Hensel, B., 2024, “Transjordan and Judah from the Babylonian to Hellenistic Periods: Their Cultural, Religious, Economic, and Political Entanglements and Their Impact on the Formation of the Hebrew Bible.” In: Hensel B. (ed.), Transjordan and the Southern Levant, Tübingen 2024, 195-234 (original) (raw)

Hensel, B., 2024, “Transjordan and Judah from the Babylonian to Hellenistic Periods: Their Cultural, Religious, Economic, and Political Entanglements and Their Impact on the Formation of the Hebrew Bible.” In: Hensel B. (ed.), Transjordan and the Southern Levant. New Approaches Regarding the Iron Age and the Persian Period from Hebrew Bible Studies and Archaeology - in collaboration with Jordan Davis (ArchB 7), Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen 2024, 195-234. In “Transjordan and Judah from the Babylonian to the Hellenistic Periods (6th–2nd Centuries BCE): Their Cultural, Religious, Economic, and Political Entanglements and Their Impact on the Formation of the Hebrew Bible and Emerging Judaism,” Benedikt Hensel (University of Oldenburg, Germany) pre- sents a reconstruction of the historical development of Transjordan (in tradi- tional terms: Ammon, Moab and Edom), the Jordan Valley and the western Arabah Valley and Idumea from the Babylonian to Hellenistic periods (6th to 2nd centuries BCE) in the context of the Southern Levant. The article first pre- sents a brief history of research relating to the Transjordan in the context of the Southern Levant, in particular the changing perspective on the limitations of research on Transjordan concerning the Persian period realities, as well as a discussion on the possibilities of identifying and characterizing findings of the Persian period. This is followed by an analysis of the presently available ar- chaeological, epigraphic, iconographic, and literary (i.e., biblical) sources. A particular emphasis will be dedicated to Transjordan’s cultural, political and economic entanglement with Cisjordan, especially regarding questions of group identity and the attribution of ethnicity, as well as the possible reflections of these historical realties in different biblical traditions. The article demon- strates that despite lying on the fringes of the Southern Levant, the Transjordan regions (together with the Jordan Valley and Idumea in the western Arabah Valley) prove rather impactful for the entire eastern Mediterranean and espe- cially for the formation of Judah and early Judaism, and their normative scrip- tures that later became the Hebrew Bible.