Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Yitzhak,

While I agree with most of what you have written in this thread, Lipschits 
seems to be minimizing the archaeological evidence. According to Avraham 
Faust (in several articles), based mostly on survey data, the population 
decline in Judah as a whole seems to have been much more severe, up to 
60-70%.
This is, of course, part of an on-going debate in recent years, about how 
much of a "real" historical event the exile was, with a "minimalist" school 
it was mostly the urban elite that was deported and that biblical claims of 
an "empty land" were mostly fabricated in order to justify the "returnees" 
claim to that land, while a "maximalist" school claiming that the biblical 
accounts, while obviously ideologically motivated, do supply reliable 
information. The archaeological record, for the moment, has been used and 
interpreted by different scholars in different ways.

Yigal Levin

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
> Lipschitz also discusses, among many other things, the archaeological
> evidence.  Thus, the sites of a-Nasbe (identified with Mispeh), el-Ful
> (identified with Gibeah), and Beitin (identified with Bet El), there
> is continuous
> habitation throughout the 6th century BCE.  In el-Ful there is some (but 
> not
> complete) abandonment toward the end of the 6th century BCE, and a-
> Nasbe shows building that suggests it had become an official center during 
> the
> Babylonian period, which is consistent with the Biblical evidence, as in, 
> for
> example, Jer 40:5-7.  In Gibeon, we also have inscriptional evidence, and 
> so we
> can make a conclusion based on stratigraphy, paleography, and ceramics.
>
> The picture that emerges is that some few thousand people representing
> the elite of Judah were exiled.  A few more that were captured by an
> attempted revolt of around 10 people, ran away.  But a large population
> remained, with Mispah becoming the capital of the Babylonian province.
>
> Yitzhak Sapir
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