The Jerusalem Temple as an Instrument of the Achaemenid Fiscal Administration

Schaper, Joachim

doi:10.1163/1568533952662298

Cited by 28 publications

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“…Third, it is altogether likely that conditions in Yehud in 520 BCE were not well suited to the reconstruction of the temple. Yehud had a limited territory (Lemaire 1994: 20-21) and reduced population base (Carter 1999: 201-205;Lipschits 1998: 474;1999: 182-84), and bore a taxation burden within the Persian Empire (Schaper 1995;Briant 1982;1996: 405-29). Thus the image of a struggling, largely agricultural community choosing to wait for a more suitable moment to rebuild the temple is far from historically improbable.…”

Section: Prophetic Texts and Historiographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Building the Second Temple: Questions of Time, Text, and History in Haggai 1.1-15

Kessler

2002

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

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The people’s reticence expressed in Hag. 1.2 has been understood by some interpreters as reflecting the belief that Yahweh had not yet authorized the temple’s reconstruction, rather than as a rationalization for the community’s misplaced priorities. However, exegetical, text-, form-, literary- and ideological-critical considerations cast doubt upon this reading. Rather, the text’s redactor presents Haggai as a successful prophet whose words of reproach pierce the people’s recalcitrant hearts. In the light of broader ancient Near Eastern parallels, it is, nevertheless, plausible that objections to the temple’s reconstruction on ideological grounds did exist in Early Persian Yehud. Haggai 1.2 may demonstrate the selectivity with which a historical context may be portrayed, and provides an example of the difficulties of using prophetic texts in historical reconstructions.

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Section: Prophetic Texts and Historiographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Building the Second Temple: Questions of Time, Text, and History in Haggai 1.1-15

Kessler

2002

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

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“…15 The lists of officials the Chronicler assigns to David may be fictitious but it suggests that the Chronicler regarded an extensive scribal-administrative class as plausible. The view of Judah in the Persian period as a cultural backwater and as economically poor perhaps needs to be balanced against such a growth in the scribal-administrative activity of the temple-city.…”

Section: Mechanisms Of Jewish Canonizingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Loose Canons: Reflections on the Formation of the Hebrew Bible

Davies¹

1997

JHS

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ProlegomenaStudy of the rabbinic-Masoretic canon confronts a number of conceptual problems which, despite a number of recent studies, 1 persist here and there. Among the most important are the following:1) The persistence of the concept and evaluation of "canon" according to the Christian example of a closed and authoritative list. The role of canons within the system of rabbinic Judaism, as well as in other ancient and modern societies has not been fully evaluated.2) The inherited view of pre-rabbinic Judaism as having been, throughout its development, a unitary phenomenon, with a single line of evolution, and thus, implicitly, with a single canonizing process, leading to a single canon. This is often compounded by the teleological fallacy: that within the process of formation of a canon lie the seeds of the final canon itself, so that histories of canonizing begin with the final shape and work backwards, rather than starting from the beginnings and going forwards-as if the final shape of the canon were the outcome of an inevitable growth rather than being the result of discrete historical decisions.3) The assumption the scriptural canon provides clear and reliable evidence of its own history. One obvious example of this is to divide the history of canonization into the rabbinic-Masoretic divisions of "torah", "prophets" and "writings", without considering that different groupings may have been in force at earlier stages; more generally, there persists a tendency to accept canonical stories such as Ezra as being suitable evidence for the canonization of torah.4) Within biblical scholarship, it is rarely asked whether or not "canon" is a good thing; where the matter does get an airing, the answer is a ringing affirmation. Yet an ongoing controversy about whether or not canons do or should exist is raging in the field of English literature. 2 Some critics are saying that the notion of "canon" is no more than an attempt by educational (we could read "ecclesiastical") fascists to administer control of one's culture ("religion") and one's society, topreserve the values of a powerful few against the interests of the less powerful many. Others counter that excellence cannot be relativized and must be recognized, and that canons do and should exist because they testify to the self-authorizing nature of excellence. But values do not lie

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“… 8 Schaper (1995: 536); Meyers and Meyers (1987); Carroll (1994: 41–43). For discussion of how the empire required the indigenous leaders to collect and forward the requisite local tribute see Meyers and Meyers (1987: 37-38, 390); Schaper (1995: 539); Briant (1982, 292–296); Kuhrt (1995: 2:690); Cataldo (2009: 50); Fried (2004: 55). Schaper and Meyers and Meyers also compare such a function with other temples in the ancient world, especially in Babylon.…”

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confidence: 99%

Offerings Matter: Revisiting the Sabbath Transgression in Nehemiah 13 and the So-Called Sabbath Reform

Noya

2023

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

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Recent interpretations of the Sabbath rest concept in the Hebrew Bible tend to highlight its humanitarian aspect. However, in this paper, I aim to nuance this claim by attending to a rarely discussed Sabbath text in Nehemiah 13. I will argue that the Sabbath rest motif in Nehemiah is less concerned about the humanitarian aspect than the temple’s maintenance while at the same time fulfilling the imperial tax obligation. The Sabbath rest motif supports Nehemiah’s demand for the temple’s communal funding through tithes and offerings. To support this argument, I begin by reviewing the discussion about the Achaemenid imperial rule over the Jerusalem temple and its tax obligation. Scholars differ on how significant the Jerusalem temple was for the imperial administration, but some sort of obligation to the empire is generally accepted. After that, I analyze how the Sabbath concept is manifested in Neh. 13.15–22 in relation to its literary contexts. Along with clearing the temple storeroom, maintaining temple resources, and restricting exogamy, the Sabbath concept facilitates the temple’s maintenance and the meeting of the imperial tax obligation.

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The Jerusalem Temple as an Instrument of the Achaemenid Fiscal Administration

Cited by 28 publications

References 0 publications

Building the Second Temple: Questions of Time, Text, and History in Haggai 1.1-15

Building the Second Temple: Questions of Time, Text, and History in Haggai 1.1-15

Loose Canons: Reflections on the Formation of the Hebrew Bible

Offerings Matter: Revisiting the Sabbath Transgression in Nehemiah 13 and the So-Called Sabbath Reform

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