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 »

Brinker in The Influence of Sanctuaries in Early Israel writes (in 1946, but still):
The Northern Kingdom was more populous than the Southern, yet, when years later Judah fell, 200,000 went into exile and the country was not totally depopulated.

https://books.google.com/books?id=dnu7A ... 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 »

Finkelstein and Silberman note the 75,000 number in The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its sacred Texts, but also allow for the possibility that up to 20,000 were exiled from Judah:
... in neither Kings nor Jeremiah do we know whether the figures represent the total numbers of deportees or just male heads of households (a system of counting quite common in the ancient world). Given these compounded uncertainties, the most that can reasonably be said is that we are dealing with a total number of exiles ranging between a few thousand and perhaps fifteen or twenty thousand at the most ...

Judah's population can be quite accurately estimated from data collected during intensive surveys and excavations at about seventy-five thousand (with Jerusalem comprising at least 20 percent of this number -fifteen thousand- with another fifteen thousand probably inhabiting its nearby agricultural hinterland).

https://books.google.com/books?id=lu6yw ... er&f=false
Last edited by John2 on Fri Apr 13, 2018 5:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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 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.
My only issue with you (aside from feeling like a window shopper being told I have bad taste as I look at what's available) is your certainty, while I'm seeing estimates of Judah's population ranging from less than 75,000 up to 250,000, and ranges for deportees from a few thousand to 20,000. And when I looked into your statement regarding the population of "Babylonia" being about 200,000, I saw that this number is an estimation of the city of Babylon rather than Babylonia as a whole (which your statement seemed to be implying, but correct me if I'm wrong). But I'm not buying anything right now, only looking (including at what you say).
Last edited by John2 on Fri Apr 13, 2018 1:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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 »

Regarding the estimation ranges for Judah's population, Faust cautions in Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Period: The Archaeology of Desolation (pages 128-129):
... counting ancient populations is a dangerous endeavor. Even calculating the number of inhabitants of a single site is unreliable and results in a margin of error of some 400 percent ... Therefore, it is impossible to study an entire region where there are numerous unknown variables. The specific figures are quite meaningless. What can be studied, and even this very cautiously, is demographic trends ...

The most detailed attempt to calculate the population of ancient Judah in the Persian period was conducted by Lipschits (2003a; 2003b; 2005). Lipschits concluded that the population of Judah in the seventh century was 108,000, and the population of Yehud in the Persian period was 30,125 (i.e., about 28 percent of the population of Iron Age Judah; 2003a, 364; 2003b, 304; 2005, 270).

https://books.google.com/books?id=NcnPA ... or&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 »

Middlemas has a table of various estimates for the population of Judah in The Troubles of Templeless Judah that lists Carter's as 60,000, Lipschits' as 108,000, and Weinberg's as 220,000-250,000.

https://books.google.com/books?id=WrMUD ... 00&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 »

Lipschits breaks down his estimate of 108,000 in this table in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period.

https://books.google.com/books?id=R65fh ... 00&f=false
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John2
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Re: Babylon

Post by John2 »

Williamson addresses Weinberg's estimate of the population of Judah as 220,000-250,000 in Studies in Persian Period History and Historiography and concludes that it is "far too high":

https://books.google.com/books?id=UI1MA ... ed&f=false
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John2
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Re: Babylon

Post by John2 »

And Weinberg writes in The Citizen-temple Community that:
... archaeological data confirm the population of Judah to be approximately 220,000-250,000 residents between the eighth and sixth centuries BCE ... it would be safe to say that the total number of the exiles, plus the emigrants, was about 20,000, or some 10% of the population of Judah.

https://books.google.com/books?id=2XitA ... ah&f=false
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 »

My comments here started because you made an inane comment about about Hillel's supposed Babylonian origin in the original post, in addition to the peculiar title. I didn't mention previously that the historicity of Ezra is also highly doubtful.

It looked like the thread was going to analyze the Jewish presence in Babylonia between the exile and the completion (or whatever) of the Iranian Talmud. So I made the relevant point that there are problems with a long term Jewish presence in the area during that time period.

After my reply you moved the focus to the Babylonian exile, without making any noticeable improvements in the stuff you posted. Throughout all of this, you haven't even made a single interesting point. You seem to lack any kind of adult critical judgment.

Sorry if my criticism has been too harsh for you.

Regarding your feeble 6th century BCE population of Judah population posts -

Finkelstein gives the combined population if Israel and Judah as 400,000 in the eighth century BCE, before the Assyrians crushed Israel.

The Baylonian exile wiki gives this, which you mention above.
Archaeological excavations and surveys have enabled the population of Judah before the Babylonian destruction to be calculated with a high degree of confidence to have been approximately 75,000.
That's just a good number, the Talk section of the wiki becomes contentious but nobody is bitching about the correctness of this.
...Taking the different biblical numbers of exiles at their highest, 20,000, this would mean that at most 25% of the population had been deported to Babylon, with the remaining 75% staying in Judah.
Your quote of Weinberg in your last post is cherry picked. His estimate is wrong. How could the population of the area stay the same between the 8th and 6th centuries with all the shit going down? It's not really his fault because he's heavily relying heavily on the Bible (and the guys who actually read it) as opposed to archaeology. You ignore his discussion of the number of people involved in the exile, where he likes 12 to 14,000. The exile appears to have been quite comfortable, if the Babylonians didn't want slaves why would they go through that expense, all the exiles seem to have they wound up on welfare.

Personally, I commented on the 20,000 number because biblical numbers like this are almost always ridiculously high (and I'm not sure about the almost).

I think the technical problem is that there are more people coming back from the exile than actually left, so we have a lot of singing and dancing., similar to the Laurel and Hardy routine about the how to make the exile come out to 70 years - guess your research hasn't got that far yet.

Hope that the tax cut gives you enough money to buy your own computer.
John2
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Re: Babylon

Post by John2 »

Is this my "inane" comment?
I was just thinking about how much Babylonian Jews have contributed to Judaism. I suppose it starts with Abraham (at least according to tradition), but there is also Ezra and Hillel, who were hugely influential on the development of the OT and Rabbinic Judaism respectively. And of course the Babylonian Talmud is the mainstream Talmud. And the biblical Hebrew script is said to have been created in Babylon.
I don't see anything inane about this. Abraham, Ezra and Hillel are traditionally associated with Babylon. I don't personally think Abraham existed, so whether he "was" or "wasn't" from Babylon isn't an issue for me and I thus presume that writings that associate him with Babylon are "bullshit" but I'm still curious to take a new look at what they say. I could take or leave Ezra and Hillel as far as their existence goes, but I am curious to look into their supposed Babylonian origins too and I appreciate your analysis of my notes.

I do not wish to own a computer and never have, so this is a way for me to make notes as I take a new look at Babylonian Jewish history (which is one of the thread titles I had considered before settling on Babylon because it's easier to type, which helps me given my limited internet time). I'm sorry if you have issues with this learning method. And while I don't mind if you have issues with anything that I mention or cite, it feels like you are associating me with people and ideas you don't agree with when I haven't had enough time to assess everything so far myself. Maybe I too will like the number 75,000 and think that Hillel was not from Babylon.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
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