Archival Historiography in Jewish Antiquity by Laura Carlson Hasler (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Archival Historiography in Jewish Antiquity by Laura Carlson Hasler Eric X. Jarrard Laura Carlson Hasler. Archival Historiography in Jewish Antiquity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. xiii + 216 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009421000143 Laura Carlson Hasler's Archival Historiography in Jewish Antiquity examines how the diverse array of texts found within Ezra-Nehemiah and Esther seeks to imitate ancient Near Eastern archival spaces. The book is part of a larger constellation of research examining how biblical texts function mimetically to enshrine the vast range of imperial tools, objects, and sites—often as means of resistance, legitimation, and (in a postexilic context) restoration. Carlson Hasler's unique contribution to this conversation, which she clearly articulates in her introduction, is that the form of Ezra-Nehemiah eschews narrative continuity in favor of mirroring an archival space. She proposes the term "archival history" for this mode of composition, in which cited documents, such as lists, decrees, and letters, are inserted into an otherwise coherent narrative, as one might collect documents in a physical archive. She ultimately suggests that archival history is "a hybrid mode of history writing that blurs the line between story and space" (110), particularly within the context of imperial resistance. Chapter 1 explores the characteristics and contents of Mesopotamian imperial archives from the first millennium BCE Mesopotamian empires. Carlson Hasler establishes a profile of common archival practices, drawing on a range of material evidence and archaeological records from across the ancient Mediterranean, including Nineveh, Sippar, and Persepolis. The second chapter narrows its focus to articulate how the qualities of Mesopotamian physical archives are reflected in Ezra-Nehemiah. The evidence she uses to support this proposal includes not only references to documents being stored in archives (Ezra 4–6), but also archives of artifacts other than documents (e.g., temple vessels) and documents without reference to their storage in facilities (e.g., genealogies). The heart of Carlson Hasler's argument occurs in the third chapter, which examines various archival texts embedded within Ezra-Nehemiah. She contends that the decrees, letters, and lists within Ezra-Nehemiah disrupt the "narrative coherence" (52) of the text. She maintains that the inclusion of these citations is part of a concerted effort to rebuild a community with a purely textual—not architectural—archive at its center. Scholars whose critical inquiries are buttressed by the presumption or pursuit of narrative coherence elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, for example, pentateuchal criticism, will likely appreciate this argument. Chapter 4 discusses the notion of archive in the MT and Greek versions of Esther. Here Carlson Hasler proposes that the various editions of Esther are similar to the archival historiographic efforts found in Ezra-Nehemiah, for instance, in their presentation of imperial reliance on the archive as a cognitive prosthesis for Persian kings. Still, the archival function in Esther diverges in its concern for promulgating "textual counterclaim[s]" (95) rather than accumulating archival documents as in Ezra-Nehemiah. This distinction is all the more conspicuous in the Old Greek of Esther, which appends various documents only mentioned in the MT. Carlson Hasler presents their inclusion as a survival strategy to resist "threats of erasure" (96) by ensuring documents—letters, edicts, etc.—are [End Page 436] significant enough to maintain, but also perpetually available to the community's constituent members. The final chapter explores the effects and function of archival historiography in Ezra-Nehemiah. Carlson Hasler argues that archival historiography "facilitates the recovery of Judean identity in the shadow of empire" (110). Of course, an argument concerning recovery necessitates a discussion of loss, which the bulk of the chapter investigates. The short epilogue expands on the suggestion that this collection of texts functions in lieu of spaces. It ends by briefly gesturing toward other biblical and Jewish texts (Exodus, Chronicles, Maccabees, and Josephus) that may perform a similar function. Carlson Hasler's suggestion that Ezra-Nehemiah is intentionally mimicking the archival space is intriguing and provocative, leaving room for development in a number of promising ways. One might, for instance, press this point by asking how archival histories would potentially interact with archival spaces. That is to say, at some point these archival histories and/or their component parts existed...