Friday, 30 January 2015

Judaism, the First Phase: the Place of Ezra and Nehemiah in the Origins of Judaism,
Joseph Blenkinsopp, Eerdmans, 2009, page 137

Blenkinsopp points out that the sons of foreigners, who actually lived among the people of Israel and clearly distinguished from citizens of foreign nations. They are tolerated but exclude.

The "internal foreigners" were perceived as constituting a temptation to religious infidelity, a potential fifth column and are a source of contamination for the community.

Now, in practice, these are the people who have been resident in the land, YHVH worshippers, who did not come from Babylon, who were not part of the golah elite, who were now to be excldued from the exclusivist religious community who had gained control of the temple and the cult.