Leadership, Social Memory and Judean Discourse in the Fifth-Second Centuries BCE

edited by Diana V. Edelman and Ehud Ben Zvi

Book cover: Leadership, Social Memory and Judean Discourse in the Fifth-Second Centuries BCE

Extent: 256 pages

Publisher: Equinox Publishing

Subjects: Ancient Near East, Biblical Studies

Series: Worlds of the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(July 2016)

ISBN: 9781781792698

6.89 x 9.69 inches

Price: $29.95

In stock

Hardback (Published)

(September 2016)

ISBN: 9781781792681

6.89 x 9.69 inches

Price: $29.95

In stock

The theme of leadership played an important role in ancient Israel and its discourse. It was explored time and again through memories of proper, improper and in-between leaders and through memories of particular institutions like monarchy, priesthood, and prophethood. The ways in which this theme was shaped, reflected, and above all explored through social memory and how, in turn, those memories played a socializing role within the community is the focus of this collection of seventeen essays, which grew out of the 2013 research program of the group, Israel and the Production and Reception of Authoritative Books in the Persian and Hellenistic Periods of the European Association of Biblical Studies.


The theme of leadership played an important role in ancient Israel and its discourse. It was explored time and again through memories of proper, improper and in-between leaders and through memories of particular institutions like monarchy, priesthood, and prophethood. The ways in which this theme was shaped, reflected and explored through social memory and how, in turn, those memories played a socializing role within the community is the focus of this collection of essays. Although the nature and limitations of kingship, both native and foreign, is a central theme of many of the essays, the volume includes discussions of both official and unofficial local leadership within an empire setting, alternatives to royal leadership like theocracy, charismatic judgeship, and Greek-style tyrants, as well as considerations of Greek political discourse on the best type of leadership.

Chapter 1: Introduction Ehud Ben Zvi Chapter 2: Memory and Political Thought in Late Persian/Early Hellenistic Yehud/Judah Ehud Ben Zvi Chapter 3: The Use of Memories about Judahs Past Leadership as Propaganda in Yehud James Bos Chapter 4: Leaders and Desert as the Liminal Space of Leadership Kare Berge Chapter 5: Israel's King as Primus inter Pares: The Democratic Reconceptualization of Kingship in Deut 17:14-20 Reinhard Muller Chapter 6: The Kingdom of God in Samuel Geoffrey Parsons Miller Chapter 7: Judges, Samuel, and the Rise of Monarchy in Yehudite Social Memory Ian Douglas Wilson Chapter 8: What is the Price for Quietude? Re-Imagining King Solomon Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher Chapter 9: Reconsidering Kingship in Ezekiel Christophe Nihan Chapter 10: At the Hands of Foreign Kings: Divine Endorsement of Foreign Rulers in the Hebrew Bible Thomas Bolin Chapter 11: How Esther and Other Texts Imagine and Interact with the Persian Empire Beate Ego Chapter 12: Models of Local Political Leadership in the Nehemiah Memoir Anne Fitzpatrick Chapter 13: The Three Constitutions and the Development of Greek Political Thought in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BCE: Widening the Context of Political Discourse amongst Constituents of the Persian Empire Lynette Mitchell Chapter 14: I Samuel 8 and Greek Constitutional Discussion Wolfgang Oswald Chapter 15: Rejecting Greek-Style, Semi-Divine Military Imperial Leaders like Alexander the Great as a Legitimate Form of Political Leadership in Judges 13-16 Diana V. Edelman Chapter 16: Judith Maccabee? On Leadership, Resistance, and the Great Deeds of Little People~ Anne-Mareike Schol-Wetter Chapter 17: Leadership and Authority in the Apocalyptic Writings Lorenze Di'Tommaso

  • Edited by Ehud Ben Zvi
  • Edited by Diana V. Edelman