Settlements, archaeological remains

On one point the information in 2 Kgs 25 12 about those who remained in the land as the poorest and most destitute part of the population seems precise and concurs well with the archaeological picture of Judah after the fall of Jerusalem. Practically every major settlement in the country was demolished. Organized society was totalfy destroyed. What was left was a population engaged in basic food production with very little in the way of an organized administration to support it with an infrastructure. Any possibility of the survival of an intellectual group of people able to carry on a written tradition seems out of the question, at least in Judah. If we are to look for places where the survival of the tradition that later developed into the biblical writings was... 

---