenant farmers. Ancient structures perdured, and elders retained their authority (Ezra 5:5, 9; Jer 29:1; Ezek 8:1, 14:1, 20:1, 3, 6:7-8).New markers of Jewish identity, appropriate to a "foreign" environment, became more important: praying toward Jerusalem (1 Kings 8:30, 35; Dan 6:10), circumcision, Sabbath observance, and dietary laws. And there were small signs of hope: King Jehoiachin, who had been carried off to Babylon as a prisoner in 598, seemed eventually to have been treated with dignity and allowed to live in ease. A small Babylonian clay tablet found in the 1930s listed a daily list of food for his household from the royal palace. And the prophet Ezekiel ... moved and spoke with considerable freedom in his place of exile ...

Jeremiah ... communicated with exiles by letter in the years from 598 to 586 (Jer 29:1-23). In fact, he counseled the exiles to "build houses and settle in them; plant gardens and eat their produce ..."

Many apparently did settle down contentedly and make a home in Babylon. Certainly the length of the total stay in exile, some sixty years for the first deportees, and forty-five for those who were taken in 586, suggests that all but a very few died in Babylon and that most of their children never knew any other home than that of their exile. The records of the Murashu family, a Babylonian banking firm of the fifth century BC, were found by archaeologists in Nippur ... and they list several prominent Jewish families among their clients about the years 450 to 400 BC. We can reasonably conclude from this that opportunities to get ahead were available to the exiles if they wished to settle down and become part of the local people.

Jewish settlements ... in the Diaspora ... did not begin with the Babylonian exile. Already 2 Kings 17:6 relates the earlier exile of the Northern Kingdom: "In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried the Israelites back to Assyria and settled them in Halah, on the Habur River in Gozan and in the cities of the Medes." This was the year 721 BC, and Sargon II, the king of Assyria, recorded that he deported a total 27,290 inhabitants of Samaria ... they are never mentioned again in the Bible.

https://books.google.com/books?id=wSpHA ... on&f=false
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
John2
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Re: Babylon

Post by John2 »

The Kebar or Chebar Canal (or River) is the setting of several important scenes of the book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible, including the opening verse: "Now it came about in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God". (New American Standard Bible) Ezekiel references this river eight times in total (1:1,3; Ezekiel 3:15, 23; 10:15, 20, 22; and 43:3).

Some old commentaries identified the Chebar with the Khabur River in what is now Syria. The Khabur is mentioned in 1 Chronicles 5:26 as the "Habor".

However, more recent scholarship is agreed that the location of the Kebar Canal is near Nippur in Iraq. The ka-ba-ru waterway (Akkadian) is mentioned among the 5th century BCE Murashu archives from Nippur. It was part of a complex network of irrigation and transport canals that also included the Shatt el-Nil, a silted up canal toward the east of Babylon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Abib
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
John2
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Re: Babylon

Post by John2 »

The Shatt en-Nil Is a dry river bed/canal in southern Iraq. It is also known as the Naru Kabari.

Called the Euphrates of Nippur, the river was an important irrigation and transport infrastructure for the city of Nippur during antiquity. The canal started just north of Babylon and travelled for 60 km ending at Larsa where it rejoined the Euphrates River. On the way it flowed through Nippur (32.55°N 44.42°E 34m). The canal also serviced the city of Tel Abib and Uruk.

The canal is referred to in the so-called Murashu documents discovered at Nippur, which record business transaction in the area around Nippur. The river/canal has also been one of the rivers identified as the biblical River Chebar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatt_en-Nil
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
semiopen
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Re: Babylon

Post by semiopen »

Keep the weird links coming, and why bother to comment on them.

There was a Babylonian_captivity. The population of Judah before was about 75,000, and some number, undoubtedly far less than 20,000 were deported. It's like you went out of your way to find a dubious and confusing description, the population of Babylonia was about 200,000 at that time, how can a sane person think Judah had the same population. Seems like the Jews got treated pretty well there.

I think the archaeological problem is that there's is really little evidence of Jews in Babylonia after about 450 BCE until the first century CE. That's a long time. It's pretty safe to say there weren't that many and then at some point the Jewish population dramatically increased.

The beginnings of the Ezekiel tradition were quite probably written during the Babylonian period (6th century BCE). The continuation is during the Persian period (5th-4th century BCE). I'm not sure what point you were making about it, the Chebar Canal?
In the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, when I was in the community of exiles by the Chebar Canal, the heavens opened and I saw visions of God.
(Ezek. 1:1 TNK)
John2
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Re: Babylon

Post by John2 »

These are just notes for me. I don't have a computer and I consequently have limited internet time (only at work and the library) so it helps me to put all the cards on the table this way, and once that is done, then I will assess them. And I don't think the links are weird; and one of them notes that Sargon had deported over 20.000 people from Israel, which is noted here as well:
Sargon’s inscriptions record that he deported 27,290 Israelites from their homeland and re-settled them to regions throughout the empire from Anatolia across to the Zagros Mountains. In doing so, he was simply following Assyrian political and military procedure which had been initiated by the king Adad-Nirari I (1307-1275 BCE) and practiced ever since.

https://www.ancient.eu/Sargon_II/


So it doesn't seem unreasonable to suppose that Nebuchadnezzar was able to deport a similar number from Judah. And I'm not making any point about the Chebar Canal, I'm just noting it. I like geography and it's interesting to picture it.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
John2
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Joined: Fri May 16, 2014 4:42 pm

Re: Babylon

Post by John2 »

. It's like you went out of your way to find a dubious and confusing description, the population of Babylonia was about 200,000 at that time, how can a sane person think Judah had the same population.
I'm seeing what various people are saying and will get to more in time. And the number 200,000 was noted above as being only "According to some modern estimates," and I gather that the population of the city of Babylon is estimated to be above 200,000, and in that case the empire as a whole would have had even more people.
It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from c. 1770 – c. 1670 BC, and again between c. 612 – c. 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon


And I'm seeing that the influx of refugees to Judah after the fall of Israel is something to consider, as noted by Radine in The Book of Amos in Emergent Judah (which I don't have time to fully cite right now):

https://books.google.com/books?id=taqfL ... on&f=false

But at this point I'm not arguing for or against any idea, just looking at the cards as I get to them.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
semiopen
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Re: Babylon

Post by semiopen »

A lot of people are saying


I guess this is Trumpian Archaeology.
...it doesn't seem unreasonable to suppose that Nebuchadnezzar was able to deport a similar number from Judah
I don't think you could be committed to an insane asylum for supposing that, but actually it does seem unreasonable.
... so it helps me to put all the cards on the table this way, and once that is done, then I will assess them.
You're putting pretty weak cards on the table, and if you were playing poker, you would fold them at the end.
John2
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Re: Babylon

Post by John2 »

I'm making notes from what I'm seeing on Google books and various internet sites regarding the exile and eventually all cards will be on the table. What's the big hurry? And why do you seem to be impugning me for whatever these notes say? Maybe 200,000 is too high of an estimate for the population of Judah, maybe it isn't. I don't know. I've never thought about it before and now I'm looking into it because your objection to it has brought the issue to my attention. And maybe Hillel was not from Babylon, maybe he was, and I hope to get to that issue in due time as well.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
John2
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Joined: Fri May 16, 2014 4:42 pm

Re: Babylon

Post by John2 »

Just to see who else is talking about it, regarding Judah's population at the time of the exile, Blenkinsopp also mentions the estimate of 200,000 in The Biblical World, Volume 1.
While we obviously cannot draw from these surveys any precise conclusions for the province as a whole prior to the deportations, they are consistent with indications noted earlier, which (allowing for a reasonable margin of error) suggest a total population in the last decades of Judean independence of about 200.000.

We therefore arrive, tentatively, at the conclusion that the deportations reduced the total population of the province by 10 percent at the most.

https://books.google.com/books?id=CVfH2 ... on&f=false
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
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