Table Of ContentA
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Essays from an international group of experts on the ancient Near East F
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and the Hebrew Bible honor Oded Borowski’s pioneering work in the H
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archaeology and history of ancient Israel and Judah. Contributors
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approach the question of what we know of eighth-century Judah from TO
multiple angles, including a survey of Judah’s neighbors, the land of HL
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Judah and its cities, daily life and material culture, religious beliefs and
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practices, and early forms of what are now biblical texts. Contributors EY
include Rami Arav, Shawn Zelig Aster, Assaf Avraham, Jeff rey A. Blakely, N A ARCHAEOLOGY AND
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Sandra Blakely, Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, Efrat Bocher, Erin Darby, Jennie UN
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Ebeling, Zev I. Farber, Avraham Faust, Daniel E. Fleming, Yuval Gadot, R
Y H HISTORY OF
Kristine Garroway, Seymour Gitin, James W. Hardin, Gilad Itach, Hayah
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Katz, Reinhard G. Kratz, Joel M. LeMon, Shani Libi, Oded Lipschits, US
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Donald Redford, Christopher Rollston, Bruce Routledge, Yair Sapir,
O EIGHTHCENTURY
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Konrad Schmid, Cynthia Shafer-Elliott, Brent A. Strawn, Andrew G. R
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Vaughn, Jacob L. Wright, and K. Lawson Younger Jr.
JUDAH
ZEV I. FARBER is editor of Th eTorah.com for Project TABS (Torah and
Biblical Scholarship). He is the author of Images of Joshua in the Bible and
Th eir Reception (de Gruyter).
JACOB L. WRIGHT is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Emory
University. He is the author of David, King of Israel, and Caleb in Biblical
Memory (Cambridge University Press).
WF
Ancient Near East Monographs a
Monografías sobre el Antiguo Cercano Oriente rigrb
he
tr
Society of Biblical Literature Edited by
Centro de Estudios de Historia del Antiguo Oriente (UCA)
Zev I. Farber
Electronic open access edition (ISBN 978-0-88414-348-2) available at
and Jacob L. Wright
http://www.sbl-site.org/publications/Books_ANEmonographs.aspx
Cover photo: Zev Radovan/BibleLandPictures.com
Ancient Near East Monographs
Monografías sobre el Antiguo Cercano Oriente
Society of Biblical Literature
Centro de Estudios de Historia del Antiguo Oriente (UCA)
ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY OF
EIGHTH-CENTURY JUDAH
ANCIENT NEAR EAST MONOGRAPHS
General Editors
Alan Lenzi
Jeffrey Stackert
Juan Manuel Tebes
Editorial Board
Reinhard Achenbach
Jeffrey L. Cooley
C. L. Crouch
Roxana Flammini
Christopher B. Hays
René Krüger
Graciela Gestoso Singer
Bruce Wells
Number 23
ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY OF
EIGHTH-CENTURY JUDAH
Edited by
Edited by Zev I. Farber and Jacob L. Wright
Atlanta
Copyright © 2018 by SBL Press
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by
means of any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permit-
ted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission
should be addressed in writing to the Rights and Permissions Office, SBL Press, 825 Hous-
ton Mill Road, Atlanta, GA 30329 USA.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018960213
Printed on acid-free paper.
To Oded Borowski
Contents
Editors’ Preface ........................................................................................ xi
Abbreviations ......................................................................................... xiii
Introduction ............................................................................................... 1
Jacob L. Wright
PART 1. JUDAH’S NEIGHBORS NEAR AND FAR ....................................... 15
1. Assyria’s Expansion West of the Euphrates (ca. 870–701 BCE) ... 17
K. Lawson Younger Jr.
2. Images, Merchants, and Mercenaries: Aegeans and Southern Judah
in the Eighth Century BCE ............................................................. 35
Sandra Blakely
3. The Kingdom of Israel in the Eighth Century: From a Regional
Power to Assyrian Provinces .......................................................... 57
Gilad Itach
4. Bethsaida: The Capital City of the Kingdom of Geshur ................. 79
Rami Arav
5. Philistia in the Late Iron Age II: The Development of the Ceramic
Assemblage ..................................................................................... 99
Seymour Gitin
6. Transjordan in the Eighth Century BCE ....................................... 139
Bruce Routledge
7. Egypt and Judah in the Eighth Century BCE ................................ 161
Donald Redford
PART 2. THE LAND OF JUDAH ............................................................... 177
8. Society and Culture in the Kingdom of Judah during the Eighth
Century ......................................................................................... 179
Avraham Faust
9. The Introduction of the Open-Courtyard Building to the Jerusalem
Landscape and Judean-Assyrian Interaction ................................ 205
Yuval Gadot and Efrat Bocher
10. Coming to Recognize that Sedentary Agriculture, or Farming, Was
Rarely Practiced in the Hesi Region ............................................. 229
Jeffrey A. Blakely and James W. Hardin
vii
viii Contents
PART 3. ANCIENT TECHNOLOGY ........................................................... 265
11. Daily Life .................................................................................... 267
Jennie Ebeling
12. “He Shall Eat Curds and Honey” (Isa 7:15): Food and Feasting in
Late Eighth-Century Judah ......................................................... 279
Cynthia Shafer-Elliott
13. Ancient Building Techniques: A Brief Overview ...................... 299
Assaf Avraham
14. The Pottery Assemblage of the Eighth Century: A Concluding
Observation ................................................................................. 307
Hayah Katz
15. Judah under Assyrian Rule and the Early Phase of Stamping Jar
Handles ........................................................................................ 337
Oded Lipschits
16. Should All of the LMLK Jars Still Be Attributed to Hezekiah?
Yes! ............................................................................................. 357
Andrew G. Vaughn
PART 4. RELIGION AND RITUAL ............................................................ 363
17. Death and Burial in Eighth-Century Judah ................................. 365
Elizabeth Bloch-Smith
18. Religion in Eighth-Century Judah: The Case of Kuntillet ʿAjrud
(and Beyond) ............................................................................... 379
Brent A. Strawn and Joel M. LeMon
19. Judean Pillar Figurines (JPFs) .................................................... 401
Erin Darby
20. Enculturating Children in Eighth-Century Judah ....................... 415
Kristine Henriksen Garroway
21. Religion in Eighth-Century Judah: An Overview ....................... 431
Zev I. Farber
PART 5. BIBLICAL AND LITERARY ........................................................ 455
22. Scripture and Inscriptions: Eighth-Century Israel and Judah in
Writing ........................................................................................ 457
Christopher Rollston
23. The Shock of Assyrian Imperial Ideology and the Responses of
Biblical Authors in the Late Eighth Century .............................. 475
Shawn Zelig Aster
24. The Biblical Writings in the Late Eighth Century BCE ............. 489
Konrad Schmid
25. Prophetic Discourse on “Israel” .................................................. 503
Reinhard G. Kratz
26. Israel and the Jerusalem Temple in the Time of Two Kingdoms. ... 517
Daniel E. Fleming
Contents ix
APPENDIX: SURVEY OF SCIENTIFIC METHODS IN ARCHAEOLOGY ....... 529
Yair Sapir, with Shani Libi
Contributors .......................................................................................... 555
Ancient Sources Index .......................................................................... 565
Place Index ............................................................................................ 575
Modern Authors Index .......................................................................... 581
