Diana Edelman is a senior lecturer in the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield.

'Edelman's book provides a major challenge to the scholarly consensus about the 'origins' of the Second Temple. It will stimulate much discussion.' - Review of Biblical Literature

• Introduction 1. When Generations Really Count: Dating Zerubbabel and Nehemiah using Genealogical Information in the Book of Nehemiah 2. What’s in a Date? The Unreliable Nature of the Dates in Haggai and Zechariah 3. It’s all in the Sources: The Historicity of the Account of Temple-Rebuilding in Ezra 1–6 4. Setting the Bounds: The Territory Comprising Yehud under Artaxerxes I in the Mid-Fifth Century BCE 5. Excavating the Past: Settlement Patterns and Military Installations in Persian-Era Yehud 6. Piety or Pragmatism? The Policy of Artaxerxes I for the Development of Yehud

Diana Edelman is a senior lecturer in the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield.

'Edelman's book provides a major challenge to the scholarly consensus about the 'origins' of the Second Temple. It will stimulate much discussion.' - Review of Biblical Literature

• Introduction 1. When Generations Really Count: Dating Zerubbabel and Nehemiah using Genealogical Information in the Book of Nehemiah 2. What’s in a Date? The Unreliable Nature of the Dates in Haggai and Zechariah 3. It’s all in the Sources: The Historicity of the Account of Temple-Rebuilding in Ezra 1–6 4. Setting the Bounds: The Territory Comprising Yehud under Artaxerxes I in the Mid-Fifth Century BCE 5. Excavating the Past: Settlement Patterns and Military Installations in Persian-Era Yehud 6. Piety or Pragmatism? The Policy of Artaxerxes I for the Development of Yehud