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The period of the Babylonian Exile (597/587–520 B.C.E.) is one of the most enthralling eras of biblical history. During this time, Israel went through what was probably its deepest crisis; at the same time, however, the cornerstone was laid for its most profound renewal. The crisis provoked the creation of a wealth of literary works (laments, prophetic books, historical works, etc.) whose development is analyzed in detail by the methods of social history, composition criticism, and redaction criticism. The history of this era is hard to grasp, since the Bible has almost nothing to say of the exilic period. The author nevertheless attempts to illuminate the historical and social changes that affected the various Judean groups, drawing heavily on extrabiblical and archaeological evidence. His study also includes the treatment of the exile in later biblical material (Daniel, Tobit, Judith, apocalyptic literature). Thirty-five years after Peter Ackroyd’s classic Exile and Restoration, this book summarizes extensively the results of recent scholarship on this period and builds on them with a number of its own hypotheses.

Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)