Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel & its Contexts
A Workshop
Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, Munich & University of Alberta, Edmonton
April 7-11, 2008 at the University of Alberta
Campus Map This workshop brings together scholars from the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich (LMU) and the University of Alberta, along with colleagues from other European and Canadian universities. This workshop is part of a newly founded cooperation between LMU and the UofA and is conceived as the first of two workshops. The second is planned for Munich (2009).
The workshop is meant to explore, from multiple perspectives, the concept of “Exile” in ancient Israel, mainly but exclusively in prophetic literature, including the social and historical setting against which it evolved and in a way that is informed by comparative ancient materials.
On Exile
Physical destruction and ideological construction, history and memory, nightmares about the past, didactic knowledge and dreams of a utopian future, basic points of reference for self-identity and for self-narratives; all the above directly relate to the topic of the workshop as they are all involved in the concept of Exile.A Babylonian campaign against Judah in 587 BCE led to a political and social disaster for many in Judah, and for most of Judah. The monarchy collapsed, Jerusalem was destroyed, along with its temple, and many areas suffered from a drastic drop in settlement. Some of local elite were exiled to Babylon and a concept of Exile began to develop.
In ancient Israelite literature (both prophetic and historiographic) Exile is construed as a central turning point within the course of the history of Israel. In these texts “the Exile” is a central ideological concept in itself and because of the ways in which it is connected to, and connects other fundamental ideological concepts. It serves to explain the destruction of the monarchic polities and the social and economic disasters associated with them in terms of YHWH’s punishment for Israel’s/Judah’s abandonment of YHWH’s ways. As it develops an image of an unjust Israel, it creates one of a just deity. But YHWH is not only imagined as just, but also as loving and forgiving, for the exile is presented as a transitory state: Exile is deeply intertwined with its discursive counterpart, the certain “Return.” Promises and announcement of the latter are often intertwined with those of Exile. As the latter comes to be understood as a necessary purification or preparation for a renewal of YHWH’s proper relationship with Israel, the seemingly unpleasant Exilic conditions begin, discursively, to shape an image of YHWH as loving Israel and teaching it. Exile is dystopia, but one that carries in itself all the seeds of utopia. As the latter is by definition unrealized (and unrealizable), it is no wonder that the concept of Exile continued to exercise an important influence in the discourses of Israel in the Second Temple period, and was eventually influential in the production of eschatological visions.
Exile becomes also a central turning point in the HB, and a theme in the basic metanarratives of Israel, in its construction of the past, and in the construction of collective memory and remembrance. Because of spatial discontinuity with the land, narratives of exile and return become archetypal for constructions of patriarchal narratives and Egyptian sojourn and slavery that led to the Exodus. As such, the concept of Exile links to concepts such as “Israel outside the land” and “Israel inside the land;” and, in turn, leads to images such as “the empty land” during the Babylonian period.
It is worth noting that the concept of Exile as framed in and by these ancient Israelite texts has had a continuous influence in later developments in Christianity and Judaism, and in Western cultures to the present day. In fact, the ways in these cultures, including our own, dispossession, fear of dispossession, disruption of connection to the past (or place), and dreams of overcoming it are framed in social discourses are deeply influenced by those in which ancient Israelites framed their concerns, dreams and nightmares, and deeply held thoughts and feelings.