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Were Joshua, Zerubbabel, and Nehemiah

Contemporaries? A Response to

Diana Edelman’s Proposed Late Date

for the Second Temple

ralph w. [email protected]

Lutheran School o Teology at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60615

In her recent monograph Te Origins of the ‘Second’ emple: Persian Imperial Policy and the Rebuilding of Jerusalem,1 Diana Edelman proposed a drastic revi-sion o the postexilic chronology, moving the dedication o the Second emplerom 516 b.c.e. to a time early in the reign o Artaxerxes I (465–425 b.c.e.). Herproposal results rom an attempt to account or the anomaly that, according to thepresent biblical record, the temple in Jerusalem was constructed in a very small

city that would remain unortifed or another seventy years, and she also attemptsto ft the temple construction into Persian imperial policy. She proposes that Arta-xerxes I initiated a single project to rebuild the temple and to ortiy Jerusalem atthe same time. Artaxerxes wanted to provide the temple as a place or the citizenso Yehud to worship their national god and to collect taxes or the empire.

In support o her hypothesis she discounts the eight dates in the prophets Haggai and Zechariah that link them to the reign o Darius I (Hag 1:1, 15; 2:1, 10,20; Zech 1:1, 7; 7:1), arguing that they were calculated secondarily, based on theprophecy in Jeremiah o restoration aer seventy years (Edelman, ch. 2). She alsocalls into question the historicity o the account o the building o the temple inEzra 1–6, arguing that it is based only on what could be learned rom a series o bib-lical passages (Ezekiel 40–48; Second Isaiah; Haggai and Zechariah, including their

1 Bible World; London: Equinox, 2005.

JBL 127, no. 4 (2008): 697–701

This article was published in JBL 127/4 (2008) 697–701, copyright © 2008 by the Society of Biblical Literature. To purchase

copies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL, please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free in

North America] or 404-727-9498, by fax at 404-727-2419, or visit the online SBL Store at www.sbl-site.org.

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dates; and 1 Chronicles 22–2 Chronicles 7; Edelman, ch. 3).2 wo additional chap-ters investigate the size o Yehud in the fh century (ch. 4) and the archaeologicaldata that support her hypothesis (ch. 5). Chapter 6 contains her description o thepragmatic issues that led Artaxerxes to ortiy Jerusalem and rebuild the temple atthe beginning o his reign.

Responding to Edelman’s impressive arguments throughout the book wouldrequire a monograph o nearly the same size; this note will contest only one crucialitem, her attempt through genealogical research to make Joshua3 and Zerubbabel,on the one hand, and Nehemiah, on the other, near contemporaries. She makes hercase or this in ch. 1 (pp. 13–79), although she locates also many other personsgenealogically in this chapter.4 I her attempt to make Joshua, Zerubbabel, andNehemiah near contemporaries can be called into question, however, the more tra-ditional date or the construction o the Second emple, unanimously supported by

Haggai, Zechariah 1–8, and Ezra 1–6, is quite likely to stand.Edelman (pp. 38–40) deends the idea that Nehemiah himsel served duringthe reign o Artaxerxes, as in the biblical text, because o a reerence to Sanballat(the arch-rival o Nehemiah in the book o Nehemiah) and his two sons in Ele-phantine papyrus 30, dated to 408 b.c.e., and the resultant calculations about San-ballat’s relative date o birth and his age during the time o Nehemiah.

I. The Chronological Date of Joshua

Te Bible makes the high priest Joshua, under whom the temple was built, acontemporary o Haggai and Zechariah, who advocated strongly or constructingthe temple in the early years o Darius I. Joshua appears in the ollowing genealogy o priests.5

2 he only exception to such inner-biblical inormation is the governor Sheshbazzar, whose

name she thinks is ictional. Edelman urther denies the authenticity o the Persian documents in

Ezra.3 I have chosen to use the spelling o names that are used in standard English Bibles, except

where I quote Edelman’s translation o 1 Chr 3:17–18. Edelman uses throughout spellings more

similar to their Hebrew pronunciation, but does not use the transliteration style used in he SBL

Handbook of Style.4 Edelman suggests that Meshullam the son o Berechiah (Neh 3:30) is the younger brother

o the prophet Zechariah. But i this Meshullam is the same as the one mentioned in Neh 3:4,

Meshullam’s grandather was Meshezabel and not Iddo. his also negates her assertion that the

daughter o Meshullam in Neh 6:18 is the niece o the prophet Zechariah. She makes Hananiah

in Neh 7:2 the son o Zerubbabel though no patronymic is given or him. I her genealogical

reconstructions o Joshua and Zerubbabel are wrong, Hananiah also cannot chronologically be

the son o Zerubbabel.5 For detailed discussion o these priests, see James C. VanderKam, From Joshua to Caiaphas:

High Priests after the Exile (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004), 43–111.

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Seraiah Te last priest o the frst temple, executed by Nebuchad-nezzar (2 Kgs 25:18–21)

Jehozadak Te successor o Seraiah, who was deported by Nebuchad-nezzar (1 Chr 5:40–41 [Eng. 6:14–15])

Joshua (Jeshua) Identifed as the son o Jehozadak (Jozadak) by Ezra 3:2 andHag 1:1

Joiakim Neh 12:10, 12, 266

Eliashib Neh 3:1, 20–21; 12:10, 22; 13:28Joiada Neh 12:10–11, 22; 13:18Johanan Neh 12:22–23; Jonathan Neh 12:117

Tere are only a ew fxed dates that are helpul. Seraiah died in 586; Joshua washigh priest in 520, according to the standard chronology; Eliashib was high priestin 444; and Johanan was high priest in 408. Hypothetical dates o birth and death

make this genealogy plausible. I Seraiah would have been orty at his death in 586(hence born in ca. 626), his son Jehozadak could have been born in ca. 606 b.c.e.

Joshua would then be born ca. 586 and would have been seventy when the templewas dedicated in 516. Clearly, Joshua would not have been alive in 465, when,according to Edelman, Artaxerxes I began his reign and initiated the constructiono the Second emple. Edelman addresses this chronological issue by saying thatJehozadak may have been the grandson or great-grandson o Seraiah, thus arbi-trarily adding twenty to orty years to the birth date o Joshua, making him bornin 566 or even 546. Tis would make him 101 or eighty-one at the accession o Artaxerxes. Te frst age is impossible and the second highly unlikely, perhapsrequiring that Jehozadak be the great-great-grandson o Seraiah. Edelman (p. 19)also oers the possibility that Jehozadak and Seraiah were not related to each otherat all, which means that she can assign whatever dates she wants to or the subse-quent priests. Te calculations would change somewhat i the dates o the frst sonwere lengthened to an average o twenty-fve years, but clearly she can bring Joshuainto the proper chronological horizon only by arbitrarily lengthening his genealogy by two or, more probably, three generations.

II. Zerubbabel

A genealogy o Zerubbabel is provided in 1 Chr 3:16–19:

6 Frank Moore Cross, Jr., inserted two additional names at this point, Eliashib and Johanan

(“A Reconstruction o the Judean Restoration,” JBL 94 [1975]: 4–18). For a critical discussion o

this proposal, see VanderKam, High Priests, 85–97. Edelman also rejects the proposal o Cross.7 Vanderkam suggests that Jonathan is a copyist’s mistake or Johanan (High Priests, 54–

55).

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Jeconiah (Jehoiachin)——— ShealtielMalchiramPedaiah———ZerubbabelShenazzarJekamiahHoshamaNedabiah

According to 2 Kgs 24:8, Jehoiachin was born in 615, since he came to thethrone when he was eighteen in 597, and it is known that he was still alive, at fy-our, in 561 (2 Kgs 25:27). Assuming that Jehoiachin had his frst child at eighteenor twenty, Pedaiah, his third son, would have been born in the mid to late 590s,8

which seems plausible, since Babylonian records indicate that Jehoiachin had fvesons who were given provisions in captivity by 592. I Zerubbabel was born in ca.

573, he would have been fy-three when he is mentioned by Haggai, Ezra, andNehemiah during the reign o Darius I, ca. 520. By the time o Artaxerxes he wouldhave been 108 and presumably long since dead.

Te study o the genealogy o Zerubbabel has long been plagued by notices inEzra (3:2), Nehemiah (12:1), and Haggai (1:1) that Zerubbabel’s ather was Shealtiel,the oldest son o Jeconiah, and not Pedaiah. Numerous attempts have been madeto explain this discrepancy, oen by the hypothesis that Shealtiel died beore siringa son, and that his younger brother Pedaiah married his widow and engendered ason in Shealtiel’s name. Aer discussing this hypothesis and several other solutionsand fnding them unsatisactory, Edelman calls attention to an unusual wording inthe list o the sons o Jeconiah in 1 Chr 3:17–18:9 “and the sons o Jeconiah, thecaptive: Shealtiel his son, and Malchiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jekamiah, Hoshama,and Nedabiah.” Tis could be taken to mean that Shealtiel was the only descendanto Jeconiah mentioned, and his name is then ollowed by the list o six additionalnames. Tis list could be taken to mean that these six additional males were all sonso Shealtiel instead o Jeconiah, but the genealogy continues with the lineage o Pedaiah, who would be Shealtiel’s second oldest son. Edelman (p. 21) thinks that thelink should continue rom the oldest son.10 She thereore emends the genealogy toread as ollows (with additions indicated in brackets): “the descendants o Yeko-niah the captive: Shealtiel, his son, Malkiram [his son], and [the sons o Malkiram]:Pedaiah, Shenazzer, Yekamiah, Hoshama, Nedeviah [fve]” (p. 21).

8 Edelman (Origins, 21) sets Shealtiel’s birth at 597. here is no indication o how many

wives were involved in bearing Jehoiachin’s children.9 For discussion o other details o this genealogy, see Gary N. Knoppers, 1 Chronicles 1–9:

A New ranslation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 12; New York: Doubleday, 2004), 320–

21, 327–28; and Ralph W. Klein , 1 Chronicles: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress,2006), 109–10, 119–20. Both commentaries retain Zerubbabel as the grandson o Jeconiah.

10 It should be noted, however, that in the two generations ater Zerubbabel descendants

do not come rom the oldest son.

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Te resulting (simplifed) genealogy would look like this:

Jeconiah—Shealtiel—Malchiram—Pedaiah—Zerubbabel

Tis conjectural emendation, thereore, has added two generations to Zerub-babel’s genealogy (he is not the grandson, but the great-great-grandson o Jehoiachin). In Edelman’s judgment, this brings Zerubbabel to the same genera-tion as Nehemiah, or to the immediately preceding generation. She conjectures abirth date or Zerubbabel o approximately 500.

Assigning more realistic absolute dates to these fgures, however, points out amajor discrepancy. Since Jeconiah was born in 615, the ollowing generations inthe genealogy could be dated as ollows: Shealtiel 597; Malchiram 577; Pedaiah 557;Zerubbabel 537. Tat is, aer adding two generations by emendation, Edelmanreally has to add another generation to get a birth date or Zerubbabel that would

locate him as an active leader in the early years o Artaxerxes, with a birth date o ca. 500.Because o the severe chronological diculties with both Joshua and Zerub-

babel, even aer Edelman’s textual changes, I believe her proposal or a late dateor the Second emple is not plausible. Since all the other biblical data are againstit in any case, she absolutely must resolve the chronological problems with Joshuaand Zerubbabel i her radical hypothesis is to have a chance o succeeding.

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