One might think that in the wake of the fall of Jerusalem the ad-vocates of strict monotheism carried the day. But they too must
10T.J. Lewis, Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit (HSM, 39), Atlanta 1989, 100-4, 172, 176-7; H. Niehr, ‘The Changed Status of the Dead in Yehud’, in: Albertz, Becking (eds), Yahwism after the Exile, 136-55.
11Cf. E. Stern, Material Culture of the Land of the Bible in the Persian Period 538-332 B.C., Warminster 1982, 158-82; Idem, ‘Religion in Palestine in the Assyrian and Persian Periods’, in: B. Becking, M.C.A. Korpel (eds), The Crisis of Israelite Religion: The Transformation of Religious Tradition in Exilic and Post-Exilic Times (OTS, 42), Leiden 1999, 245-255 (253-5). R.
Schmitt, ‘Gab es einen Bildersturm nach dem Exil?’, in: Albertz, Becking (eds), Yahwism after the Exile, 186-98, unsuccessfully tries to play down the relevance of Stern’s observations.
12Cf. T.N.D. Mettinger, No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in its An-cient Near Eastern Context (CB.OT, 42), Stockholm 1995, esp. 195-7.
13See (e.g.) B.(J.E.H.) Becking et al., Only One God? Monotheism in An-cient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah (BiSe, 77), London 2001.
14Cf. H.J. Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel: Their Social and Reli-gious Position in the Context of the Ancient Near East (OTS, 49), Leiden 2003, 485, with earlier literature.
15See on Malachi, L.L. Grabbe, Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian, vol. 1: The Persian and Greek Periods, Fortress Press: Minneapolis 1992, 45: ‘Malachi’s value is primarily for the religious and social issues which were important to the community at the time. Its major aim seems to be that of assuring the community of God’s continuing love and concern for them. Because many Jews seemed to be looking in vain for evidence of that love, however, an explanation of why the promises were not being fulfilled was needed (1:2-5; 2:17; 3:13-18). The reason given is lack of obedience and reverence on the part of the community. The criticisms focus especially on proper cultic observance, with the priests themselves being strongly taken to task along with the people (1:6–2:9; 3:6-12).’
have been dissatisfied with their failure to convert every more or less polytheistic Israelite. Their problem was the problem of every monotheistic religion: the origin of evil. How could it be explained that God seemed to have abandoned the people, the Davidic king and the priesthood he himself had chosen? Many lost faith in the God of their fathers who in their view had pun-ished them beyond reasonable measure.
Allow me a very incomplete overview of quotations from these staunch monotheists: ‘Look, O Lord, and see! With whom have you dealt thus? Should women eat their own offspring, the child-ren of their tender care? Should priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?’ (Lam. 2:20). ‘The breath of our nostrils, the Lord’s anointed, was taken in their pits, he of whom we said,
“Under his shadow we shall live among the nations” ’ (Lam. 4:20).
‘My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is neglected by my God’ (Isa. 40:27). ‘Why are we fasting, if you do not see it?
(Why) do we humble ourselves, if you do not take note of it?’
(Isa. 58:3). ‘We await justice, but there is none, salvation, but it is far away from us’ (Isa. 59:11). ‘Where is he who brought them up from the sea, (where are) the shepherds of his flock? Where is he who puts his holy spirit in their midst?’ (Isa. 63:11). ‘Where are your zeal and your might?’ (Isa. 63:15). ‘We have become like those over whom you have never ruled, like those who are not called by your name’ (Isa. 63:19). ‘Awake! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake! Do not cast us off for ever!’ (Ps. 44:23). ‘Where is the God of justice?’ (Mal. 2:17). Not the Israelites but God himself is held responsible for the rampant neglect of worship:
‘the Lord has brought to an end in Zion appointed feast and Sabbath’ (Lam. 2:6). ‘How can we sing a song of the Lord on alien soil?’ (Ps. 137:4). ‘It is useless to serve God. What have we gained by keeping his charge and walking in abject awe of the Lordof Hosts?’ (Mal. 3:14).
Undoubtedly some of these cries of distress were exaggerated, as complaints tend to be. Although the deportations to Baby-lonia and the ensuing famines must have seriously weakened the population of Judah after the fall of Jerusalem, a total breakdown of all social structures during the Neo-Babylonian occupation is unlikely, especially not in rural areas.16 But to deny these bitter
16Though the textual evidence for this statement is scant, archaeological finds support it. Cf. G. Barkay, ‘The Iron Age II-III’, in: A. Ben-Tor (ed.),
Disillusion among Jews in the Postexilic Period 139
complaints any historical basis would be begging the question in my opinion.
We have seen that especially the young suffered under the theological doctrine of collective guilt. Was it a consolation when the poet of Lam. 3:27 intoned, ‘It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth’ ? Apparently not, according to the poet of Lam. 5:13, ‘boys stagger under loads of wood’. The destruction of the temple, the deportations of the Judahite elite to Babylonia in 597 and 587, and the harsh regime of the new masters apparently created widespread despair and apathy. People seriously doubted whether it was sensible to serve their God Yhwh any longer.
Many documents in the Murashˆu archives were issued on Jew-ish holidays which any observant Jew would try to avoid.17Both in Elephantine and Babylonia Jews married foreign men and wo-men.18 The same practice is attested for Achaemenid Palestine and had to be redressed by Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra 9–10; Neh.
13:23-28; see also Mal. 2:11).19So Esther’s marriage to an uncir-cumcised man was by no means exceptional. As in Mesopotamia and Egypt, Sabbath and religious festivals were not kept meticu-lously in Achaemenid Palestine (Isa. 58; Zech. 7; Neh. 13:15-18) and Achaemenid Egypt (see below). The dietary and sacrificial laws were abandoned by most people (Isa. 65:1-11). When Es-ther asked the Jews on the thirteenth Nisan to fast for three days (Est. 4:16) she effectively asked them to ignore the prescriptions
The Archaeology of Ancient Israel, New Haven 1992, 302-73 (372); E. Stern, Material Culture of the Land of the Bible in the Persian Period, 538-332 BC, Warminster 1982, 229; Carter, The Emergence of Yehud ; Barstad, The Myth of the Empty Land, esp. 47-55.
17Cf. R. Zadok, The Jews in Babylonia in the Chaldean and Achaemenian Periods According to Babylonian Sources (Studies in the History of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel Monograph Series, 3), Haifa 1979, 49, 82.
18In Babylonia only marriages between Babylonian men and foreign wo-men are attested; cf. R. Zadok, ‘The Representation of Foreigners in Legal Documents (Eighth through Second Centuries b.c.e.)’, in: Lipschits, Blen-kinsopp (eds), Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, 471-589 (483). At the International Meeting of the SBL at Groningen 2004 Kathleen Abraham read a paper on ‘Mixed Marriage: Cuneiform Marriage Contracts from the 5th Century bce with Hebrew Names’ that might be relevant to this topic but which due to other duties I was unable to attend.
19It seems to me that this is an argument for the third possibility mentioned by B. Becking, ‘Continuity and Community: The Belief System of the Book of Ezra’, in: Becking, Korpel (eds), The Crisis of Israelite Religion, 256-75 (274-5).
for Passover.20 In contrast to Daniel (Dan. 1:8, 12, 16) and to Judith (Jdt. 12:1-2), Esther shows no concern whatsoever for the Jewish dietary laws when she is eating with gentiles (Est. 2:9, 18; 5:4-6, 8, 12, 14; 7:1-2, 7-8). The Jews in Palestine were slow to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (Hag. 1:2). James Trotter has argued plausibly that this was due to a lack of motivation on the part of the local population.21Even when the Second Temple had been erected, religious duties were still neglected (Mal. 1:6-14;
2:8; 3:5, 8; Neh. 13:10-13; perhaps also Joel 1:13, if dated in the Persian period). Apparently monotheistic Jews had a hard time to observe their basic responsibilities towards their God Yhwh.
Other Jews opted for a return to polytheism. Jeremiah (e.g.
Jer. 7:18; 44) and Ezekiel (e.g. Ezek. 8;2213:17-2323) denounce pagan religious practices not only among exiles in Egypt and Babylonia, but also among the survivors in Palestine itself. As we shall see, theophoric personal names and documents from Egypt testify to the fact that at least some Jews lost interest in the worship of Yhwh alone.