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15 results

The Theology of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah
  • Roger S. Nam
  • Published online:
    31 October 2024
    Print publication:
    21 November 2024
  • In the opening verses of the Book of Ezra-Nehemiah, King Cyrus exhorts the exiled Judeans to return to Jerusalem to restore worship in Jerusalem. It then narrates this restoration through the construction of the temple, the repair of the city walls, and the commitment to the written Torah. In this volume, Roger Nam offers a new and compelling argument regarding the theology of Ezra-Nehemiah:  that the Judeans' return migration, which extended over several generations, had a totalizing effect on the people. Repatriation was not a single event, but rather a multi-generational process that oscillated between assimilation and preservation of culture. Consequently, Ezra-Nehemiah presents a unique theological perspective. Nam explores the book's prominent theological themes, including trauma, power, identity, community, worship, divine presence, justice, hope, and others – all of which take on a nuanced expression in diaspora.  He also shows how and why Ezra-Nehemiah naturally found a rich reception among emerging early Christian and Jewish interpretive communities.

  • Chapter 3 - The Pull of Tradition

  • K. Scarlett Kingsley, Agnes Scott College, Decatur
  • Book:
    Herodotus and the Presocratics
    Published online:
    07 March 2024
    Print publication:
    14 March 2024, pp 92-116

  • Summary

    The assassination of the False Smerdis in Book 3 and the ensuing constitutional uncertainty offer Herodotus an inflection point to pause and consider the institution of monarchy in Persia in terms of its strengths and weaknesses. This chapter reexamines the speeches given by the conspirators in advance of the coup and its aftermath. In these episodes, Darius undermines a key nomos held by the Persians, their abhorrence of falsehood. Darius does so as a private citizen but given his subsequent rise to the throne, this invites comparison with the Great Kings. Darius’ disregard for nomos opens a philosophical debate on human motivation and self-interest. In a speech to the Persian conspirators, the future monarch defends "egoism," the philosophy that all action is performed to maximize the individual’s self-interest. This view is set alongside orations by the Persians Otanes and Prexaspes, exponents of cooperative action and altruism, respectively. The chapter argues that fifth-century intellectual culture engaged in a spirited interrogation of the individual in relation to self-interest, often in terms of the social contract. The clash between motivation on behalf of the one versus the many will illustrate the complex negotiation in Persia of ruler and ruled, self and society.

  • Chapter 1 - Hesiod and Daimonification in the Archaic and Classical Periods

  • M. David Litwa, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne
  • Book:
    Posthuman Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Thought
    Published online:
    24 December 2020
    Print publication:
    07 January 2021, pp 21-30

  • Summary

    Chapter 1 treats Hesiod (early seventh century BCE), who envisioned the daimonification of the primal (golden) generation of humans. The golden generation was already close to the gods, the “model A” type of human. For Hesiod, it was important that the golden generation was righteous and good. After death, they became guardian daimones that granted gifts to humans. Hesiod also presented the daimonification of an individual, Phaethon. Phaethon represents a type of figure who obtained daimonic status owing to his beauty. Later, however, daimonification was linked with moral forms of excellence. Alcestis, a maiden from Thessaly, became a daimon by her supreme sacrifice, and Pythagoras was venerated as a daimon for his wisdom.

The Theology of the Books of Haggai and Zechariah
  • Robert L. Foster
  • Published online:
    19 October 2020
    Print publication:
    29 October 2020
  • Tucked away at the end of the Minor Prophets, the Books of Haggai and Zechariah offer messages of challenge and hope to residents of the small district of Yehud in the Persian Empire in the generations after the return from Babylonian exile. In this volume, Robert Foster focuses on the distinct theological message of each book. The Book of Haggai uses Israel's foundational event - God's salvation of Israel from Egypt - to exhort the people to finish building the Second Temple. The Book of Zechariah argues that the hopes the people had in the prophet Zechariah's days did not come true because the people failed to keep God's long-standing demand for justice, though hope still lies in the future because of God's character. Each chapter in this book closes with a substantive reflection of the ethics of the major sections of the Books of Haggai and Zechariah and their implications for contemporary readers.

  • 3g - Egypt 525–404 B.C.

  • from 3 - The major regions of the empire
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 254-286

  • Summary

    Egypt may have recognized Darius from 522 onwards. A greater memorial to Darius is his codification of the laws of the Persian Empire, when the satrap was instructed to assemble 'the wise men among the warriors, priests, and all the scribes of Egypt' presumably the last period of normal life in Egypt. The polyglot nature of Achaemenid Egypt is nowhere better shown than in the accounts of the Memphite dockyards, which survive in several fragmentary Aramaic papyri, including the newly-discovered ones from Saqqara. One Egyptian institution created almost intractable problems for any foreign administration: the temples. The new Saqqara texts can add a magnificent marriage document of the eleventh year of Darius, and an interesting record of self-sale or hire to a temple, a practice not otherwise known until much later. The Persian conquest left its impression, shaping the whole of Egyptian foreign policy and determining many of its national attitudes.

  • 3d - The Indus Lands

  • from 3 - The major regions of the empire
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 194-210

  • Summary

    In 517 BC, after the reconquest of Egypt by Darius, that the king of Gandara put in hand a reconnaissance of his eastern frontier, now effectively defined by the river Indus, which so often in subsequent centuries was to represent the boundary between India and Iran. The exact details of the voyage of Scylax of Caryanda, the navigator whose story later became known to the Greek world, have long been a subject of debate among historians in Europe. It has to be noted that no such place as Caspatyrus is known in ancient times along the Indus. A better reading of the name is provided by Stephanus Byzantinus in his entry under Caspapyrus. In any event, the Achaemenid provinces of Arachosia, Sattagydia and Gandara, with the tribal lands of Pactyica, the Aparytae and the Dadicae, and finally the province of Hindus were neatly skirted by the voyage of Scylax on the Indus.

  • 3e - Anatolia

  • from 3 - The major regions of the empire
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 211-233

  • Summary

    The Persian rule over Anatolia under Darius and Xerxes was a continuation of the take-over initiated by Cyrus when he pushed across the Halys to Lydia and captured Sardis. The major problem of controlling Western Anatolia was symbiosis with the Greeks. The districts along the south coast of Anatolia, from Caria to Pamphylia, with their orientation to the Mediterranean and their Bronze Age heritage any more than they had been culturally dominated by Hittites, Phrygians and Lydians. The neighbours of Pamphylia were the inhabitants of the mountainous stretch of Cilicia. The pattern of Persian domination in the heartland of Phrygia, part of the satrapy of Dascylium, can be reconstructed tentatively from the excavations of the citadel and tombs of Gordium. A Pontic blend of Greek and Persian art decorated façades of rock-cut tombs in Paphlagonia in the later fifth and fourth centuries BC.

  • 10 - The expedition of Xerxes

  • from PART II - THE GREEK STATES
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 518-591

  • Summary

    Datis and Artaphernes had shown how vulnerable Athens was to a seaborne attack in order to make a landing on the coast of Attica. Paros was one of the states which had sent a trireme and a crew to serve under Persian command against Athens. Like the Egyptians and the Phoenicians, the Persians relied on huge labour forces for the construction of such public works as the canal dug in the reign of Darius from the Nile to the Red Sea. Persia was justly famous for the royal roads, of which Herodotus described one, from Sardis to Susa. These roads were built by hand by large labour-forces; thus a third of Xerxes' army built a road across the Pierian range. The expeditionary force of Xerxes was certainly much larger than the army left with Mardonius. The Greeks on the League Council had chosen Thermopylae and Artemisium as stations close enough together for intercommunication some weeks before the Persians reached Macedonia.

  • 3a - Babylonia from Cyrus to Xerxes

  • from 3 - The major regions of the empire
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 112-138

  • Summary

    This chapter presents an outline of the history of Babylonia from Cyrus II to Xerxes. The historiographic texts from Babylonia providing an outline of the main political events are very sparse, the major one being the Nabonidus Chronicle, which covers the whole reign of Nabonidus, last king of Babylonia, the rise of Cyrus and his conquest of Babylonia. The major political event which is partly reflected in Babylonian documents is the seizure of royal power by Bardiya, the brother of Cambyses. Bardiya was killed by Darius and his fellow conspirators on 29 September, and no Babylonian text dated by him later than 20 September has yet been found. On Bardiya's assassination Babylonia revolted immediately under the leadership of the Babylonian Nidintu-Bel who took the name Nebuchadrezzar (III). Xerxes' relations with Babylonia have been generally sought in the development of his titulature; the earliest texts like those of his Achaemenid predecessors regularly call him 'King of Babylon and Lands'.

  • 9 - The expedition of Datis and Artaphernes

  • from PART II - THE GREEK STATES
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 491-517

  • Summary

    In the Persian records 'the lands beyond the sea' were mentioned first at the time of Darius' campaign in Europe. In this campaign only some of the Allies were involved. The Allies as a whole were Boeotia, Phocis and the Peloponnesian states, apart from Argos and probably Achaea. For the campaign, Darius appointed Datis, a distinguished Mede, as commander in the field and Artaphernes, his own nephew, as his personal representative. The ratio between the fighting men and the other personnel is much as in the expedition sent by Athens to Sicily. A few days were spent in organizing the base at Eretria. The Greeks were superior in armament for hand-to-hand fighting. The Greeks attacked with a 2.4 metre long spear and a sword, whereas the Persians relied on a short spear and scimitar and on the archery in which they excelled.

  • 3f - Persia in Europe, apart from Greece

  • from 3 - The major regions of the empire
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 234-253

  • Summary

    The revenge motive arising from Scythian attacks on the Medes in Asia a century or so earlier hardly accounts for a Persian king attacking Scythians in Europe. The real intention of Darius was made clear by the building of a bridge across the Bosporus. Darius commemorated the bridge by erecting two columns of white stone with inscriptions in cuneiform and in Greek letters. Herodotus described the campaign from the Scythian point of view, which shows that he relied chiefly on Scythian informants. The existence of a satrapy in Europe, called 'Skudra', is known from Persian inscriptions. The name 'Skudra' was probably Phrygian for the homeland which the Phrygians had left in migrating to Asia. In cultural terms, Thrace looked not to Greece but to Scythia, Asia Minor and Persia. In the last decades of the sixth century large tombs with gifts of gold and silver vessels and jewellery, and sometimes bronze helmets and cuirasses, became much more frequent.

  • 2 - The consolidation of the empire and its limits of growth under Darius and Xerxes

  • from PART I - THE PERSIAN EMPIRE
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 53-111

  • Summary

    Darius and his successors ruled a large land mass containing a bewildering variety of ethnic groups for almost two hundred years. They did it with very little violence and without the need for the almost annual military activity characteristic of the smaller Assyrian empire. Xerxes was a powerful figure, but it would seem that he never lived up to his early promise and was certainly never the king, or perhaps the man, that his father Darius had been. Early in the reign of Xerxes rebellion broke out in Babylon. Whatever the timing or cause of the revolt in Babylon, it is put down with a firm hand. Xerxes sends Megabyxus in command of troops to crush the revolt, which is apparently accomplished in almost no time at all. In the end, Xerxes has the honour to be the first of the great Achaemenid kings to be assassinated.

  • 17 - CLASSIC ACHAEMENIAN ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE

  • Edited by I. Gershevitch
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 June 1985, pp 793-827

  • Summary

    This chapter summarizes the characteristics of classic Achaemenian art as they are revealed in the principal monuments. The proudest monument of Persian art, Persepolis, whose ancient name was Parsa, owed its existence to Darius, a scion of a secondary line of Achaemenians. The combination of truly floral and geometrical motifs in these richly ornamented columns of Persepolis is in contrast to the strictly architectural development which eastern Mediterranean elements like scrolls and hanging sepals have taken in Ionian structures. The Apadana at Persepolis consisted of an immense columnar hall, as well as the furniture store-rooms which were accommodated at the back. The text of the Elamite inscription contained detailed references to the sources of building materials employed in the structure, as well as to craftsmen of different nationalities. In order to view the reliefs and sculptures in the round found at Persepolis and Susa in a stylistic sequence, the earlier works of Darius at Blsutun and Pasargadae must be mentioned.