Exile and Restoration Revisited: Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd Edited by Gary N. Knoppers, Lester L. Grabbe, and Deirdre Fulton (review)

This collection of twelve essays, edited by Gary Knoppers (Pennsylvania State University) and Lester Grabbe (University of Hull) and assisted by Deirdre Fulton (graduate student at Pennsylvania State University), emerged primarily from paper presentations at two sessions of the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in 2006: a specially formed Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah section created in honor of the late Professor Peter Ackroyd and the Literature and History of the Persian Period group. The editors solicited a few additional essays for this volume to round out the collection to pay tribute to Ackroyd’s scholarship in the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods.

In the introductory chapter, Grabbe and Knoppers provide a synopsis of Ackroyd’s work and influence, reasonably thorough summaries of all the essays, and their reflections on five themes which emerge out of the essays. In the first essay, Bob Becking addresses the identity of the women who are divorced by Yehudite men in Ezra 9–10 querying whether the women were foreigners in an ethnic or a religious manner. Becking carefully examines the onomastic evidence from archaeology, epigraphy, and biblical materials; he also unpacks motivations arising from the biblical text as well as other social-scientific theory and criticism. He concludes that the “foreign women” were Yehudites and the biblical text reflects an inner Yahwistic polemic or witch-hunt.

Next, John Bergsma explores the exegetical logic of Daniel’s prayer and response in Daniel 9 maintaining that too many interpretations of the passage focus on the perceived text rather than the received text. According to the author, Daniel is not praying for exegetical insight into the meaning of the “seventy years” in Jer 25:11–12 and 29:10; rather Daniel prays penitentially for the failure of attaining the level of righteousness called for in Jeremiah’s prophecy. Gabriel responds to Daniel’s penitence by offering a new revelation of restoration. Thus, Daniel 9 indicates that the edict of Cyrus is only the starting point of the fulfillment of prophecies of restoration versus the perspective of the Chronicler and Ezra-Nehemiah who view Cyrus’ decree as total fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy. The third article by Joseph Blenkinsopp investigates the intriguing fact that priests stemming from Aaron are mentioned only in fifth-century b.c.e. biblical texts or later. Adopting the general outline of Robert Kennett’s 1905 proposal (“The Origin of the Aaronite Priesthood,” JTS 6: 161–186) that the Aaronic priests were associated with the Bethel sanctuary, Blenkinsopp nuances his position by rejecting the Aaronite origin of the high priest Joshua and asserting that the Bethel priesthood ruled in Jerusalem.

Tamara Eskenazi’s essay surveys and evaluates current Erza-Nehemiah scholarship by focusing on archaeology, close analysis of biblical texts, sources that form the basis for the study of the postexilic period, collaborative scholarship, composition of the Pentateuch, and finally new emphases and approaches such as cultural anthropology and sociology. Eskenazi succinctly demonstrates how the newer landscape of scholarly research and methodologies regarding the postexilic period pays fitting tribute to Ackroyd’s memory and influence in the field. In a narrow textual study of Neh 12:10–11, Deirdre Fulton argues that although the genealogy of Jeshua’s family is priestly and the list was created to emphasize this lineage, it is not a high-priestly succession list. Fulton’s article disagrees with the consensus view by indicating that the term “high priest” does not occur in the Nehemiah 12 genealogy or the immediate context. The author bolsters her case by asserting that another similar list in 1 Chr 5:27–41 also does not depict an order of high priestly succession and that Josephus’ account of Second...