You Shall Love the Stranger as Yourself by Houston Fleur S;

Author:Houston, Fleur S;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Exile

The Bible has been described as “the great metanarrative of diaspora” (Cuéllar 2008: 1). Much of the Old Testament relates to the crisis of exile, the pain and suffering of forced migration, and the consequent challenges of resettlement. But what exactly is meant by “the Exile”? It is “a gloriously slippery term” (Davies 1998: 128), and there have been dramatic shifts in scholarly opinion. Is this a chronological benchmark referring to the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE and the associated forced displacement of prisoners? Or does the term admit also the years spent by the Judaean diaspora in Babylonia? Does the use of the term privilege those who were deported to Babylon over those who remained in the land or who sought refuge elsewhere? Or is “the Exile” a “mythopoetic construction”? I do not propose to enter into the detail of these debates except to note that, for most scholars today, the reality of the forced migrations of Judaeans to Babylonia in the 6th century BCE is not in doubt. From the Biblical accounts, supplemented by archaeological and documentary data, the picture that emerges is of waves of people who are forced during this period to leave their homes in Judah. It is clear too that in historical terms the exilic period cannot be demarcated: there is no obvious beginning – witness the many deportations associated with the Babylonian invasions (2 Kgs 24–25) and the earlier Assyrian ones (2 Kgs 17); nor could it be said to end with the Persian conquest of Babylon. Given the remaining diaspora settlements not only in Babylonia, but also in Egypt, Pathros, Ethiopia, Elam, Hamath, and coastlands (Isa 11.11), and the long-standing academic debates over the extent of a “return” to Judah, the exilic period is open-ended.

It is also far from homogeneous. To speak of the exilic period is to speak of different contexts involving the different life experiences of different generations. As in Babylonia forced migration turned into diaspora, there were at least three generations of migrants who are likely to have had a significantly distinct generational consciousness and perspective (Ahn 2011). There was also a remnant community in Judah and refugee settlement in Egypt. New insights from sociology, anthropology, and psychology into refugees and other displaced groups lead scholars, following Daniel Smith-Christopher, to see the Exile not as an event, but as a phenomenon with far-reaching consequences. It may be seen “as a cultural tradition that is repeatedly constructed, reinterpreted, and remembered” (Kelle 2011: 21) as today millions of people continue to be torn from their homes. It expresses the experience of bereavement and loss of identity and defines new relationships with state powers and places called “home” (Davidson 2013: 178).

There is no sustained Biblical account of the experiences of those who were forcibly deported more than a thousand miles away from their homes to Babylon and who made their homes there. Censorship of documents for ideological or political reasons is always possible, and we have to take into account the

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