Reconstructing Jerusalem

Jerusalem—one of the most contested sites in the world. Reconstructing Jerusalem takes readers back to a pivotal moment in its history when it lay ruined and abandoned and the glory of its ancient kings, David and Solomon, had faded. Why did this city not share the same fate as so many other conquered cities, destroyed and forever abandoned, never to be rebuilt? Why did Jerusalem, disgraced and humiliated, not suffer the fate of Babylon, Nineveh, or Persepolis? Reconstructing Jerusalem explores the interrelationship of the physical and intellectual processes leading to Jerusalem’s restoration after its destruction in 587 B.C.E., stressing its symbolic importance and the power of the prophetic perspective in the preservation of the Judean nation and the critical transition from Yahwism to Judaism. Through texts and artifacts, including a unique, comprehensive investigation of the archaeological evidence, a startling story emerges: the visions of a small group of prophets not only inspired the rebuilding of a desolate city but also of a dispersed people. Archaeological, historical, and literary analysis converge to reveal the powerful elements of the story, a story of dispersion and destruction but also of re-creation and revitalization, a story about how compelling visions can change the fate of a people and the course of human history, a story of a community reborn to a barren city.

The Jewish quarter of Jerusalem today seems like an organic fusion of a modern Israeli city with an ancient Jewish heritage. However, as Simone Ricca details in this fascinating book, the aesthetics of the Jewish Quarter were deliberately planned and executed by Israel after it was occupied during the 1967 war. Secular-nationalist as well as religious politicians agreed that it should be turned in to the capital of the Jewish nation, and that it should be excavated and developed in such a way as to create a sense of continuity with the Jewish people's historical claims to the land. Zionist ideology was thus translated in to bricks and mortar as modern civic amenities were constructed around historic sites, such as the Wailing Wall and the Hurva Synagogue. Ricca examines the politics of heritage conservation, and shows that the Old City's reconstruction did not so much preserve the past as inscribe an identity on to the future.

Darius I, King of Persia, claims to have accomplished many deeds in the early years of his reign, but was one of them the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem? The editor who added the date to the books of Haggai and Zechariah thought so, and the author of Ezra 1-6 then relied on his dates when writing his account of the rebuilding process. The genealogical information contained in the book of Nehemiah, however, suggests otherwise; it indicates that Zerubbabel and Nehemiah were either contemporaries, or a generation apart in age, not some 65 years apart. Thus, either Zerubabbel and the temple rebuilding needs to be moved to the reign of Artaxerxes I, or Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the city walls needs to be moved to the reign of Darius I. In this ground-breaking volume, the argument is made that the temple was built during the reign of Artaxerxes I. The editor of Haggai and Zechariah mistakenly set the event under Darius I because he was influenced by both a desire to show the fulfillment of inherited prophecy and by Darius widely circulated autobiography of his rise to power. In light of the settlement patterns in Yehud during the Persian period, it is proposed that Artaxerxes I instituted a master plan to incorporate Yehud into the Persian road, postal, and military systems. The rebuilding of the temple was a minor part of the larger plan that provided soldiers stationed in the fortress in Jerusalem and civilians living in the new provincial seat with a place to worship their native god while also providing a place to store taxes and monies collected on behalf of the Persian administration.

In the early Achaemenid Persian period, the Jews returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple of Yahweh. This volume investigates issues surrounding the rebuilding of this temple, focusing on the timing and purpose of the project, and the social and political circumstances in which it was undertaken. The study reflects on certain passages from the Old Testament, such as Ezra 1-6, Haggai, and Zechariah 1-8; early Achaemenid Persian administrative practices; and Judean hopes for restoration in order to question the contention that the Jerusalem temple was established as an economic and administrative centre around which competing groups struggled for socio-economic and political power.

Daniel was serving the Babylonian Empire on October 12, 539 BCE, where a great party was underway. Belshazzar, one thousand of his nobles, and their wives were drinking wine from gold cups plundered from the temple at Jerusalem. Suddenly, the fingers of a hand wrote on the wall, Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. That very night, the Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great. The exiled prince, Daniel now served the Persians instead of the Babylonians. Author Sandy Millers Rebuilding Jerusalem examines the biblical, historical, and archaeological record of the Persian Empires relationship with Jewish exiles after they conquered Babylon. Through a series of twelve lectures, it follows 114 years of the Persian Empire, relaying the history of Persian kings who helped various Bible figures preserve the Promised Land for future generations. It includes stories of their unique involvement with the Persian Empire found in the Old Testament books of Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. Rebuilding Jerusalem shows that Israel is a vibrant country today, at least in part because of the ancient Persian Empires involvement in the restoration of the country.

This fascinating, fast-moving overview of contemporary events shows why the Temple is significant in Bible prophecy and how, more than ever, Israel is ready to rebuild.

This book examines temple renovation as a rhetorical topic within royal literature of the ancient Near East. Unlike newly founded temples, which were celebrated for their novelty, temple renovations were oriented toward the past. Kings took the opportunity to rehearse a selective history of the temple, evoking certain past traditions and omitting others. In this way, temple renovations were a kind of historiography. Andrew R. Davis demonstrates a pattern in the rhetoric of temple renovation texts: that kings in ancient Mesopotamia, Israel, Syria and Persia used temple renovation to correct, or at least distance themselves from, some turmoil of recent history and to associate their reigns with an earlier and more illustrious past. Davis draws on the royal literature of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE for main evidence of this rhetoric. Furthermore, he argues for reading the story of Jeroboam I's placement of calves at Dan and Bethel (1 Kgs 12:25-33) as an eighth-century BCE account of temple renovation with a similar rhetoric. Concluding with further examples in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Reconstructing the Temple demonstrates that the rhetoric of temple renovation was a distinct and longstanding topic in the ancient Near East.