2/8/11 Lecture 11

In today’s lecture we covered the Persian period in Jerusalem. The Persian period lasted from 539 – 333 BCE and marked the beginning of the “2^nd Temple” Period which lasted from 539 BCE - 70 CE. The sources of information we have from this period are mostly biblical. There are no non-biblical texts from this period that deal directly with Jerusalem. The biggest problem for Judaism at this point is finding a foundation for their beliefs without a temple. This comes with the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of a new Ark of the Covenant. While his vision was very far out there, what it did was signify the reemergence of God as a mobile being. This brings up the question, what happened to the old Ark? While this topic is greatly disputed, Professor Cargill thinks that it was most likely destroyed during the religious reforms of either Hezekiah or Josiah. There seems to be no evidence to support anybody’s claims on this issue as the Ark simply disappeared from the text after it was placed in the temple.

Next we talked about King Cyrus, the Persian king that conquered the Babylonians. In an effort to be viewed as a liberator and not a conqueror he set the Judean Exiles free. He also gave them money and told them to return home and rebuild their temple. This is tough for the Judeans because they had to rationalize history even if it meant naming a foreign king as God’s chosen deliverer. This is also where we see Judaism split into so many different schools of thought. This is probably because of the Zoroastrian influence that came from their time in exile in Babylon.  Also, while the Hebrew Bible says that God sent Cyrus, the Cyrus cylinder says that the Babylonian god Marduk fought with him to conquer Babylon.

All this time, back in Jerusalem, the people are learning to live just fine without a temple. When the exiled return there is a lot of disagreement as to whether they need another temple. In the end they do build another temple. This temple however, did not match the splendor of the first temple as the city was poor and under populated. They were also facing a heavy tax from the Persians at this time and the city was divided into people who had different opinions about the temple.