The Jewish Diaspora

Migration

Yahwist military settlement at Elephantine

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600 BCELand of Israel → Elephantine (Yeb)

Why it happened

The settlement's origin is uncertain. Schalit and Matassa state that no external source records its foundation and suggest that soldiers may have been sent to Egypt's southern frontier against Nubian raids before Persian rule.1 Van der Toorn offers a different reconstruction: ancestors from Samaria spent about a century in an Aramean setting before reaching Egypt around 600 BCE.2 The route and date shown here are therefore approximate, not a documented march from Jerusalem.

The migration

Under Persian rule, members of the Yahwist military community at Yeb (Elephantine) belonged to detachments (degalin) and served at Egypt's First Cataract.1 Their temple to YHW already stood before the Persian conquest of 525 BCE and permitted animal sacrifice.1 The fifth-century Imperial-Aramaic archive includes legal records, letters and Hananiah's fragmentary 419 BCE festival letter.3 In 410 BCE priests associated with the neighbouring temple of Khnum destroyed the sanctuary.1 A common scholarly explanation links the conflict to the sacrifice of sheep sacred to Khnum, but the cited source presents this as an explanation rather than a documented motive.1 In 407 BCE the community petitioned Bagohi, governor of Judah, and the sons of Sanballat of Samaria; permission to rebuild allowed meal and incense offerings but not animal sacrifice.14 The dated papyri end in 399 BCE.1 Whether the community then disappeared or continued under a new administration remains unknown.1

Sources

  1. BSchalit A, Matassa L (2nd ed.). 2007. Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. 'Elephantine'. Macmillan Reference USA / Keter link
  2. Bvan der Toorn, Karel. 2019. Becoming Diaspora Jews: Behind the Story of Elephantine. Yale University Press (Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library) doi:10.12987/yale/9780300243512.001.0001
  3. BPorten, Bezalel, Yardeni, Ada. 1986. Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt (TADAE). Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of the History of the Jewish People 1–4 (publication run 1986–1999) link
  4. BCowley, Arthur Ernest. 1923. Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C.. Oxford: Clarendon Press link
  5. BPorten B. 1968. Archives from Elephantine: The Life of an Ancient Jewish Military Colony. University of California Press link