Mark Leuchter, «Inter-Levitical Polemics in the late 6th century BCE: The Evidence from Nehemiah 9», Vol. 95 (2014) 269-279
The Levitical prayer in Nehemiah 9 contributes to the gola-ideology running throughout Ezra-Nehemiah, but scholars have generally recognized that its compositional origins are to be connected to the Homeland communities of the exilic or early Persian periods. The present study identifies features in the prayer which suggest that its authors were Levites associated with the Homeland communities and that these authors crafted the prayer in response to the exclusive and elitist ideology of the gola groups. The prayer testifies to tensions within Levite circles well into the Persian period and possibly even beyond.
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ANIMADVERSIONES
Inter-Levitical Polemics in the late 6th century BCE:
The Evidence from Nehemiah 9
I. The Nehemiah Memoir and the Levites
The Nehemiah Memoir (Nehemiah 1–6*) has long served as a basis for
the scholarly reconstruction of events in mid 5th century BCE Yehud, provid-
ing a relatively clear insight into at least one major ideological stream consti-
tuting the restored Jewish world under Achaemenid power 1. As research in
recent decades has made increasingly clear, the contents of Ezra-Nehemiah
represent a partisan agenda, namely, that of the gola community returning
from exile in Mesopotamia 2, and one prominent feature of the Nehemiah
Memoir in contributing to this partisan position is the important role played by
Levites in the account. This no doubt draws from the long history Levites played
as mediators between different social sectors throughout Israelite history, as Hut-
ton, Cook and others have demonstrated 3. Nehemiah’s empowerment of the
Levites (12,47; 13,10.22.29.30) allowed him to receive important sacral sup-
port while simultaneously presenting Levites as a cast of imperial adminis-
trators, intimately intertwining these two dimensions of Jewish leadership 4.
The pairing of these spheres of conduct is, of course, presaged by the
charge to Ezra in the Artaxerxes Rescript that Persian imperial law and
the law of Ezra’s traditional deity should function in tandem (Ezra 7,25-
26). But it is also established in more subtle ways through the use of
Levite traditional discourse in the characterization of Nehemiah’s own
1
For a recent evaluation of the Nehemiah Memoir as an historical
resource, see J.P. BLENKINSOPP, Judaism. The First Phase (Grand Rapids, MI
– Cambridge, UK 2009) 93-100.
2
BLENKINSOPP, Judaism, 86-116. See also D. JANZEN, “The Cries of
Jerusalem: Ethnic, Cultic, Legal and Geographic Boundaries in Ezra-
Nehemiah”, Unity and Disunity in Ezra-Nehemiah: Redaction, Rhetoric, and
Reader (eds. M.J. BODA – P.L. REDDITT) (Sheffield 2008) 117-135.
3
J.M. HUTTON, “The Levitical Diaspora (I): A Sociological Comparison
With Morocco’s Ahansal”, Exploring the Longue Duree. Festschrift L.E.
Stager (ed. J.D. SCHLOEN) (Winona Lake, IN 2009) 223-230; S.L. COOK, The
Social Roots of Biblical Yahwism (Atlanta, GA 2004) 231-236. See also M.
LEUCHTER, Samuel and the Shaping of Tradition (Oxford 2013) 24-31.
4
On Nehemiah’s interaction with the Levites, see H.G.M. WILLIAMSON,
Studies in Persian Period History and Historiography (FAT 38; Tübingen
2004) 274-275.
BIBLICA 95.2 (2014) 269-279
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