Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Schulte, Lucas L

Titel

"My shepherd… though you do not know me" Persian royal propaganda and the Nehemiah memoir

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2013

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The redactional history of the book of Nehemiah is a hotly debated topic within scholarship of the Hebrew Bible, particularly regarding the Nehemiah Memoir (or NM). A general scholarly consensus both attributes Neh. 1:1-2:20; 4:1-7:5; and 13:4-31 to NM, and postulates the influence of ancient Near Eastern royal inscriptions. However, previous scholarship lacks a systematic examination of Persian-period royal inscriptions, as well as a study of the depictions of King Artaxerxes in discussing the redactional history of Nehemiah. This dissertation provides a systematic examination of depictions of Persian kings in royal inscriptions dating to the Persian Period. The depiction of the Persian king, Artaxerxes, in sections of Nehemiah that most likely originate in NM matches the depiction of Persian kings as found in inscriptions about Persian kings dating to the Persian Empire: namely, that the Persian king is supported by the local deity and is heir to the local dynasty. This depiction has biblical antecedents in the book of Isaiah and can be found in inscriptions from the two largest Persian subject nations adjacent to Judah: Babylonia and Egypt. References in Nehemiah to divine authorization akin to those within datable texts found in Babylon and Egypt most likely date to the Persian period, due to a shared Sitz in der Literatur. The comparison of these Persian-period texts with Neh. 2; 5:14; and 13:4-14; bolster the majority of scholarly opinion that these passages come from NM. The contrast between royal depictions in Neh. 9 and the surveyed texts supports scholarly consensus: Neh. 9 post-dates the Persian period. Inconclusive results from the analyses of Neh. 1:11 and 6:6-7 do not contradict majority scholarly opinion. Although not part of the NM, Neh. 11:22-24 may contain elements that originate in the Persian period. Finally, the ubiquity of religious references in Persian-period inscriptions challenges the notion that all religious references within Nehemiah must be from redactional layers later than NM.