The Babylonian exile in 587–539 BCE is frequently presented as the main
explanatory factor for the religious and literary developments found in the
Hebrew Bible. The sheer number of both ‘historical’ and narrative exiles
confirms that the theme of exile is of great importance in the Hebrew Bible.
However, one does not do justice to the topic by restricting it to the exile in
Babylon after 587 BCE. In recent years, it has become clear that there are
several discrepancies between biblical and extra-biblical sources on invasion
and deportation in Palestine in the 1st millennium BCE. Such discrepancy
confirms that the theme of exile in the Hebrew Bible should not be viewed as
an echo of a single traumatic historical event, but rather as a literary motif
that is repeatedly reworked by biblical authors.
Myths of Exile challenges the traditional understanding of ‘the Exile’ as a
monolithic historical reality and instead provides a critical and comparative
assessment of motifs of estrangement and belonging in the Hebrew Bible and
related literature. Using selected texts as case-studies, this book demonstrates
how tales of exile and return can be described as a common formative narrative
in the literature of the ancient Near East, a narrative that has been interpreted
and used in various ways depending on the needs and cultural contexts
of the interpreting community. Myths of Exile is a critical study which forms
the basis for a fresh understanding of these exile myths as identity-building
literary phenomena.