I wanted to share this with my friends and family. I hope I made the point that HE is in charge, always and defended Him to the atheists well. Dolores B Davis June 12, 2014 The Bible's Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future Presented by Dr Jacob Wright, Emory University Discussion Forum: Week 3 How did Judahite communities really live after the destruction of 587 BCE? To answer this question: (a) Reflect on how textual and archaeological sources provide varying accounts of post-conquest life. (b) Consider the possible motivations behind the written sources. In what ways might these motivations have affected the depiction of the community? (c) Explore how we can best use sources to reconstruct an image of Judahite living after the Babylonian conquest. A: Textual vs Archaeological Hard Evidence: After being exiled to Babylonia the Judahites in Persia apparently adopted some of the culture of that empire. As might be expected the Elders were probably concerned the young people might fall away from Judaism. Some scholars suggest there were no great literary works from Judah until their sojourn in Babylon as noted by Dr. Finkelstein. They base that claim on the absence of written records from the appropriate levels prior to the Assyrian siege. [THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL ISRAEL (Finkelstein, Israel; Mazar, Amihai (2012-01-01). The Quest for the Historical Israel: Debating Archaeology and the History of Early Israel (Archaeology and biblical studies) . Society of Biblical Literature. Kindle Edition.)] The lack of evidence may merely be because of the great destruction levels in the eighth and the sixth centuries. Papyri nor vellum would make it through the destructive fires so many archeologists have reported at those two specific layers. One has to find it rather hard to understand why Judah wouldn't have written language when all the countries around Judah did. Such an idea smacks of assuming the Judahites and the Israelites were backward country bumpkins. We know from the Bible and from extra Biblical sources Solomon communicated via letters with his father in law. Although there are various percentages given by different archaeologists, not more than 10% of the sites have actually been excavated and none of them in their entirety. Over the past nearly two centuries, since the birth of archaeology, much information has been gleaned and many artifacts have been recovered. In the early part of the first century of archaeology, however, a great deal of artefacts were damaged, destroyed or removed from context; sometimes rendering the finds useless. Neither Israel nor Judah wrote on wet clay tablets which would have become permanent documents when their cities were incinerated. The treasure hunters wanted pottery, silver and gold objects for profit...one has to wonder how many fragments were overlooked, mislaid and downright destroyed. The Judahites (and Israelites) left behind after the 586 BC destuction didn't have much left to work with. Their fields and orchards were decimated, flocks destroyed. They wouldn't have had much spare time for the frivolous idea of leaving us notes in their struggle to survive. B: Possible Motivations To Write a History: Several have already commented using the common sense ideas of why the Jews in Babylon felt the need to construct a history for themselves. There are practical reasons also. The Judahites and the Israelites both knew they were called by God to bring His message to the world. Even if the younger generation didn't know it, the elders did. A nation had lost everything that was dear to them except their memories, traditions and purpose. In order to maintain their culture, writing down their history seems the best way to preserve it; much like an individual keeping a diary for successive generations. If it wasn't written before, there is some evidence among Native American tribes that oral traditions can be kept for centuries by mere memorization. I have witnessed Native American elders teaching the younger generation songs and stories. The children repeat verbatim. As for political reasons...it seems silly that a nation of people not in their homeland would have political agendas but culturally speaking it would be a great way to share with all living generations so they wouldn't forget who they were. Apparantly some of the descendants either didn't have access to this information or they chose to ignore it and adopt Babylonian culture such as Dr. Wright spoke of on the island of Elephantina. We see that happening in history many times. Native Americans were absorbed into the United States primarily Anglo Saxon culture, South American Natives were absorbed into the Spanish culture, Hawaiians and other Pacific island peoples absorbed into the primarily Anglo Saxon culture of the United States. Even today, we are witnessing Middle Eastern born young people, who have immigrated to the United States, choosing to ignore their familial culture; adopting American mores and lifestyles. By writing down and teaching cultural traditions to the young people, a culture can be saved or renewed. No matter how hard the Spanish, the Americans, the English, the French or the Canadians tried to stamp out aboriginal culture it survived. At first it was totally oral and as the natives became literate they wrote books containing their histories and cultural traditions. Native American pottery, jewelry, and costumes have adapted over the generations to style and material availability such as the Navajo raising sheep and spinning wool for clothing and blankets. However, there are some traditionalists who still use ancient patterns on their pottery and in their weaving. Still, their morality teaching stories have not changed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah C: Reconstructing Judahite life after Babylonian captivity: I am not convinced we can actually reconstruct Judahite society from the information that we have right now. There are still many more sites to be excavated. Ancient Persia is not exactly a safe place to dig at the present time even if we were allowed to do so. There has been a great deal of strife in that part of the world for the last century. Secondly, only a small portion of the tablets recovered at Babylon and Nineva have been translated according to several scholars. According to Dr. Johnson C Philip (c. 2007 in class lectures) some of the textual information recovered cannot be read at the present time because the letters are sealed inside fired clay envelopes. To open those envelopes would do a great deal of damage. They are being saved until technology can allow archaeologists to view the information inside without breaking the precious envelopes.http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/05/06_tablet.shtml Thirdly, theories are only ideas; all be it educated guesses. As archaeologists we look at all the evidence that is available and try to tell a story; a plausible story. Ten different archaeologists might have 10 totally different interpretations of the very same evidence. I am reminded of my very first archaeology class in 1976. There was this role of string with a gold clip on it in our lab session that not one single student could figure out what was. Dr. Argeullas finally told us it was elephant hair used as money in some parts of Asia. In a class of about 30 there were at least 25 different guesses. We held it in our hands, we felt it, we stared at it for hours, we collaborated, we reasoned but none of our guesses even came close to what it really was. More than likely we will find Judahite life during the Babylonian captivity is somewhere in the middle between the maximalist and minimalist ideas; that is, somewhere between what's archaeological recoveries suggest and what the Bible's narratives tell us. From the dawn of mankind man has survived by adaptation to his circumstances.