Allahabad Bible Seminary

60/64 Stanley Road Prayagraj

Subject: The Life and Faith of The People Of God: Old Testament (BBO13)

Topic: 7. Return, Restoration and Reconstruction under Persian Empire

e. A critical appraisal: Jewish racial- cultural nationalism.

f. Judaism under Persian rule: a postcolonial appraisal.

Submitted to: Mrs. Akansha Makkasaray

Submitted by: Joseph M.

Abner David Newton

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e. A critical appraisal: Jewish racial-cultural nationalism.

Introduction: As we all know Israelites were struggled under many conquers, mainly under
the Persians. Though they were struggled, but they made an advantage. In this paper we
going to see something about the postcolonial appraisal, how they came out from the exile of
Persians and reconstruction of the new temple.
1. Jews in the ancient world:
During the first millennium B.C the Jews watched their country emerged as a powerful
state only to see it sink into spiritual and moral decay. Following the Babylonian conquest in
586 B.C the temple lay in ruins, Jerusalem was demolished and they despaired of their fate
when in 538 B.C King Cyrus of Persia permitted the Jews to return to their former home, the
nation underwent a transformation. The temple was rebuilt and religious reforms were
enacted.1
2. The Community:
During the Babylonian exile the emergence of Jewish institutions established the pattern for
latter communal development throughout the diaspora. As early as they second century B.C
Jews in Alexandria formed their own corporation with a council which conducted it’s affairs
in conformity with Jewish law, builds synagogues and sent taxes collected for the temple to
Jerusalem.
With the destruction of the second temple in A.D 70, Jewish life underwent a major
transformation. In Israel the patriarchate together with the Sanhedrin served as the central
authority; in Babylonia the exilarch was the leader of the community along with the heads of
Rabbinical academies. In its daily life jury was bound by the Jewish law and synagogues, law
courts, school and ritual baths constituted the framework for common life.2
3. Jewish Literature:
During the second temple period and afterwards, a large number of other books were written
by Jews in Hebrew, Aramic and Greek which were not included in the biblical canon. After
the Babylonian exile, a new phase of Jewish writing began. As tradition relates, this shift in
Jewish life was initiated and carried on by the Men of the Great Assembly and the Scribe, and
subsequently by the rabbis.3
4. Worship:
In ancient times Jewish communal worship centred on the temple in Jerusalem. Twice daily –
in the morning and afternoon – the priests offered prescribed sacrifices while Levites chanted
psalms. The morning prayer ( shaharit ) and afternoon prayer ( minhah ) cor-respond with the
daily and afternoon sacrifice; evening prayer ( maariv ) corresponds with the nightly burning
of fats limbs.4

1
Dan Cohn-sherbok, The Jewish Faith (Great Britain: Holy Trinity Church, 1993), 9.
2
Ibid 20
3
Ibid 21
4
Ibid 25

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5. Marriage:
According to traditions, marriage is Gods’ plan for humanity, as illustrated by the story of
Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis. In the Jewish faith it is viewed as a sacred bond as
well as a means to personal fulfilment. The purpose of marriage is to build a home, create a
family and thereby perpetuate society. By the second temple times, there was a degree of
choice in the selection of a bride – on 15th of Av and the Atonement, young men could select
their brides from among the girls dancing in the vineyards.5
6. The Home:

In Judaism religious observance in the home is of fundamental importance. As head of the

family, the father is to exercise authority over his wife and children. He is obligated to
circumcise his son, redeem him if he is first-born, teach him Torah, marry him off and teach
him a craft. Further he is required to serve as a role model for the transmission of Jewish
ideals to his offspring.

Regarding Jewish women, the prevailing sentiment is that the role of the wife is to bear
children and exercise responsibility for family life. According to the Halakhah, womanhood
is a separate status with its own specific sets of rules, obligation and responsibilities.

Children are expected to carry out the commandment to honor and respect their parents.
For the rabbis, the concept of honor refers to providing parents with food, drink, clothing and
transportation. Reverence requires that a child does not sit in his parents' seat, nor interrupt
them, and takes their side in a dispute.6

7. Ethics:

In the Jewish religion, ethical values are of primary concern. For Jews moral action is
fundamental - it is through the rule of the moral law that Gods' kingdom can be realized. The
goal of the history of the world in which Gods' chosen people have a historical mission to be
a light to the nations.7

8. Festivals:

The three regular festivals observed before the exile became customary when the Jews
returned to Jerusalem: the Passover, Pentecost, and the feat of the booths. These three
festivals were times of pilgrimage, when Jews living outside Judah would visit Jerusalem.8

f. Judaism under Persian rule: a postcolonial appraisal.

5
Ibid 33
6
Ibid 35
7
Ibid 38
8
Hinson, Old Testament introduction I. History of Israel,133

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1. The Reorganization of Life under Persian Influence:

For the next half century after the dedication of the new temple we have practically no
information about the history of Israel. There was a plan for reorganization, which probably
arose among the exiles in Babylonia.

The Persian government in the need for reorganization in Palestine. Certainly the Persians
themselves had no personal knowledge of the nature of the regulations which were important
for Israel. But they were probably able to understand the importance of consolidating the
situation in Palestine and particularly in the land of Judah. In a word, it is clear that the
Persians were interested in restoring stability in the land of Judah and in Palestine. It is easy
to unravel the traditional records concerning Ezra and Nehemiah. The tradition concerning
Nehemiah is much more certain and fruitful than that concerning Ezra. Nehemiah therefore
went to Jerusalem for the first time in the year 445B.C. The Ezra document and the
Nehemiah memoirs, make no reference to any such co-operation. Since the reorganization of
life in the religious community in Jerusalem with which both Ezra and Nehemiah were
particularly concerned, emerged as an urgent problem about the middle of the 5 th century and
was also recognized as such by the Persians. It might well be the case that the Chronicler only
put Ezra first and made him work simultaneously with Nehemiah because Ezras’ special task
seemed to him more urgent and important. Nehemiah was descended from the group of exiles
in Babylonia. He had reached the position of a royal cup-bearer in Susa, one of the Persian
royal cities. This gave him the opportunity of direct access to the kings’ person. He is the soul
concrete example Known to us of the way in which it was possible to obtain the Persian
kings’ interest in Jerusalem’s’ affairs. He used the good-will which he evidently enjoyed with
his king to have himself sent on an official mission to Jerusalem to restore the walls of
Jerusalem. He finally arrived in Jerusalem with a military escort of horsemen and their
officers. He appeared in Jerusalem not only with a special mission, but also with an official
position which the king had conferred on him. He became governor of the province of Judah,
and he remained in Jerusalem long after his special mission of building the walls had been
fulfilled.9

2. The Life of the Jerusalem Religious Community in the Persian period:

For two centuries Israel, together with the whole of the Near East lived under Persian rule.
The material handed down about the reform of public worship in Jerusalem resulting from
Cyruss’ decree, and about Nehemiahs’ governorship in the province of Judah in the third
quarter of the 5th century, finally about Ezras’ mission in the period immediately after
Nehemiah. Ezra carried out his task in Jerusalem not as the capital of the province of Judah
but as the center of the Israelite religion. The period of Persian was, however, of quite
fundamental importance for Israel inasmuch as reforms took place in the most varied spheres.
It was during the Persian period that the Jerusalem cultus acquired. After Cyrus had given
instructions for the rebuilding of the sanctuary, Jerusalem became the religious center not
only for the Israelites living in the vicinity but for those scattered throughout the world. In
Jerusalem there ruled a priestly hierarchy with the ‘High Priest’. A body of temple servants
9
Martin Noth, The History Of Israel (New York: A. and C. Black Ltd, 1958), 316- 322.

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consisting of ‘Levites’ was formed after the restoration of the sanctuary.

Not surprisingly, Priests and Levites were concentrated in Jerusalem around the
sanctuary. Public worship itself also assumed new forms during the Persian period. The
Persian kings granted special privileges to the sanctuary by meeting the cost of part of the
materials needed for sacrifice and by causing prayers to be made in the sanctuary ‘for their
lives’. They probably left it to the religious community itself to organize its worship in
accordance with tradition. The Persian period was important because it saw beginnings of the
canonization of a particular literature. It is certain that it was in this period that the Pentateuch
not only acquired essentially its definitive form but also became a holy book which was
binding on the whole Jerusalem religious community. The Persian period clearly had, in
many respects, a decisive influence on the later course of Israelite history and Israelite life.
After the decline and fall of the old order in the historical events of the Assyrian and Neo-
Babylonian period, and new beginning and a re-ordering took place in the Jerusalem religious
community as a consequence of the instructions for the reconstruction of the sanctuary in
Jerusalem which Cyrus issued in his very first year. 10

3. Persia’s Authority in the World:

While the Babylonians were ruling the southern part of the old Assyrian Empire, the Medes
were in control of the north. For about seventy years these two empires existed side by side
without openly fighting each other. The kings of Media (Cyaxares and Astyages) were too
busy trying to gain power over other neighbouring nations to be concerned with affairs in the
Babylonian empire. And the Babylonians did not usually interfere in the affairs of the Median
Empire, except that in 585 BC Nebuchadnezzar prevented the Medes from seizing the
kingdom of Lydia, in the area now known as Turkey. However, in 550 BC great Changes
came. Astyages led the Median army against the Elamites, who were ruled at the time by a
Persian king called Cyrus. The attack was disastrous for the Medes; Cyrus was too powerful
and too popular to be defeated. He was able to drive off the Medes, and he then went on to
attack and conquer them in their own territory. Soon Cyrus had made himself king in
Ecbatana, and also claimed authority in the Median empire. Cyrus defeated the Babylonians
at Opis on the River Tigris in 539 B.C., and his army commander captured Babylon itself a
few days later, without much fighting. Nabonidus fled, but was captured. The Babylonians
welcomed Cyrus as a great hero, and as a servant of the god Marduk. He himself had the
story of this victory recorded on a stone cylinder. We have no details of how Cyrus took
charge of the Babylonian empire. This Persian Empire lasted for about two hundred years.
The Persians’ most dangerous enemies were Egypt and Greece. Cyrus’s son, Cambyses,
managed to conquer Egypt in 525 BC. But the people of Egypt were never content to remain
under Persian rule. They frequently rebelled, often with help from Greece, and between 401
and 342 BC the Egyptians regained their independence. They lost it again, however, before
the Persian Empire was eventually destroyed. 11

10
Ibid 337-345.
11
Hinson, Old Testament introduction I. History of Israel, 147-156.

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4. The Rebuilding Of Judah:
Jeremiah had taught that hope for the future of God’s people lay with those who had been
taken away into exile in Babylon. Even after the third deportation some of the people were
still left in Judah, but these were the least skilled or qualified. All their leaders had been taken
to Babylon, or else had escaped as refugees. Some form of worship was probably continued
in the ruined temple in Jerusalem, but there was little there which could give hope for future
days. In Babylon, too, the morale of the Jewish community was very low, even though the
leaders were introducing religious practices which the people could follow when they were
away from Judah and Jerusalem. The exiled Jews were still downhearted about the
destruction of Jerusalem, and especially of the Temple. Many of them could not believe that
God still cared for His people, and they lost hope. They doubted whether God could do
anything for His people, even if he chose to. The victories of the Babylonians and the security
of their rule seemed to show that Marduk was more powerful than the Lord. 12
5. The Return to Jerusalem:
The challenging words of these two prophets should have brought hope and enthusiasm to all
the Israelites, but as far as we can tell they did not. Cyrus did come to Babylon in 539 BC, as
we have seen. He did authorize the Jews to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem; and he decreed
that the sacred vessels which the Babylonians had looted from the temple should be returned,
and that money for the rebuilding should be provided from the royal treasury. Cyrus also
authorized those who were willing among the Jews to return to their own land to carry out the
work, and encouraged those who remained in Babylon to contribute to the cost of their going.
Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah, probably the son of Jehoiachin, was leader of the first Jews
who did return to Jerusalem. Zerubbabel, grandson of Jehoiachin, led a second, larger group
of Jews back to Palestine, An early historian records that they were ‘not willing to leave their
possessions’. 13

6. The Rebuilding of the Temple:

In the year 520 BC two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, came to Jerusalem urging the people
to rebuild the Temple. They believed that the hardships and difficulties which those who
returned from the exile had suffered were the direct result of their selfishness and greed. If
they would only think about God instead of themselves, and rebuild the temple, all would be
different. Both men taught that God was about to upset the nations of the world. Both
prophets foretold that when that day came the Temple would be established in all its’ ancient
glory, all nations would share in the worship of the Lord.
The people of Judah responded to this challenge, and they rebuilt the Temple in four
years. Palestine became part of the province called ‘Beyond the River’. The Persian ruler of
this area, Tattenai, was greatly disturbed by the rebuilding activity in Jerusalem. He reported
the matter to Darius, who checked the court records, and found proof that Cyrus had
authorized the rebuilding of the Temple. So the Temple was completed. It did not have the

12
Ibid
13
Ibid

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same beauty and strength of design or richness of decoration as the first Temple, built in
Solomon’s time. But at least the Jews had a proper center for sacrificial worship again.14

Conclusion: Now we have read about the critical appraisal of the Jews and also we have a
good understanding about it now. So we are now well know about their struggles that they
went through. Including the rebuilding of the temple and its procedures. So this how it was in
those years and times it was very difficult to be free. They didn’t have any freedom in them.
They were over burdened with their taskmasters.

Bibliography:
SHERBOK. COHN, THE JEWISH FAITH. (GREAT BRITAIN, 1993)
LEANEY, A. R. C.THE JEWISH AND THE CHRISTIAN WORLD (UNIVERSITY OF
CAMBRIDGE, 1584)
HINSON F. DAVID, OLD TESTAMENT INTRODUCTION I, THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL.
(LONDON, 1973)
NOTH MARTIN, THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL. (NEW YORK, 1958)

14
Ibid.

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