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Temple Restoration in Early Achaemenid Judah, by Peter Ross Bedford. JSJSup 65. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Pp. xiv + 370. $149.00.
Near the beginning of the Achaemenid Persian period, Judeans returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon to rebuild the temple of Yahweh. The reconstruction of events and issues surrounding the rebuilding of this temple is one of the more contentious areas of discussion in biblical studies. In Temple Restoration in Early Achaemenid Judah, Bedford seeks to understand the initial return to the land and to unravel questions surrounding the temple reconstruction.
As our primary resources for reconstructing events are a limited number of passages from the OT, in particular Ezra 1-6, Haggai, and Zechariah 1-8, significant analysis of each of these texts is provided. To this is added the consideration of what can be determined regarding early Achaemenid Persian administrative practices with regard to conquered territories and their deities, both how these have been previously understood and how that reconstruction might be reconsidered. To round out the topics for analysis, Judean hopes for restoration are addressed.
Two major conceptual understandings have dominated interpretations of this period in the life of Judah. First, based largely on the account of events in Ezra 1-6, the repatriated exiles-and only those from the Babylonian captivity-have been defined as a closed group of temple builders. Opposed to this group are the "people of the land," though variously defined. The tone of relationships between the envisioned groups is then described as confrontational and divisive. The second major building block used to imagine life in the period of the initial return of the exiles is a view of Cyrus as patron rebuilder and restorer of temples throughout his realm. This volume challenges both of these assumptions.
Bedford does not believe that the temple was built with the intention of either legitimating or entrenching social divisions. The ideology of conflict said to surround the initial return of exiles from Babylon to Judah is based on notations concerning local opposition to the temple reconstruction project found in the opening chapters of Ezra, so this is where the author begins. The interpretation of Ezra and Nehemiah is contentious, to say the least. Particularly difficult is the claim of Ezra 1:1-4:5 that the building of the...