This page was migrated in July 2022 from my older website, biblicalambiguities.net.
22 July 2022 - 11 September 2022
The Persian Empire is relevant to biblical history due to its ruling over Yehud from 539 to 332 BCE. In biblical studies, this two-century span is known as the Persian Period.
In 587/6, the Babylonian Empire conquered Judah and destroyed its Temple. It exiled the elite of Judah to Babylon, in what is known as the Babylonian exile. The exile came to an end, in the view of the biblical writers, when in 539 Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon. He allowed the Judahite elite to return to Judah and reestablish a Second Temple in Jerusalem.
As a result, the Bible generally condemns the Babylonian empire and praises the Persian one. The Primary History ends in the Babylonian captivity. Chronicles almost does the same, but ends with the notice that Cyrus had come to power and adopted a friendlier policy towards the Jews. Ezra-Nehemiah picks up this thread and narrates the rebuilding of Jerusalem and its temple under Persian rule. Not all Jews returned, though. Esther, although fictional, is a book about Jews who continued to live in the diaspora within the Persian Empire.
The Persian Period came to an end in 332, when Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire. This began the Hellenistic Period, which left little direct trace in the Hebrew Bible, outside of the book of Daniel, written in the 160's when the Maccabean rebellion was casting off Hellenistic rule.
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