Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
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Research article
First published online August 24, 2020
‘The myth of the empty exile’: A Comparative Exploration into Ancient Biblical Exile and Modern Korean Exile
Contents
Abstract
1. Key issues and debates concerning the Biblical exile
2. Key comparative data from Japanese-occupied Korea
3. Preliminary results and interpretive possibilities arising from the comparative study
Acknowledgments
ORCID iD
Footnotes
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Abstract
The objective of this study is to undertake a comparative examination of two exilic contexts—ancient Judah under the Neo-Babylonian Empire and modern Korea under the Japanese occupation. We will examine issues related to ‘population change’ and ‘economic impact’ in the context of the hegemony of the colonizing empire. First, we will review the recent scholarly debates concerning Judean history during the Babylonian exilic era. Next, we will examine the historical records and interpretative issues concerning modern Korea during the Japanese occupation era. Finally, the observations and interpretive implications that arise from this comparative study will be explored. This study will emphasize that many intangible factors point to a likelihood of turmoil and hardship for the majority of the people, both those living under occupation in Judah and those exiled to Babylon, despite the evidence indicating that life continued uninterrupted after the events of 587 BCE.
Exile is arguably the single-most significant event in understanding the Hebrew Bible with regard to its historical, political, and theological conceptuality.1 The collapse of the Davidic dynasty and the Jerusalem temple, which the God of Israel had promised to protect, must have caused enormous shock and turmoil. Surprisingly, little information concerning this pivotal epoch in Israel’s history is available within the biblical literature. Other than Lamentations, the concluding portions of 2 Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the latter half of Isaiah, Haggai–Zechariah, and indirect hints from Ezra–Nehemiah, there is no conclusive record of what happened to the people left in the land of Judah and those captive in the land of Babylon.2 To provide new perspectives on these topics, this study intends to retrieve and analyze additional interpretive clues generated by a comparative study of the (ancient) Judean exile under the Babylonian empire and the (modern) Korean exile/occupation under Imperial Japan.
The comparative approach, which can be traced back to the Religionsgeschichte movement in Europe, has its methodological shortcomings, including the tendency toward generalization, the subjectivity of the comparer, and the overemphasis on similarity and continuity as opposed to difference and discontinuity.3 Comparing modern Korea during the Japanese occupation with Judah during the Babylonian exilic era thus should not ignore their important differences: the temporal gap of more than two thousand years, geographical distance, and cultural differences. Nevertheless, despite a number of problems, the comparative approach does offer ‘the hope of gaining a greater insight’ into the biblical world.4 Although neither the historiographer nor the interpreter can fully describe what life was like in ancient Israel and modern Korea, it remains a legitimate task to retrieve, identify, and compare the available records and resources. Marvin Chaney’s audacious call for comparing the topography, archaeology, and sociopolitics of Israel and Korea remains valid, if largely unanswered.5
Comparative works like the one undertaken in this article have been made with reference to various cultures and contexts, but perhaps most relevant are developments in African contextual hermeneutics—for example, the ‘tripolar’ model, which considers the interaction among the text, the reader, and the ‘third pole’ (i.e., [reader’s] ideo-theological agendas) or the interaction among the ‘[ancient] biblical text’, the ‘[modern] African context’, and the ‘ideo-theological orientations’.6 This model moves beyond the ‘bipolar’ correlation between the biblical text and the contemporary context, and emphasizes the third pole—the ideological role the reader plays in that comparison. The tripolar model presumes Bultmann’s Vorverständnis (‘pre-understanding’), in relation to which Gerald West underscores the ideological importance of ‘how these two fundamental poles are brought into dialogue’, especially via the reader’s postcolonial appropriation.7
In a similar vein, my approach presents the modern contextual materials on the exile, particularly from the memories and viewpoints of those exiled and colonized. My interpretive orientation upholds, as John Ahn contends, that exile is ‘not a myth: the exile or forced migrations happened, and it still happens today’.8 This study will emphasize that despite the substantial evidence indicating that life continued uninterrupted after the events of 587 BCE, many intangible factors point to a likelihood of hardship for the majority of the people, both those living under occupation in Judah and those exiled to Babylon. First, in the case of occupied Korea, forced migration and displacement have continued to occur, on more than a few occasions, prompting ongoing socioeconomic consequences. Second, life situations for most Koreans (whether in Korea or in Japan) bear witness to rampant inequality, often experienced through organized systems of exploitation. Third, the perspectives of the colonized Koreans unveil the ruptures of exile and impact far more clearly than quantitative evidence of any imagined stability. As a result, this comparative study suggests that the interpretive perspectives of the ‘myth of the empty land’ (i.e., the land was neither devastated nor impacted adversely) do not do justice to the realities of the exile. That the damaging impact of the exile was neither real nor disruptive is indeed a myth.
Our study will primarily compare the two exilic contexts—ancient Judah’s and modern Korea’s—focusing on key historical issues as well as socioeconomic impacts. We will examine issues related to population change (as a result of war, captivity, refuge, etc.) and economic impact (as a result of colonization, taxation, forced labor, etc.) which are intricately related to the hegemony of the colonizing empire. First, we will review the recent scholarly debates concerning Judean history during the Babylonian exilic era. Next, we will examine the historical records and interpretative issues concerning modern Korea during the Japanese occupation era. Finally, the observations and implications that arise from this comparative study will be explored.
1. Key issues and debates concerning the Biblical exile
In a nutshell, recently scholars have been split regarding the archaeological and sociological evidence for living conditions during the Babylonian exilic era. In addition to disagreeing concerning the biblical texts, scholars present conflicting arguments on the following issues: population change and economic impact.
1.1. Population change
The first and most foundational question concerns the population change: How many victims did the fall of Judah/Jerusalem (587 BCE) generate and how many Judeans left the land of Judah, whether as captives to Babylon or fugitives to Egypt or elsewhere? According to the biblical texts and ancient Near Eastern documents, there were at least three deportations of the Judeans: 597 BCE (2 Kgs. 24.12; Jer. 52.28–30; Babylonian Chronicle BM 21946), 587 BCE (2 Kgs. 25.8; Jer. 52.12), and 582 BCE (Jer. 52.30).9 The problem is the numerical discrepancy among these textual resources as to how many of Judean population disappeared: for example, 10,000 (2 Kgs. 24.14), 8000 (2 Kgs. 24.16), and/or 4600 (Jer. 39–43; 52.28–30). Regarding the accuracy and reliability of these records, there are two perspectives: the so-called ‘myth of the empty land’ (continuity) theory and the opposing (desolation) theory.
The proponents of the ‘myth of the empty land’ school include Hans Barstad, Philip R. Davies, Niels Peter Lemche, Thomas L. Thompson, and others.10 Thanks to them this ‘Myth of the Empty Land’—a phrase coined by Robert P. Caroll—has become a key interpretive motif.11 This position argues that, the historical or theoretical claim that the land of Judah became empty, after its fall and captivity to Babylon (‘the Babylonian gap’), is a myth without archaeological evidence.12 Despite the reported destructions and deportations, the exile did not cause major upheaval but, instead, the majority of the population in Judah must have continued their lives in pretty much the same way as they did prior to 587 BCE.13 Simply put, ‘the “exilic” Judah was not a tabula rasa’.14 Niels Peter Lemche thus poses a fundamental question about the concept of ‘exile’:
At some point the scholar has to ask [themselves], was this exile real? Could it be an ideological construction created at a later date to legitimize the right of the Jews to Palestine in spite of the fact that they were not the only ones whose ancestors had lived in the country?15
Even within the city of Jerusalem, these scholars doubt that Nebuchadnezzar demolished ‘all’ of Jerusalem: ‘To demolish a big fortified city would have been an enormous task in antiquity and also unnecessary’.16 Aside from adjacent cities and hill country in the Benjamin area, where there is no evidence of destruction (e.g., Mizpah [Tel en-Nasbeh], Gibeon, Bethel),17 even in Jerusalem there may also have been a relative degree of continuity among the lives of survivors.18 The number of Judeans who were taken to Babylon was very few, and these consisted of select royal family members, elite leaders, and artisans. Bob Becking’s summary assessment of this scholarly position in light of recent archaeological finds is informative:
The land of Judah did not lie desolate during the Babylonian period …. These Judeans reached an acceptable standard of living and apparently were free to continue their religion …. The return from exile should not be construed as a massive event; and the descendants of the exiled Judeans returned in waves and many remained in Babylonia.19
The countering theory—which I would call ‘the myth of the empty exile’—has been presented by Ephraim Stern, Bustenay Oded, Rainer Albertz, Avraham Faust, David Vanderhooft, and more.20 Rainer Albertz acknowledges the discrepancy in numbers of the demographic shift during the Babylonian exile. Thus, to retrieve a more reliable source, Albertz proposes to examine the population change during the fall of northern Israel by Assyria in 722 BCE, which might shed comparative light on the situations of the Babylonian exile: ‘Our only recourse, then, is to base our picture of the Babylonian deportations in the southern kingdom on data from the Assyrian deportations in the northern kingdom’.21 Albertz posits that it is far more likely that close to 25% of the Judean population were deported, analogous to the numbers of deportees from northern Israel/Samaria.22
Many archaeologists tend to agree on the destruction of two main cities of Judah—Jerusalem and Lachish—by Nebuchadnezzar’s military campaigns around 587 BCE.23 In addition, according to Ephraim Stern, many other Judahite Shephelah towns ‘met the same fate at the hands of the Babylonians’.24 Stern’s archaeological assessment, in fact, suggests the full-scale devastation of Judah: ‘A review of the archaeological evidence from 6th-century bce Judah clearly reflects the literary evidence for the complete destruction of all the settlements and fortified towns by Nebuchadnezzar II’s armies in 586 bce’.25 Concerning the rural sites in Judah, Avraham Faust assesses the archaeological finds and concludes that there was a great population decline, with ‘extremely low continuity, and, at worst, (almost?) no continuity at all’ between the Iron Age and the Persian Period.26
Moreover, there must have been other casualties in addition to those taken into captivity in Babylon, including those killed during the battle or siege, executed by the Babylonian soldiers, or who fell prey to epidemics and famine; and one cannot neglect the fact that some fled as refugees to Egypt.27 Albertz estimates an additional 25% to account for such relocated people. These factors would thus suggest that the Babylonian conquest must have caused the depopulation or disappearance of about 50% of the Judean population. Based on a population of about 80,000 people in ancient Judah, Albertz posits that approximately 40,000 Judeans either lost their lives or were forcibly displaced.28 A comparative chart by Hermann-Josef Stipp displays the estimated Judean population before and after 587 BCE:29
Around 600 (BCE) Exilic period Persian period
Carter 100,000/60,000 20,650
Albertz 80,000 40,000
Lipschits 110,000 40,000 30,000
Based on this line of thought, even if the population was not completely decimated, the majority of inhabitants were significantly affected. Bustenay Oded concludes from the evidence that ‘Judah was not an empty land, a tabula rasa, during the exilic period …. Continuity yes, but with a marked decline in quality and very limited in quantity’.30
1.2. Economic impact
The second issue, which concerns the severity of economic change and social consequence, similarly leads to two conflicting theories. While theorists on both sides agree that a substantial number of the population may have remained and continued in a lifestyle reminiscent of pre-exilic conditions in the land of Judah, they differ in their understanding of the economic situation and social impact on Judeans in the land of Judah and, for that matter, in the land of Babylon as well, primarily due to the lack of sufficient supporting data.
On the one hand, Hans Barstad claims that ‘with the great majority of the population still intact, life in Judah after 586 in all probability before long went on very much in the same way that it had done before the catastrophe’.31 Hence, the land of Judah was neither empty of people nor interrupted in its economic lifestyle.
Joseph Blenkinsopp posits that rather than bringing about a standstill in Judah’s infrastructure, the Babylonians ‘simply took over the Assyrian provincial system …. Continuity in material culture is the norm, and could have persisted in spite of the frequent and violent military incursions in to Judah by Assyrians, Babylonians, Edomites and others’.32 Similarly, Bob Becking remarks that because ‘Jerusalem and vicinity was but a remote and unimportant part’ of the Persian empire, the archaeological evidence ‘hints at a cultural continuation from the Neo-Babylonian to the Persian period’.33 Becking’s assessment that most of the people in the land of Judah probably maintained ‘an acceptable standard of living’ provides an essential summary of this perspective.34 Despite the fall of the Jerusalemite aristocracy and the apparatus of statehood around 587 BCE, life in Judah would have ‘returned to normal’.35
From the opposing side, on the other hand, Rainer Albertz argues that even though the exilic impact may not have devastated the entire population, the shock of the fall of the nation and the ensuing captivity must have made a huge impact that surpassed the retrieved numerical data.36 Consequently, Albertz asserts that ‘although they were dwelling in their own land, those who remained in Judah had largely lost their territorial social integrity’.37
In fact, the Babylonian military actions, as David Vanderhooft claims, ‘sharply reduced economic activity throughout the Levant’.38 Lisbeth Fried avers that the demolition of the temple (along with the palace) meant not only the loss of its economic role of concentrating wealth but also the psychological demoralization of the populace. To support this argument, Fried points to the destruction of the Elephantine temple and how, in the wake of this devastating event, ‘life did not continue as before; normal life was aborted’.39 According to Jeremiah 40–43, the survivors in the land of Judah maintained their own autonomy and socio-religious system in the city of Mizpah instead of in the destroyed city of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, we also learn how the survivors lost their lands, women were forcefully violated, and leaders were executed, all situations of devastation and destitution bewailed in Lamentations 5. In addition, many smaller neighboring countries repeatedly attacked and looted Judah, especially in the aftermath of the demise of Judah’s dynasty.40
While the scarsity of information causes ongoing debates about the socioeconomic life of Judah during the Babylonian occupation, it seems evident that Babylon took great interest in the tribute and taxation of their vassal provinces.41 On this topic, we also have more concrete data concerning the similar circumstance during the Persian occupation of Yehud. Samuel Adams assesses the tribute and taxation policies of the Persian empire, under whose colonial power the majority of the commoners in Yehud suffered economic hardship—‘a rather consistent burden on the people caused by demands from imperial officials and local elites, particularly when military needs or infrastructure projects became factors’ (Neh. 5.5; cf. 1 Sam. 8.11–17).42 In fact, Adams highlights the common misunderstanding of the so-called ‘benign’ policy of the Persian empire:
Nevertheless, an ‘enlightened’ despot is still a despot, and complimentary statements about Persian rulers in the Hebrew Bible should not obscure the demanding taxation system and its impact on the poor agriculturalists who made up the majority of the population.43
If this ‘benign’ policy of the Persian empire took a heavy toll on many poor peasants, how much more stressful and agonizing the colonial system of the Babylonian empire would have been! Roland Boer trenchantly analyzes the ‘tribute-exchange’ system as a founding economic mechanism for the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian empires. In this system, ‘tribute’ and ‘exchanges’, Boer asserts, are ‘two sides of the same extractive coin’—both fundamental tools for the imperial ‘plunder’ of the subjugated:
Simply put, they are variations on plunder, which involves the expropriation of goods from the labor and resources one does not possess or control. Tribute (for ‘them’) and taxation (for ‘us’) are really the politer and slightly more regulated faces of plunder.44
In addition to excessive taxation, forced labor may have contributed to the social and economic impact on the colonized. Bob Becking’s analysis of a newly discovered 8th-century BCE Moabite inscription suggests how often the captives, who were assembled together in specific ethnic groups, were taken for forced labor as state-slaves.45 It has been noted that unlike the Assyrian policy of massive relocation (cf. 2 Kgs. 17.24–41),46 the Babylonian policy did not significantly relocate populations and mix them with various ethnic groups. Yet, some scholars have proposed the possibility that the Babylonian policy of massive deportation may have been somewhat similar to that of Assyria, except that Babylon provided an enclave for each ethnic community. Thus, according to Bustenay Oded, the deportation systems of both Assyria and Babylon relocated the people of Israel and Judah into urban centers, the rural periphery, and even deserted, ruined areas.47 Similarly, in light of the Al-Yahūdu (‘Town of Yehud’ in Babylonia) archives, Dalit Rom-Shiloni observes that
for Ezekiel and his compatriots of the Jehoiachin Exile, dislocation meant a sociological transition from being part of the elite groups (at least in their own eyes) of the capital city of Judah, Jerusalem, to being rural dwellers, now resettled on the periphery in ‘development towns’ and underdeveloped regions, far removed from the major centers of Babylonian culture.48
In such relocated ethnic camps in Babylon,
royal lands were given to people, often of foreign origin, who were obliged to provide the state with manpower, whether by paying taxes, performing work and military service, or hiring a substitute …. If this was the case, life in Āl-Yāhūdu was undeniably harsher than it used to be in Jerusalem.49
It is true, as the ‘revisionists’ rightly observe, that biblical writers often have their own agendas, which account for the difficulty in distinguishing between the ‘history’ and the ‘past’.50 Nevertheless, it is wrong to argue that ‘because some biblical writers had an agenda, their historiographical reconstruction must be false and that instead of disruption there must have been significant continuity between the monarchical era and the Persian period’.51 Bustenay Oded aptly concludes, ‘All this indicates that life could not have continued “in the same way”’.52
2. Key comparative data from Japanese-occupied Korea
It is obvious that there is a chronological gap of more than two thousand years, and significant geographical and sociocultural disparities between the ancient Levant and modern Korea. Nonetheless, the scarcity of evidence for the situation in the land of Judah during the Babylonian exilic period invites comparative study to fill the informational gaps.53 With respect to the history of Korea under Japanese occupation, the historical perception that exile hardly had any detrimental impact is indeed a myth. Indeed, the tiny peninsula of Korea and her turbulent history may offer significant insights, shedding new light on and giving rise to questions pertinent to the analogous circumstances of exilic life in Judah.
2.1. Population change
The demographic change, following the formal takeover of Korea by Japan on 29 August 1910 (at the end of Korea’s Joseon dynasty [1392–1910 CE], which followed the Goryeo [or ‘Corea’] dynasty [918–1392 CE]), is documented in tangible records and census statistics, even if these are not thoroughly exhaustive. Population changes in Korea during this era were due to a variety of factors, which include not only migration of their own freewill but also deportations and exile by force. We also need to consider not only relocation into Japan but also Koreans finding refuge in other countries, such as China, Russia, United States, and beyond. In general, historians address two different census records—one kept by the Japanese government (analogous to the ‘myth of the empty land’ perspective) and the other by Korean historians (analogous to the contrary perspective).
On the one hand, the records preserved by the Japanese government disclose how many (or few) Koreans migrated to Japan. Admittedly, a significant number of people may have left Korea even before the formal Japanese occupation. The records below only report the Koreans who came to Japan from 1910 to 1945—these respective tax and census records do not account for those Koreans who went to countries other than Japan:
1910—2600 (tax record) or 2246 (census record)
1920—40,755 30,149
1930—419,009 298,091
1940—1,241,315 1,190,444
1945—2,206,541 1,968,80754
On the other hand, Korean historical records, retrieved from various Korean government sources, calculate additional resources and factors other than (forced) migration to Japan, such as refugees to other countries, forced labor, and the like. It is important to note that the forced migration to Japan was not a single event, but ongoing, with the numbers increasing in each passing decade. In addition to the Koreans deported to Japan, we should also consider the Koreans who escaped or were taken as forced laborers elsewhere, including reportedly 2 million to northern China (then called ‘Manchuria’) and Russia during the 1930s.55 Moreover, during the 1940s (after the Pearl Harbor attack and Japan’s entry into World War II), approximately 200,000 young women were taken as ‘comfort women’ (a euphemism for ‘sex slaves’) and, additionally, a total of approximately 7 million men were conscripted for various forms of forced labor both within and outside of Korea, including serving as soldiers for Imperial Japan: ‘Roughly seven million Koreans were mobilized for labor serving wartime in 1939–45. Five million of them … in worksites within Korea. Roughly two million were sent overseas’.56 Altogether, more than a quarter of the population of 20 million in Korea were eventually taken away from their homeland during the exile/occupation period.57
As we saw in the case of historians of the exile, the minimalist historians of the oppression of Korea tend to minimize—if not outright deny—the number of forced laborers, even arguing that the number of the ‘comfort women’ was exaggerated.58 This is understandable, not only because we lack reliable and recoverable data but also because many of the victims of forced labor, military conscription, and sex slavery were abused to the point of death, executed (to destroy evidence, not unlike concentration camp executions in Nazi Germany), or remained silent for any number of reasons (many victims did not, or could not, come forward as their tragic stories were also considered ‘shameful’ in Asian culture). It is, however, important to note the differences between the deportations in Korea’s occupation era and those from Judah’s exile era. Unlike the three recorded waves of deportation of Judeans to Babylon, the deportation of Koreans to Japan occurred continuously in every decade in steadily increasing numbers. Unlike the removal of predominantly royal elites from Judah, in the case of Korea, it was mostly the poor, underprivileged peasants who were taken to Japan. These discrepancies illustrate why the Judean and Korean exiles may not simply be compared as if they were monolithic blocs. Rather, comparing the two experiences requires the consideration of a range of different factors and contexts (Babylon’s military takeover as opposed to Japan’s foreign-negotiated annexation, Babylon’s gradual deportation system in small batches as opposed to Japan’s intensified war conscription, etc.) that may have affected unique features of each situation.59
Nevertheless, there are many similar features in these exilic contexts. In both contexts, deportations of persons from vassal nations were carried out by imperial force.60 Whether for building projects, military conscription, irrigation canal labor, agriculture, artisanal work, or elitist administrative positions (e.g. eunuchs), those Judeans and Koreans were forcibly taken onto the foreign soils of Babylon and Japan, respectively.61 We discover similar mechanisms of plunder to those in the ancient empires which Roland Boer describes: ‘To sum up, we have three departments responsible for looting: the Department for Rude Plunder; the Department for Polite Foreign Plunder; and the Department for Polite Internal Plunder’.62 The ideology of the empires that suggests these captive laborers came voluntarily or became a willing workforce contrasts starkly with the anguished laments of the colonized (e.g. Psalm 137). Such opposing viewpoints are equally noticeable in the debates on the economic boon (‘enhancement’) versus ruin (‘exploitation’), to which we now turn.
2.2. Economic impact
With respect to the economic changes and social influences in the Korean colony, there are divergent data and contrasting perspectives, not unlike the differing theories concerning exilic Judah. Toward the end of the Joseon dynasty, the economic trade system in Korea relied on the export of grain and the import of cotton.63 Some of the notable economic programs included the ‘real estate reform’ policy in the 1910s, which enabled the government to purchase or confiscate land at will. In the 1920s, the ‘rice (grain) increase reform’ plan resulted in increased production of rice in select agricultural cities, such as Mokpo and Gunsan. In the 1930s, the ‘industrialization reform’ program authorized the conscription of Koreans for forced labor, military service, and comfort women in preparation for World War II.
Pivotal to this discussion is the degree to which Korea’s economic and cultural development (modernization or industrialization) can be considered as positive growth for the sake of Korea or as oppressive taxation for the sake of Japan. If the former is true, then we might infer that Judah too thrived under Babylonian influence, but if the latter is true, then we must not underestimate Judah’s hardship under Babylonian oppression.64 With respect to the Korean situation, historians (non-Koreans and Koreans alike) have come up with two opposing theories: the ‘enhancement’ theory and the ‘exploitation’ theory.
According to the ‘enhancement’ theory, Japan’s colonial economic system was essential to Korea’s economic growth and development. Leaders of various unions, such as the women’s club and the farmer’s growth club, have suggested that their economic boon was thanks to the beneficial rule of the Japanese emperor. For example, in the 1920s, the ‘rice increase reform’ plan led to the quantitative increase of rice production in Korea. Similarly, thanks to the development of the social organization of the ‘union of cotton laborers’, there was a substantial increase in cotton production which enabled some peasants to purchase their own farmland.65 During the 1930s–1940s, the number of factories increased 28 times, the number of factory workers multiplied 29 times, and gross production swelled to 95 times that of the 1910s.66 Railroad tracks were built across the Korean peninsula and modern hospitals were constructed, which all led to the positive advancement of Korea.67 So the ‘enhancement’ historians conclude that during the occupation era, Korea thrived through the processes of economic growth and social modernization.68 Carter Eckert presents a thesis that Korea’s eventual economic development should be traced back to the ‘crucial period of imperialism and colonialism’, and its foundational flowering came ‘under Japanese rule and with official Japanese blessing’.69
In contrast, the ‘exploitation’ theorists emphasize the widening gaps between the rich and the poor, pointing out how the majority of the poor peasants in a predominantly agrarian country ended up losing their own lands and suffering economic hardship.70 John H. Reisner at Nanking University in China reports in his 1926 survey on the agricultural hardship in Korea:
In spite of the fact that the legal rate of the division between the landlord and tenant is 50 / 50, all the evidence secured by the investigations … indicate that the actual division is about 60 to 70% for the landlord and from 40 to 30% for the tenant.71
Another study around the Southwest province of Korea in 1922, conducted by Edmund de Schweinitz Brunner, reports that almost 97% of the tenants interviewed ‘ended the year in debt’, as ‘landlords exacted high rates of interest on their loans to peasants, historically between 20 percent and 30 percent a month’.72 Conversely, even in the land of Imperial Japan, most Korean workers who relocated to Japan had to cope with rampant inequality and incessant bigotry, enduring the ‘double shackles’ of low wages and ethnic discrimination: ‘These shackles had everything to do with the prevalence and predominance of intermediary exploitation in the everyday lives of Korean workers’.73
Thus, from the perspective of colonized Korea, most of the various agricultural and industrial development policies were implemented ‘for the sake of the Japanese overlords in Korea’—the new top ruling class—as well as the Korean puppet landowners.74 Labor conditions and wages among Koreans and Japanese in colonized Korea were vastly disparate. Despite the increase in rice production, much of it was confiscated by Japan, and the resultant rice price hike in Korea made it difficult for most Korean farmers to afford; in addition, real estate control by larger landowners caused the bankruptcy of many small farm owners (latifundialization).75 Of the overall sum of the increased rice production, about 14% (during 1915–1919) and then about 46% (during 1930–1934) were sent to Japan.76
Moreover, following Japan’s participation in World War II, Japan decreed the mandatory conscription law in 1939, and thus millions of Koreans were taken to serve in various Japanese war efforts, which amounted to almost one-third of the labor force of the Koreans.77 The ‘enhancement’ historians would interpret the phenomenon of forced labor as a welcome privilege of the empire which the Japanized Koreans embraced, often voluntarily.78 By contrast, from the perspective of ‘exploitation’ Korea functioned as a colonized resource which was exploited for the eventual economic growth and benefit of Imperial Japan. As Michael Mann declares,
These achievements, however, were matched by a dark side. Business was largely taken over by the Japanese, forced labor was widespread, repression of resistance was savage, and there were forcible attempts to suppress the Korean language, family names, and culture.79
In summary, our study of the modern Korean colony in light of population change and economic impact offers strikingly similar features and situations to those of ancient exilic Judah. Just as archaeological material and textual records are often interpreted through opposing theories regarding the Judean exile, so the historians of modern Korea present contrasting viewpoints. Admittedly, in the Korean peninsula under Japanese occupation, as well as among those relocated to Japan, it appears that life indeed went on:
In the cultural realm life continued—that, in fact, while political activity decreased, the period between 1931–37 was one of cultural growth in Korea …. However depressed the political life of the colony had become, a picture emerges of a vital and creative culture that flourished in conjunction with Japanese rule.80
Nevertheless, what we cannot ignore is the all-important point that Korean flourishing was only and always ‘in conjunction with Japanese rule’. Under the guise of imperial benevolence, most people endured a difficult daily existence, not only through cultural, ethnic, and psychological discrimination but in the very real experience of political and economic oppression. Some may indeed have experienced continuity, growth, and flourishing (in the case of the Japanese overlords and the few powerful Koreans), but the great majority of Korean subjects experienced a time of insecurity, abuse, and lasting torment:
[The 1930s of Korea] was a time of growth and relative optimism for landlords, industrialists (both Korean and Japanese), and colonial officials. For nationalists, radicals, and even apolitical intellectuals, it was a period of deep disillusionment and depression…. And for Korean laborers and peasants the situation was becoming increasingly desperate, as tenant and labor unions formed in response to the worsening conditions were smashed by the Japanese police.81
3. Preliminary results and interpretive possibilities arising from the comparative study
Dow Edgerton describes the importance of the life lived, rather than recorded: ‘The lived world is stronger than the authorized world’.82 What might biblical scholarship learn from Korea under Japanese occupation about the lived worlds of Judah under the Neo-Babylonian conquest? We offer the following preliminary observations from the historical and socioeconomic data of Korea during the era of Japanese occupation—observations which we hope will illumine and contribute to the reassessment of key historical, economic, and sociopolitical features of the life of Judeans during the Babylonian era.
First, in the case of Korea, the population deportation and displacement were not isolated incidents but continuous and sustained events. In fact, the trend of population migration increased exponentially with each passing decade until the end of the occupation period. Historical circumstances contributed to this trend, particularly World War II toward the end of the occupation era. We may wonder whether the people of Judah were displaced for similar reasons—as a labor force for massive building projects and as conscripted soldiers for imperial warfare—even after the third deportation in 582 BCE for the remaining four decades of occupation, if not longer.83 For example, in a study of the social, economic, and political relations of Babylonian vassal countries in the neighborhood of Judah, Craig Tyson surmises that ‘the Neo-Babylonian Empire also appears to have used conscripts or auxiliary troops from vassals in its military operations’.84 Later, during the Hellenistic era, we find historical records of military conscriptions of Jews and Samaritans (as many as 180,000 Jews, which amounts to a third of the 600,000 inhabitants of Alexandria).85
Second, socioeconomic situations in the land of Korea during the Japanese occupation were characterized by inequality, especially as seen in the systematic exploitation of Korea. No matter how elite they had been, as Koreans, they were automatically second-class citizens due to their ethnic status as outsiders subjugated to their Japanese overlords. We cannot afford to discount the fact that Israel was a powerless country surrounded by disproportionately powerful empires. Historical reconstruction or interpretation that does not consider such an evident power imbalance can easily lead us to study history from the misleading standpoint of the empire, as Daniel Smith-Christopher astutely warns: ‘As European and American scholars particularly, we need to be cautious about the application of a “colonizer’s gaze,” a modern version of the “imperial gaze”’.86
Third, these historical features and socioeconomic measures seen from the perspective of the colonized raise questions regarding the cultural, even psychological, impact and influence on the Korean people during the occupation era. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to gauge the shifts (or lack thereof) in their cultural values or psychological mind-sets. The cultural memory of the ancient Judeans in the Babylonian era is only partially retrievable through millennia-old texts and artifacts. In contrast, because the colonization of Korea ended only about 70 years ago, the collective memory of the victims is still fresh and recoverable, since many of the people who endured forced labor, were used as comfort women, and experienced imperial oppression are still alive today!87 The pain-stricken, agonizing testimonies of many survivors attest to the rampant injustice and incessant abuse inflicted by imperial coercion.
In a novel titled Homeland, a Korean resistance literature writer named Ki-young Lee writes about the affliction and distress during the Japanese occupation era: ‘They say that the world is improving each day, but why is it so difficult to live?’88 A poet named Sang-hwa Lee expresses a similar pain and sorrow: ‘Now someone else’s field – will Spring return to the usurped field? … Yet, for now – with the field stolen, even Spring might be stolen too’.89 African American spirituals convey the enduring memories of the forcibly displaced slaves’ incessant humiliation and tribulation at the hands of their white masters. Koreans under Japanese colonization persevered against the never-ending threats of oppression and forceful displacement under the incessant pressure of imperial annexation and acculturation. By the same token, it should be noted that the Judeans under Babylonian control preserved many laments, psalms, and prophetic survival literature, not only because those texts were valuable and inspiring but also because such texts were essential for their survival amidst the recurring hardship and agony imposed by imperial domination.90 When a nation was subdued—and its land ‘raped’—by a more powerful superpower, its exile was neither benign nor benevolent. Rather, the wounds and the trauma visited on so many human beings were real in so many tangible ways, leaving tragic consequences and a lasting impact. As Bustenay Oded clarifies, ‘concerning history versus myth, the point to grasp is that Judaism is a religion of historical memory, not a religion of inventing myths’.91 If the historical memory of the colonized Korea boldly asserts the evidence of demographic rupture, economic usurpation, and collective trauma, our comparison of it with the ancient Judean exile suggests that the exile was neither minimal nor mythical.
Acknowledgments
This article essentially came out of my ‘Fulbright U.S. Scholar to Korea’ research in 2015; I am grateful for the generous funding and gracious hospitality afforded by all the staff in the U.S. and in the ‘Korean-American Educational Commission’ in Korea. I also would like to express my deep gratitude for many scholars who shared invaluable resources and feedback for this work: Professors Man-Yul Lee, Soon-ja Lee, Kyung-mok Park, Deok-Joo Rhie, and Rev. Junmo Kwon in Korea; Professors John Ahn, Paul Cho, Diana Edelman, Bo Lim, Roger Nam, Ray Person, Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Jason Silverman, Craig Tyson, and Hieyoon Kim (a doctoral student at UCLA). My appreciation to the anonymous reviewer for cogent critiques as well.
ORCID iD
Hyun Chul Paul Kim https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7287-8486
Footnotes
1. D. Winton Thomas, ‘The Sixth Century BC: A Creative Epoch in the History of Israel’, JSS 6 (1961), p. 46: ‘A creative epoch in the history of Israel indeed it was’; Peter R. Ackroyd, Exile and Restoration: A Study of Hebrew Thought of the Sixth Century B.C. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), pp. 237: ‘The exile was a historical fact, though its precise description in detail is a matter of great difficulty’.
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2. Bob Becking, ‘Ezra’s Re-enactment of the Exile’, in L. L. Grabbe (ed.), Leading Captivity Captive: ‘The Exile’ as History and Ideology (JSOTSup, 278; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), p. 61: ‘In fact, we know too little’; P. A. Smith, Rhetoric and Redaction in Trito-Isaiah: The Structure, Growth and Authorship of Isaiah 56–66 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), p. 189: ‘As is often lamented by commentators, our lack of clear and reliable historical information relating to the early period of Persian rule makes any attempt at historical reconstruction inevitably tentative and uncertain’.
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3. Chris L. de Wet, ‘On Comparability: A Critical Evaluation of Comparative “Background” Studies between Biblical and Contemporary Southern African Contexts’, Religion & Theology 22 (2015), pp. 46–68.
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4. Lester L. Grabbe, ‘“Her Outdoors”: An Anthropological Perspective on Female Prophets and Prophecy’, in J. Stökl and C. L. Carvalho (eds.), Prophets Male and Female: Gender and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Ancient Near East (SBLAIL, 15; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2013), p. 24.
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5. Marvin L. Chaney, ‘Korea and Israel: Historical Analogy and Old Testament Interpretation’, The Korean Journal of Old Testament Studies 16 (2010), pp. 87–120. Robert Wilson’s proposal affirms the approach ‘to supplement our regular sources of information by drawing on social scientific research conducted in modern societies having a social structure similar to that of ancient Israel’ (Robert R. Wilson, Sociological Approaches to the Old Testament [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984], p. 7). Judith Lieu’s remark on the interpretive connections is equally noteworthy: ‘The application of contemporary models of the construction of identity and of ethnicity have proved extremely creative in the analysis of the material remains, the society, and the literature of antiquity’ (Judith M. Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004], p. 16).
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6. Gerald O. West, ‘African Biblical Scholarship as Post-Colonial, Tri-Polar, and a Site-of-Struggle’, in Tat-siong Benny Liew (ed.), Present and Future of Biblical Studies: Celebrating 25 Years of Brill’s Biblical Interpretation (Leiden: Brill, 2018), p. 248. The three poles are also identified as ‘distantiation, contextualisation, and appropriation’ (Jonathan A. Draper, ‘African Contextual Hermeneutics: Readers, Reading Communities, and Their Options between Text and Context’, Religion & Theology 22 [2015], p. 9).
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7. West, ‘African Biblical Scholarship’, pp. 248-49, 261–62. See also Draper, ‘African Contextual Hermeneutics’, pp. 13–14.
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8. John J. Ahn, Exile as Forced Migrations: A Sociological, Literary, and Theological Approach on the Displacement and Resettlement of the Southern Kingdom of Judah (BZAW, 417; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), p. 259.
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9. Ahn, Exile as Forced Migrations, pp. 1–39.
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10. Hans Barstad, The Myth of the Empty Land: A Study in the History and Archaeology of Judah during the ‘Exilic’ Period (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1996); Philip R. Davies, In Search of ‘Ancient Israel’ (JSOTSup, 148; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992); idem, Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History—Ancient and Modern (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008); Niels Peter Lemche, Ancient Israel: A New History of Israelite Society (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988); idem, The Old Testament between Theology and History: A Critical Survey (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008); idem, Biblical Studies and the Failure of History: Changing Perspectives (Sheffield: Equinox, 2013); Thomas L. Thompson, The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel (New York: Basic Books, 1999); Robert P. Carroll, ‘Exile, Restoration, and Colony: Judah in the Persian Empire’, in L. G. Perdue (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the Hebrew Bible (Oxford; Blackwell, 2001), pp. 102–16.
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11. Robert P. Caroll, ‘The Myth of the Empty Land’, Semeia 59 (1992), pp. 79–93.
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12. Philip R. Davies points out that it is impossible to verify history out of (fictional) story: ‘“Exile” is not an episode in the “history of Israel”; it is an ideological claim on behalf of a certain population element in the province of Judah during the Persian period’ (‘Exile? What Exile? Whose Exile?’ in L. L. Grabbe (ed.), Leading Captivity Captive: ‘The Exile’ as History and Ideology [JSOTSup, 278; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998], p. 136).
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13. Oded Lipschits, ‘Shedding New Light on the Dark Years of the “Exilic Period”: New Studies, Further Elucidation, and Some Questions regarding the Archaeology of Judah as an “Empty Land”’, in B. E. Kelle, F. R. Ames, and J. L. Wright (eds.), Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2011), p. 84.
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14. Hans M. Barstad, ‘After the “Myth of the Empty Land”: Major Challenges in the Study of Neo-Babylonian Judah’, in O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp (eds.), Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003), p. 3.
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15. Lemche, The Old Testament between Theology and History, p. 156.
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16. Barstad, ‘After the “Myth of the Empty Land”’, p. 8.
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17. Oded Lipschits, ‘Demographic Changes in Judah between the Seventh and the Fifth Centuries b.c.e.’, in O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp (eds.), Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003), p. 364: ‘There is no evidence of a deportation from either the region of Benjamin or the northern Judean Hills’.
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18. Barstad, ‘After the “Myth of the Empty Land”’, pp. 6–9.
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19. Bob Becking, ‘A Fragmented History of the Exile’, in B. E. Kelle, F. R. Ames, and J. L. Wright (eds.), Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2011), p. 166.
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20. Ephraim Stern, Material Culture of the Land of the Bible in the Persian Period, 538–332 B.C. (Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips, 1982); idem, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible (vol. 2; New York: Doubleday, 2001); Bustenay Oded, Mass Deportation and Deportees in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1979); Rainer Albertz, Israel in Exile: The History and Literature of the Sixth Century B.C.E. (trans. D. Green; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003); Avraham Faust, Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Period: The Archaeology of Desolation (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2012); David Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire and Babylon in the Latter Prophets (HSM, 59; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999).
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21. Albertz, Israel in Exile, p. 88. Strikingly similarly, and yet equally contentiously, scholars propose two different archaeological interpretations regarding population decline in the aftermath of the fall of northern Israel: Nadav Na’aman claims that archaeological data hardly indicate any migration of refugees from Israel to Judah (‘Dismissing the Myth of a Flood of Israelite Refugees in the Late Eighth Century BCE’, ZAW 126 [2014], pp. 1–14), yet Israel Finkelstein counters, arguing that the archaeological evidence unmistakably demonstrates a drastic population influx into Judah after 722 BCE (‘Migration of Israelites into Judah after 720 BCE: An Answer and an Update’, ZAW 127 [2015], pp. 188–206).
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22. Albertz, Israel in Exile, p. 88.
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23. Oded Lipschits, ‘Between Archaeology and Text: A Reevaluation of the Development Process of Jerusalem in the Persian Period’, in M. Nissinen (ed.), Congress Volume Helsinki 2010 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), p. 148. See also Mario Liverani, Israel’s History and the History of Israel (trans. C. Peri and P. R. Davies; London: Equinox, 2005), p. 195: ‘one can estimate a population collapse of 85–90 percent’.
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24. Ephraim Stern, ‘Yes There Was’, BAR 28 (2002), p. 55.
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25. Stern, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 323; see also idem, ‘The Babylonian Gap: The Archaeological Reality’, JSOT 28 (2004), pp. 273–77.
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26. Avraham Faust, ‘Judah in the Sixth Century B.C.E.: A Rural Perspective’, PEQ 135 (2003), p. 43.
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27. Faust, ‘Judah in the Sixth Century B.C.E.’, p. 45; idem, ‘Deportation and Demography in Sixth–Century b.c.e. Judah’, in B. E. Kelle, F. R. Ames, and J. L. Wright (eds.), Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2011), pp. 96–99.
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28. Albertz, Israel in Exile, pp. 88–90.
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29. Hermann-Josef Stipp, ‘The Concept of the Empty Land in Jeremiah 37–43’, in E. Ben Zvi and C. Levin (eds.), The Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel and Its Historical Contexts (BZAW, 404; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), p. 143.
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30. Bustenay Oded, ‘Where Is the “Myth of the Empty Land” to Be Found?: History versus Myth’, in O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp (eds.), Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003), p. 71. Hence also Stipp, ‘The Concept of the Empty Land’, p. 149: ‘… Judah was inhabited in the exilic period. But judging from the drop in settled areas, the Judeans must have experienced losses in human life of a ghastly magnitude’.
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31. Barstad, The Myth of the Empty Land, p. 42; also idem, ‘After the “Myth of the Empty Land”’, p. 14. Consider Martin Noth’s earlier proposal that with the majority of the population and their descendants in the land of Judah, rather than in Babylon, this majority would have been the key players in the history of Israel during this period (The History of Israel [trans. S. Godman; 2nd ed.; London: Black, 1960], p. 296).
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32. Joseph Blenkinsopp, ‘The Bible, Archaeology and Politics; or The Empty Land Revisited’, JSOT 27 (2002), p. 180.
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33. Becking, ‘Ezra’s Re-enactment of the Exile’, pp. 60–61.
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34. Becking, ‘A Fragmented History of the Exile’, p. 166.
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35. Barstad, ‘After the “Myth of the Empty Land”,’ pp. 3–4.
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36. Albertz, Israel in Exile, p. 83.
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37. Albertz, Israel in Exile, p. 96.
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38. David S. Vanderhooft, ‘New Evidence Pertaining to the Transition from Neo-Babylonian to Achaemenid Administration in Palestine’, in R. Albertz and B. Becking (eds.), Yahwism after the Exile: Perspectives on Israelite Religion in the Persian Era (Assen: Van Gorcum, 2003), p. 233.
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39. Lisbeth S. Fried, ‘The Land Lay Desolate: Conquest and Restoration in the Ancient Near East’, in O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp (eds.), Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003), p. 22.
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40. Albertz, Israel in Exile, p. 96.
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41. Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire, p. 113: ‘From the point of view of the royal inscriptions, however, the mercantile focus is on the delivery of tribute and goods to Babylon from subject kingdoms, an expression of imperial hegemony’; Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East: ca. 3000–323 BC (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), p. 260: ‘As in the case of Assyria, the spoils of the [Babylonian] empire seem to have financed a huge building programme at home’.
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42. Samuel L. Adams, Social and Economic Life in Second Temple Judea (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2014), pp. 181–82. In a recent study, Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley argues for the similarities, rather than contrasts, between the Neo-Assyrian and Persian imperial policies: ‘If Cyrus is to be credited with even a degree of religious tolerance, so too are Sargon II, Esarhaddon, his son Assurbanipal, and even Sennacherib. And if the Assyrians were aggressive conquerors exacting heavy tribute from temples and sanctuaries and destroying the sanctuaries of those who opposed them, so too were the Persians, who even admit it in their self-representation’ (‘Continuity between Assyrian and Persian Policies toward the Cults of Their Subjects’, in D. Edelman, A. Fitzpatrick-McKinley, and P. Guillaume (eds.), Religion in the Achaemenid Persian Empire: Emerging Judaisms and Trends [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016], p. 164).
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43. Adams, Social and Economic Life in Second Temple Judea, p. 142. Blenkinsopp similarly considers that even under the Persian governance, ‘life was never easy for most of the population, and was made worse by Achaemenid fiscal policy and heavy taxation’ (‘A Case of Benign Imperial Neglect and Its Consequences’, BibInt 8 [2000], 133).
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44. Roland Boer, The Sacred Economy of Ancient Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015), p. 146. Concerning the ‘asymmetrical’ exchanges of tax extraction, forced labor, and so on between Assyria and Israel/Judah (and between Israel’s royal center and disempowered periphery), see Roger S. Nam, Portrayals of Economic Exchange in the Book of Kings (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 102–53.
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45. Bob Becking, ‘Exile and Forced Labour in Bêt Har’oš: Remarks on a Recently Discovered Moabite Inscription’, in G. Galil, M. Geller, and A. Millard (eds.), Homeland and Exile: Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of Bustenay Oded (VTSup, 130; Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 3–12. Also, Vanderhooft, The Neo–Babylonian Empire, 111: ‘The immense building projects that Nebuchadnezzar initiated in the heartland no doubt required infusions of labor, as several of his building inscriptions emphasize’. See also Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, ‘Reassessing the Historical and Sociological Impact of the Babylonian Exile (597/587–539 bce)’, in J. M. Scott (ed.), Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Conceptions (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 24–25.
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46. For an archaeological analysis of the Neo-Assyrian mass deportation policy of the colonized subjects to rural areas, irrigation systems, and subsequent economic exploitation, see T. J. Wilkinson et al., ‘Landscape and Settlement in the Neo-Assyrian Empire’, BASOR 340 (2005), pp. 40, 50.
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47. Bustenay Oded, ‘The Settlements of the Israelite and the Judean Exiles in Mesopotamia in the 8th–6th Centuries BCE’, in G. Galil and M. Weinfeld (eds), Studies in Historical Geography and Biblical Historiography Presented to Zechariah Kallai (VTSup, 81; Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 92, 102–3. Consider also Mario Liverani, The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy (trans. S. Tabatabai; London; New York: Routledge, 2014), p. 541: ‘The [Babylonian] chronicles attest to the military campaigns of Nebuchadnezzar, and … their ideology and propaganda was not far from the ferociousness of their Assyrian predecessors’.
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48. Rom-Shiloni, ‘The Untold Stories: Al-Yahūdu and or versus Hebrew Bible Babylonian Compositions’, Die Welt des Orients 47 (2017), p. 130.
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49. Cited from a review by Tero Alstola (Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 111 [2016], p. 328) of the following book; Laurie E. Pearce and Cornelia Wunsch (eds.), Documents of Judean Exiles and West Semites in Babylonia in the Collection of David Sofer (CUSAS, 28; Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 2014), especially pp. 98–188. For an opposite view, see Bob Becking, ‘Does Exile Equal Suffering? A Fresh Look at Psalm 137’, in B. Becking and D. Human (eds.), Exile and Suffering: A Selection of Papers Read at the 50th Anniversary Meeting of the Old Testament Society of South Africa OTWSA/OTSSA, Pretoria, August 2007 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 183–202.
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50. Caroll, ‘Exile, Restoration, and Colony: Judah in the Persian Empire’, p. 109.
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51. David S. Vanderhooft, ‘Babylonian Strategies of Imperial Control in the West: Royal Practice and Rhetoric’, in O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp (eds.), Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003), p. 252.
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52. Oded, ‘Where Is the “Myth of the Empty Land”’, p. 68.
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53. Consider Diana Edelman, ‘Apples and Oranges: Textual and Archaeological Evidence for Reconstructing the History of Yehud in the Persian Period’, in M. Nissinen (ed.), Congress Volume Helsinki 2010 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), p. 142: ‘For this reason, we should have as many historiographical accounts of a given issue or topic involving the past as there are historians who investigate it’.
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54. Masaru Tonomura, A Historical Study of the Joseon Community in Japan (trans. Yuwon Shin and Induk Kim; Seoul: Nonhyung, 2010), p. 61; Kwangmoo Huh, A Study on the Welfare Policy of Imperial Japan: Focusing on the Policy toward Koreans (Seoul: Seonin, 2011), pp. 28–29.
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55. Institute of Historical Studies, The Modern and Contemporary History of Korea (Seoul: Seohaemunjib, 2004), p. 205; Keong-Suk Park, ‘Population Dynamics of Korea during the Colonialization Period (1910-1945)’, Journal for the Population Association of Korea 32 (2009): pp. 51–52.
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56. Soon-Won Park, ‘The Politics of Remembrance: The Case of Korean Forced Laborers in the Second World War’, in G. W. Shin, S. W. Park, and D. Yang (eds.), Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia: The Korean Experience (London: Routledge, 2007), p. 56: ‘Recruitment took place in three stages: (a) mojip (1939–42), voluntary recruitment; (b) kwanalsŏn (1942 to September 1944), government-managed recruitment; and (c) chingyong (September 1944 on), a forced labor draft by the colonial government’.
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57. Sangki Kim et al., Lectures on the Modern and Contemporary History of Korea (Paju: Hanul, 2013), pp. 206–7.
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58. Some historians claim that no more than 50,000 to 80,000 were forced to serve as ‘military sex slaves’ as well as 140,000 others mainly for ‘voluntary wartime labors’. See Yu-ha Park, Comfort Women of the Empire: The Battle over Colonial Rule and Memory (Seoul: Puripari, 2013), pp. 17–54; see also Chunghee Sarah Soh, ‘The Korean “Comfort Women” Tragedy as Structural Violence’, in G. W. Shin, S. W. Park, and D. Yang (eds.), Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia: The Korean Experience (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 21–27; eadem, The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008).
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59. Ahn, Exile as Forced Migrations, p. 37.
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60. Ahn, Exile as Forced Migrations, p. 31.
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61. According to Mario Liverani, other than the primary deportees who were the ruling elites, the common people were also deported as ‘agricultural settlers, within the context of a general revival of Babylonian agriculture’ (Jer. 29.5–7) and the ‘middle-low status’ deportees for ‘financial and commercial activity’ (Israel’s History and the History of Israel, p. 217).
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62. Boer, The Sacred Economy of Ancient Israel, p. 150.
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63. Kim et al., Lectures on the Modern and Contemporary History of Korea, p. 39.
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64. Consider Craig W. Tyson, The Ammonites: Elites, Empires, and Sociopolitical Change (1000–500 BCE) (LHBOTS, 585; London: T&T Clark, 2014), p. 170: ‘We can illustrate Neo-Babylonian interest in the wealth available within imperial lands in several ways’.
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65. Holly Stephens, ‘Imperial Japan’s Cotton Production Policy: From the Perspective of Systemic-Administrative Plans’, Proceedings of Institute of Korean Studies at Yonsei University 444 (2015), pp. 4–5.
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66. Kim et al., Lectures on the Modern and Contemporary History of Korea, p. 199.
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67. Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power: Volume 3. Global Empires and Revolution, 1890–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 118.
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68. Kim et al., Lectures on the Modern and Contemporary History of Korea, pp. 188–89, 200–201; Mann, The Sources of Social Power, p. 119: ‘Average Korean life expectancy also rose, from 26 to 42 years over the life of the colony, demonstrating that economic growth translated into a better material life for most Koreans’.
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69. Carter J. Eckert, Offspring of Empire: The Koch’ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism 1876–1945 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991), pp. 5–6. Leading traders (e.g. Fujii Kantarō and Kugimoto Tōjirō) among the Japanese settlers in Korea thus made the claims that the Japanese emigrants brought the material progress by cultivating ‘barren land’ into ‘beautiful rice paddies’ and that ‘whether fishermen or farmers, Japanese as teachers in action [jitsubutsu kyōju] have always helped Koreans raise their productivity’ (Jun Uchida, Brokers of Empire: Japanese Settler Colonialism in Korea, 1876–1945 [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011], p. 238).
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70. Jack London’s anecdotal report illustrates incidents of local corruption in which the local Korean magistrate would receive the payment from the Japanese overlords on behalf of the villagers but ‘kept seventy percent for himself’, thereby causing many villagers to flee to the desolate mountains (Jack London, in Daniel A. Métraux (ed.), The Asian Writings of Jack London: Essays, Letters, Newspaper Dispatches, and Short Fiction by Jack London [Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2009], p. 56).
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71. Albert L. Park, Building a Heaven on Earth: Religion, Activism, and Protest in Japanese-Occupied Korea (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015), p. 63.
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72. Park, Building a Heaven on Earth, p. 67. See also Carter J. Eckert et al., Korea Old and New: A History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 311.
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73. Ken C. Kawashima, The Proletarian Gamble: Korean Workers in Interwar Japan (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), p. 93.
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74. See Peter Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), p. 430: ‘[Many Japanese migrants to Korea] arrived ready to exploit any opportunity that came their way.’ From Al-Yahūdu and related archives (see Pearce and Wunsch [eds.], Documents of Judean Exiles), key characters (such as Ahīqam, Ahīqar, and Arad-Gula) may have been the intermediary middlemen between the Babylonian overlords and the Judean community, but this is a topic for another study.
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75. Kim et al., Lectures on the Modern and Contemporary History of Korea, p. 159. Uchida, Brokers of Empire, p. 260: ‘The primary responsibility of the Government-General was to ensure that agrarian Korea fueled the engine of a rapidly industrializing Japan. Local Japanese merchants and capitalists [i.e., the brokers of empire] helped to keep Korea in this role by reducing its primary producers to dependency, often miring them in a cycle of debt and poverty’. See also Duus, The Abacus and the Sword, pp. 278, 288.
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76. Kim et al., Lectures on the Modern and Contemporary History of Korea, p. 193. Even the industrial development led by the Korean entrepreneurs during 1913–1937 was not a result of the protection or support from the Japanese colonial government but rather that of the colonized leaders’ ‘struggle for survival’ amid their ‘competition with Japanese-owned factories’ (Duol Kim and Ki-Joo Park, ‘Colonialism and Industrialisation: Factory Labour Productivity of Colonial Korea’, Australian Economic History Review 48 [2008], pp. 42–43).
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77. Kim et al., Lectures on the Modern and Contemporary History of Korea, p. 159.
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78. Concerning the imperial ‘ideology’ of ‘godnapping’ in the ancient Near East, see Jacob L. Wright, ‘The Deportation of Jerusalem’s Wealth and the Demise of Native Sovereignty in the Book of Kings’, in B. E. Kelle, F. R. Ames, and J. L. Wright (eds.), Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2011), p. 124.
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79. Mann, The Sources of Social Power, p. 119.
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80. Eckert et al., Korea Old and New, p. 313.
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81. Eckert et al., Korea Old and New, p. 312.
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82. Quoted from David M. Carr, ‘Reading into the Gap: Refractions of Trauma in Israelite Prophecy’, in B. E. Kelle, F. R. Ames, and J. L. Wright (eds.), Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2011), p. 296.
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83. Interestingly, though archaeologically unverifiable, C. C. Torrey’s hypothesis may need to be revisited: ‘The deportation to which [Torrey] refers began before the destruction of the Temple in 587/586 and continued long after the so-called return from “exile”’ (Charles E. Carter, The Emergence of Yehud in the Persian Period: A Social and Demographic Study [JSOTSup, 294; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999], 40).
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84. Tyson, The Ammonites, p. 160.
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85. Joseph Mélèze Modrzejewski, The Jews of Egypt: From Rameses II to Emperor Hadrian (trans. Robert Cornman; Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1995), p. 73.
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86. Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, ‘Reading War and Trauma: Suggestions toward a Social-Psychological Exegesis of Exile and War in Biblical Texts’, in B. E. Kelle, F. R. Ames, and J. L. Wright (eds.), Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2011), p. 272.
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87. Concerning the ancient biblical texts’ problematic ‘silence’ regarding the exile, Thomas L. Thompson presents an important remark: ‘We have, in fact, no narrative about the exile in the Bible …. That we do not have an exilic narrative must at least raise for us the question of whether any such historical event of the past is in fact the reference of the traditions we do have’ (‘The Exile in History and Myth: A Response to Hans Barstad’, in L. L. Grabbe (ed.), Leading Captivity Captive: ‘The Exile’ as History and Ideology [JSOTSup, 278; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998], 111). However, David M. Carr takes such a silence not as an evidence of unhistoricity but rather that of refractions of palpable trauma: ‘Insofar as such silence and slant in exilic prophetic literature are reflexes of the trauma of events during the Neo-Babylonian period that authors and audiences found too difficult to address directly, these profoundly timebound traumatic dynamics ironically helped these prophetic texts transcend the originating trauma and speak to later experiences as well’ (‘Reading into the Gap’, 307).
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88. Kim et al., Lectures on the Modern and Contemporary History of Korea, p. 188 [the original novel appeared in a major newspaper in November 1933–September 1934].
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89. Sang-hwa Lee, ‘Will Spring Return to the Usurped Field?’ [the original poem was published in 1926].
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90. See Louis Stulman and Hyun Chul Paul Kim, You Are My People: An Introduction to Prophetic Literature (Nashville: Abingdon, 2010); Hyun Chul Paul Kim, ‘Metaphor, Memory, and Reality of the “Exile” in Deutero-Isaiah’, in Jesper Høgenhaven, Frederik Poulsen, and Cian Power (eds.), Images of Exile in the Prophetic Literature: Copenhagen Conference Proceedings 7-10 May 2017 (FAT, 2.103; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), pp. 45–61.
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91. Oded, ‘Where Is the “Myth of the Empty Land”’, p. 71.
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