Introduction

Our analysis of the potentially relevant textual and artifactual source material concerning when and why the temple was rebuilt in the Persian period is now complete. We have concluded that the account in Ezra 1–6 is not historically reliable and does not reflect the use of any underlying sources that stem directly from this event in its composition. Haggai and Zechariah 1–8, on the other hand, seem to reflect prophecies made in connection with the temple's reconstruction. They have been secondarily arranged at a later time using the temple-building template, and in addition, an even later editor has assigned historically unreliable dates under Darius I and created an artificial gap in the construction process of two years in order to weave together the parallel accounts into a single narrative. The historical prophecies themselves are framed according to standard ancient Near Eastern thought about the temple-building process, leaving us without any reliable information about why the temple would have been rebuilt.

The artifactual evidence reveals an increase in the Persian period of new farmsteads and small hamlets in the regions of Benjamin, the Shephelah, and the central and southern Judean hill-country. A number of forts and relay stations were also constructed within the territory, along the main road from Beersheva to Jerusalem and from Jerusalem to the coastal plain via Lakish. None can be dated specifically to the reign of Artaxerxes I, so this increase in settlement may or may not be the result of policies instituted during his reign.