Persian period

The archaeological period chosen for investigation was the Persian period, which has received only scant attention. This is partly because of the relative scarcity of archaeological remains, perhaps a consequence of the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests of the land and deportation of important segments of the population. Where Persian remains exist, they have often been partly destroyed by the deep foundations for massive stone architecture erected in the following Hellenistic period (third to first century B.C.). 

From the standpoint of biblical scholarship, the Persian period was important in shaping and developing the Judean community from a defeated nation to a religious entity. However, biblical sources for this period are limited to the brief books of Ezra and Nehemiah, some of the minor prophetic books, and an occasional reference or indirect inference in some later work. 

In the third millenium Tell Hesi covered 37 acres later, only about 8 acres were occupied. In the Persian period, the ceramics indicate continuous occupation, but there is little structural evidence as to its nature. From the sixth century B.C., we find only occupational surfaces. In the fifth century, a sunken square structure was built by the fourth century when the characteristic silos were built, it was partly filled in to be used as a dwelling (6). 

Sherds from the Persian Period Stratum of Tell el-Hesi. The ceramic materials came from field I, areas 1, 2, 3, 11, 21, 31, in phases A, B, C of stratum V (Persian period). Field procedures called for the excavated sherds to be kept in buckets by loci. The buckets were filled with well water, and the sherds were allowed to soak overnight. Any remaining dirt on the sherds was scrubbed off with nylon brushes and clean well water. Washed sherds were dried in the sun, and representative types were selected to be registered, labelled, and drawn. 

The literature describes in Palestine during the Persian period fragments of large bowls (20-30 cm in diameter) named mortoria. On the... 

Amiran, R., Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land, Masada Press, Jerusalem, 1969. Lapp, P. W., The Pottery of Palestine in the Persian Period in Archaologie und Alles Testament, A. Kuschke and E. Kutsch, Eds., pp. 179-197, J. C. B. Mohr, Tubingen, 1970. 

Shovm, (1994) Shoval, S. The firing temperature of a Persian-period pottery kiln at Tel-Michal, Israel, estimated from the composition of its pottery Journal ofThermal Analysis 42 1 (1994) 175-185... 

As in 41 1-16, this second disputation is followed by a discourse in which the Servant of Yahweh is first presented to the public (42 1-4), then addressed directly (42 5-9). Duhm s identification of 42 1-4 as the first of his four ebed-Jakwe Dichtungen, composed by a disciple of Second Isaiah in late Persian period Judah, has had the effect, even on those who do not accept his interpolation theory, of isolating this brief passage from its literary context. Read in the context proposed above, 42 1-7 or 42 1-9 would corresponds to 41 8-16 as an address to Israel, Servant of Yahweh, following on the presentation... 

Hanson, Dawn, 71-76, 212, 217-27, Joseph Blenkinsopp, A Jewish Sect of the Persian Period, esq 52 (1990) 5-20 Idem, Sage, Priest, Prophet Religious and Intellectual Leadership In Ancient Israel (Library of Ancient Israel Louisville, ky wjk, 1995), 92. 

John Kessler, Persia s Loyal Yahwists Power Identity and Ethnicity in Achaemenid Yehud," in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, ed. Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming (Winona Lake, IN Eisenbrauns, 2006), 91-121. 

Katherine E. Southwood, Ethnicity and the Mixed Marriage Crisis in Ezra 9-10 An Anthropological Approach (otm Oxford Oxford University Press, 2012), 41-56,191-211. There are no clear reasons to reject the claim that they came around 520 bce. See further Lester L. Grabbe, They Shall come Rejoicing to Zion —or Did They The Settlement of Yehud in The Early Persian Period, in Exile and Restoration Revisited Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter K Ackroyd, ed. Gary N. Knoppers and Lester L. Grabbe, with Deirdre Fulton (lsts 73 London T T Clark, 2009), 116-37 (ii9> 125). 

Jill Middlemas, Going beyond the Myth of the Empty Land A Reassessment of the Early Persian Period, in Exile and Restoration Revisited,174- 4 (esp. 183-84). 

Judahite community and to assmne a conflict between the two, along the hnes of the (later) conflict attested in Ezra i-6. The main problem with this view, however, is that The Others in Isaiah 56-59 65-66 constitute the leaders. Unless we assume that the indigenous Judahite population held the key religious, economic, and cultic positions in early Persian period Yehud, a view which we rejected above as unlikefy, this theory becomes untenable. If, on the other hand, chapters 40-55 are the product of the Judahite community, then it makes sense to identify The Others in chapters 56-59 65-66 with the newly returned exilic leadership. The authors of Isaiah 40-55 anticipated the return of the exiles with joy. The later authors of Isaiah 56-59 65-66 expressed their disappointment with those same exiles with bitterness and grief. 

Without doubt the biblical information about the Persian Period is hopelessly confused, and it has been even more compromised by recent studies of Jerusalem in the Persian Period. As usual there seem to be two Israeli schools among historians and archaeologists, one (mainly with the Efebrew University in Jerusalem as their alma mater) arguing that what we find in Nehemiah about his rebuilding of the city walls is basically foimded on historical facts, and the other (mainly from Tel Aviv University) claiming that the information in Nehemiah is just as mythic as most other so-called historical information about ancient Israel—in itself a mythical concept. ... 

The debate has recently centred on two, or perhaps three, proposals concerning Jerusalem in the Persian period. On one hand Israel Finkelstein has spoken about a Jerusalem in the Persian period, mostly an unfortified settlement of a couple of hectares, with a population of some five hundred people. Oded Lipschits has, for his part, enlarged the estimate of the size of Jerusalem... 

I. Finkelstein, Persian Period Jerusalem and Yehud Rejoinders, in Focusing Biblical Studies The Crucial Nature of the Persian and Hellenistic Periods. EsscQts in Honor of Douglas A. Knight, ed. J. Berquist and A. Hunt (London T T Clark, 2012), 49-62. Cf Also... 

Deuteronomistic History had its in Jerusalem in pre-exilic times. However, very few will today subscribe to the idea, current a generation ago, that history writing began under the united monarchy of David and especially Solomon. This is for good reason, as the situation in Jerusalem in the tenth century BCE, the asserted time of David, was not very different from the situation in the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods Jerusalem was at the most no more than a handet or a very small town. ... 

Jon L. Berquist, Identities and Empire Historiographic Questions for the Deuteronomistic History in the Persian Period, in Historiography and Identity (Re)Formulation in Second Temple Historiographical Literature, ed. Louis C.Jonker (New York T T Clark International,... 

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