The prominence of Jerusalem, the centre of post-exilic Judaism, necessarily invited reflection.
Although there was a stock of tradition for the post-exilic age (cf.
Upon the characteristics of the post-exilic priestly writings we need not dwell.
The post-exilic priestly spirit represents a tendency which is absent from the Judaean Deuteronomic book of Kings but is fully mature in the later, and to some extent parallel, book of Chronicles (q.
Collections of laws are found in Deuteronomy and in exilic and post-exilic writings; groups of a relatively earlier type are preserved in Exod.
An instructive account of Judaism in the early post-exilic age on critical lines (from the Jewish standpoint) is given by C.
Although it is difficult to determine the true historical kernel, two features are most prominent in the narratives which the post-exilic compiler has incorporated: the revelation of Yahweh, and the movement into Palestine.
It is noteworthy that Josephus, who has his own representation of the post-exilic age, allows two years and four months for the work (Ant.
His main object is to make the new Israel, the post-exilic community at Jerusalem, continuous, as a society, with the old Israel.
Genesis the stories are now in a post-exilic setting (a stage earlier than Jubilees), the older portions may well belong to the 7th or 6th cent.
The "seven watchers" are alluded to in the post-exilic Zechariah (iv.
Before this epoch there is no trace of the existence of the Book of Daniel, and not only so, but the prophecies of the post-exilic prophets as to the future contemplate a wholly different horizon and a wholly different order of events.
Symbolism is the distinguishing characteristic of apocalypses, and is found in those of the late post-exilic period.
Jews under the prophet's eyes was thought to indicate a pre-exilic origin.
Assyrians or Babylonians, without whom no picture of the Day of the Lord in the pre-exilic prophets would be complete, are not here; Israel has disappeared.
This of itself points to a late time in the post-exilic period.
This is the problem of Job, and of itself suffices to put the book in what is called the post-exilic age.
The whole situation, however, is that of the so-called post-exilic times.
Joshua follows this source almost exclusively, only here and there introducing a passage from the post-exilic narrative (e.
This judgment is described with remarkable clearness and distinctness by the post-exilic prophets, inasmuch as, to them, it appeared already more in the foreground; compare the remarks on Zech.
At all events it involved a breach with pre-exilic tradition, and was never carried out in practice.
It is true that this was not the precise form in which the law was destined to be put in practice in the post-exilic community.
In all cases the pre-exilic prophets announce that the overthrow of the Hebrew states was to be effected either by the Assyrians or the Babylonians.
The difference between Hosea's conception and Ezekiel's is that in the view of the exilic prophet there never has been any true response on the part of Israel to the call of God.
Ezekiel's vision is therefore a preparation for the kingless state of post-exilic Judaism.
But we have seen enough to show at all events that pre-exilic usage tolerated a freedom of access to the sanctuary and a looseness of administration within it which would have been sacrilegious under the law of the second Temple.
The tendency of the post-exilic ritual was to detach the sacred seasons more and more from the secular associations which had once been their chief significance.
These regulations are undoubtedly based on pre-exilic usages, and consequently leave much to be supplied from the people's knowledge of use and wont.
Presumably, it was not until the post-exilic period that, under the editorship perhaps of Ezra, the definitive edition of the Torah was produced.
Barring toledoth and related data that may have been lost, the Law had almost certainly not existed before, and this post-exilic romance concerning it was evolved in a laudable effort to show its Mosaic source.
And throughout the passage there is a repetition of formal phrases which recalls the Priestly Code and the general style of the post-exilic age.
The post-exilic portion of Obadiah, then, I take to begin with verse 7; and the author of this prophecy has begun by incorporating in vv.
But it would appear (though this is not expressly said, and must rather be inferred from the general proofs of a post-exilic date) that Jerusalem is inhabited.
Note, however, that it is the later post-exilic form of the name that is used, in spite of the book occurring among the pre-exilic prophets.
Certainly the post-exilic prophet assumes a different attitude to the ritual from that of his predecessors in ancient Israel.
In discussing the question, for which our treatment of other prophets has left us too little space, we need not open that part of it which lies between a pre-exilic and a post-exilic date.
Kuenen, who conceives it to have been taken from a post-exilic collection of Psalms.
Book of Jeremiah in which post-exilic additions have been inserted.
A very thorough examination of them has led Schwally[90] to assign to exilic or post-exilic times the whole of the little sections comprising them, with the possible exception of chap.
It contrasts with the warlike portraits of the Messiah drawn in pre-exilic times, for it clothes Him with humility and with peace.
Our own discussion has shown us that Zechariah’s Angels, in spite of the new features they introduce, are in substance one with the Angels of pre-exilic Israel.
Kirkpatrick,[1305] after showing the post-exilic character of all the chapters, favours assigning ix.
The supporters of a pre-exilic origin for the whole Book of Obadiah have to explain vv.
This very attitude to prophecy marks the book as late; it would not be possible in a pre-exilic prophet.
The book received its present form from post-exilic redactors.
Mosaic, or even Davidic, there is not a single pre-exilic psalm in the Psalter, and the less radical critics do not allow more than thirty or forty.
However that may be, the general historical background is unmistakably that of the late post-exilic age.
A post-exilic hand, however, is evident in 1 Kings xviii.
But there are other facts which seem to some to make for a pre-exilic date: e.
The effect of this cumulative argument has been supposed to be overwhelming in favour of a post-exilic date.
Good men have not only raised the problem of the moral order, as Habakkuk and Jeremiah had done: they are formally discussing it--exactly the phenomenon which we have in Job and do not have in pre-exilic times.
Some of these, from exilic and post-exilic times, we have already seen (of, 1.
Recently, however, Baudissin, in a very careful discussion, has ably argued for at least the possibility of a pre-exilic date.
But neither in the wilderness, nor throughout the pre-exilic history, nor after the Babylonian affliction had purged the nation of idolatry, was Israel so holy that access to the sanctuary could be allowed to the men of the tribes.
The latter is the logical outcome of the monotheism of the great exilic seer, who based his stirring pictures of the glorious future of Israel upon the all-encompassing knowledge of God possessed by the Chosen People.
Nay, according to the grand vision of the exilic seer, among the many nations that shall assemble at the end of days to worship the Lord in Zion, select ones will be admitted to the priesthood with the sons of Aaron.
In fact, we note that the post-exilic prophets all received their revelations, not from God, but through a special angel.
The very first pages of Genesis, the opening of the Torah, as well as the exilic portions of Isaiah which form the culmination of the prophets, and the Psalms also, prove sufficiently that at their time monotheism was an axiom of Judaism.
II, 3; Micah IV, 2--passages considered by modern critics to be of exilic origin.
Palestine in the post-exilic age, and in the Roman period the braccae and feminalia were certainly known.
The embodiment of political and religious supremacy displayed in the high priest's authority, clothing and symbols can only reflect exilic or rather post-exilic conditions.
The idea is not in itself inadmissible, at least for post-exilic portions, for Zoroastrian ideas were in the intellectual atmosphere of Jewish writers in the Persian age.
What I do suggest is that the Hebrews must have gained some acquaintance with the legends of Babylon in pre-exilic times.
There are three pre-exilic periods at which it has been suggested the Hebrews, or the ancestors of the race, may have acquired a knowledge of Babylonian traditions.
The tendency of the purely literary school of critics has been to explain the process by the direct use of Babylonian documents wholly within exilic times.
Pent, have Gog, which would imply a post-exilic date, cf.
The comparison of the earlier prophetic writings with the exilic prophecies, and with the later writings, such as Jonah, Ecclesiastes, &c.
It was thus, at the close of the pre-exilic history, that the distinction between priests and Levites arose to which Ezekiel is at pains to give the sanction of law.
It is the offspring ofexilic or post-exilic Judaism.
It is an opinion very extensively held that the great mass of the books of the Old Testament not only relate to the pre-exilic period, but date from it.
To speak of a tradition handed down from pre-exilic times as being found in Chronicles, either in 1Chronicles i.
In particular, the twenty-four priestly courses or orders are an institution, not of King David, but of the post-exilic period.
Jeremiah,-- a correct and unprejudiced indication of its exilic origin.
The extent of the Chronicler's knowledge about the pre-exilic priesthood is revealed most clearly in the list of the twenty-two high priests in 1Chronicles v.
In the statistical information of Chronicles, then, so far as it relates to pre-exilic antiquity, we have to do with artificial compositions.
The connexion has been broken by the later insertion of matter (not necessarily of late date itself), and the whole was finally formed into a distinct book by a post-exilic hand.
From Judah and Er's widow Tamar are derived Perez and Zerah, and these with Shelah appear in post-exilic times as the three representative families of Judah (Neh.
The teachers of the people desired to avoid the repetition of pre-exilic conditions, of idolatry, intercourse with the heathen, and the imitation of pagan customs.
Thus post-exilic history received a form entirely different to that of pre-exilic times.
The other post-exilic writers or editors of the books of Holy Scripture would seem to have been at some pains to omit all Babylonian month names.
At various times in the same century are to be placed the book of Job, the post-exilic parts of Isaiah, the books of Joel, Jonah, Malachi and the Song of Songs.
Strongly to be recommended are Smend, Lehrbuch der alttestamentlichen Religionsgeschichte; Bennett, Theology of the Old Testament and Religion of the Post-Exilic Prophets; A.
The view of Professor Dillmann, who placed P before D in the regal period (though he admitted exilic and post-exilic additions in Exod.
We shall find this, it is true, to be higher and more comprehensive than anything which is said about God in pre-exilic Scriptures.
But this is entirely opposed to the syntax, and I note the opinion simply to show how precarious the arguments are for the existence of pre-exilic elements in Isa.
It might be thought, that in a post-exilic promise, Zech.
It is in commenting on a verse of these chapters that Calvin makes the admission of exilic origin which has been quoted above.
For it evidently contains both pre-exilic and exilic elements.
I cannot recognise any exilic symptom--and the way of return is before us.
Thus we present a theory of the exilic authorship of Isa.
And the only difficult literary question is that of the pre-exilic and post-exilic pieces, which are alleged to form so large a part of chs.
This, then, is an unmistakably pre-exilic constituent of "Second Isaiah.
In this there is nothing to make the Isaian authorship probable, or an exilic date impossible.
It is not the Judah of the monarchy or of the post-exilic Babylonian-Israelite community.
It is purely local and is interested in Shelah, and more especially in Perez and Zerah, names of families or clans of the post-exilic age.
As regards the literary-critical problems it is clear that with the elimination of P we have the sources (minor adjustment and revision excepted) which were accessible to the last compiler in the post-exilic age.
These sources can be traced elsewhere in the Pentateuch and Joshua, and P itself is related to the post-exilic works Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah.
By admitting possible revision in the post-exilic age (pp.
And while no one would say that Ezra was a Pharisee, it is true that he was the spiritual ancestor of the Pharisees more than of any other element in post-exilic Judaism.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "exilic" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
