Sárospataki Füzetek 18. (2014)

2014 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Jacob J. T. Doedens: The Return of YHWH and the End of the Exile

Jacob J.T. Doedens

messianic movements and expectations in the 1st century ce, hoping for a turn in the fate of Israels history.92

When reviewing these texts from the Second Temple period, it is clear that some of these texts in which hope for restoration is expressed do so in a nationalistic way: they express the hope of restoration of sovereignty, of the kingship, of re-gathering the twelve tribes, of the restoration of Jerusalem and the temple. Some texts from this category see the last chapter of Israels history as having already arrived in a certain historical facts. Wright mentions different examples: Josephus’ Antiquities, in which, at the end, Israel’s God - much like Josephus himself - goes over to the Romans, and Sirach 44-50, according to which the culmination of Israel’s history is to be found in a renewed ordered worship in the temple under high priest Simeon II.93 Another group of texts has a more universalistic orientation, as, for example, the restoration of whole creation.94 Nevertheless, all these approaches have in common that the present situation is seen as insufficient and in need of renewal: Israel’s overall-story, known from the Old Testament, will have to reach a conclusion. The texts, however, differ on the form and time of this final part of the story. This does not automatically imply that every Jew viewed the Diaspora in a negative way, as the different conclusions of Kraabel and Van Unnik demonstrate. Kraabel argued that the original exile theology’, which considered displacement as a divine punishment, developed in the 1st century ce into a ‘Diaspora theology’, which was more positive about the being dispersed of the Jewish people among the nations. Within this view, life outside Palestine could also be chosen voluntarily. Van Unnik, on the contrary, demonstrated that both exile and Diaspora were viewed negatively in Second Temple literature.95 The truth may simply be that there existed different views on the situation of the Diaspora.96 However, most of the Second Temple literature considers the exile to be a permanent state for which a return or restoration is still in the future.97 Moreover, non-literary evidence appears to underline this, as artwork in synagogues depicted the hope for the restoration of Israel, in one case even in a way that the eschatological restoration of Israel was portrayed as a new exodus and a defeat of

92 Josephus, Antiquitates 20:97 (about Theudas, who lead the people to the desert, prophesying that the Jordan river would divide itself to provide an easy passage) and 20:167 (the Egyptian 'prophet', who led the people to the Mount of Olives; at his command, the walls of Jerusalem would fall down.)

93 See Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 216-219.

94 Cf. Halvorson, Enduring Exile, 8-9; David E. Aune with Eric Stewart, "From the Idealized Past to the Imaginary Future: Eschatological Restoration in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature," in Restoration: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Perspectives (JSJSup 72; ed. James M. Scott; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 150.

95 For a summary and brief evaluation of this discussion, see Scott, "Exile and the Self-Understanding of Diaspora Jews," 175-185.

96 Cf. Scott, "Exile and Self-Understanding of Diaspora Jews," 182.

97 See Scott, "Exile and Self-Understanding of Diaspora Jews," 185-193.

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Sárospataki Füzetek 17. évfolyam | 2014 | 1