Sunday Sermonette: The man grants permission

Ezra 6 probably requires some historical context that the book itself does not provide. Darius was a cousin of Cyrus the great, who usurped the Persian throne in 522 BCE, eight years after the death of Cyrus. So, on the one hand it is plausible that he would not have known about Cyrus ' s orders concerning the Jewish temple and so would have had to search the records, on the other hand the chronology doesn ' t seem entirely plausible. The temple should have been finished, or at least well on the way, by this time. Also, the mention of Ataxerxes, who took the throne in 465 BCE, is entirely anachronistic. The muddled chronology aside, again the key point is that the author is at great pains to emphasize that the temple, and its associated sacrificial rituals, are condoned by the Persian emperor. The King of Judah in the line of David no longer controls. The Jews are now a subject people, dependent on the sanction of a distant pagan emperor for their liberty to worship, and the letter even specifies the dimensions and design of the temple. But the people are depicted as exulting in receiving this license; there is no hint of humiliation, rather we get a scene of triumph. Make of it what you will. I will also note that the letter is actually in Aramaic, and that Hebrew is fading away as a vernacular at this time. By the time the Septuagint was created in the 4th Century BCE, Hebrew was no longer a living language. So the modern state of Israel has not attempted to recre...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs