An Empire Far and Wide

Download or read book An Empire Far and Wide written by Professor of Religion and Director of Jewish Studies Mark A Leuchter and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-11-27 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The uncertain position of the Persian Period in Jewish memory is nothing new -- in fact, it can be traced back to nearly two thousand years. Yet it can lead contemporary scholars to exercise too much caution when dating, analyzing, and discussing ancient scribal texts. Utilizing recent tools to examine scribal methods, Mark Leuchter takes a definitive approach. An Empire Far and Wide focuses on a careful selection of literary test cases to better understand how Jewish scribes in Persian Yehud interacted with a feature of Persian imperialism that has not received adequate attention: the dynastic mythology of the Achaemenid rulers and the way it shaped emerging Jewish identity in the Persian period.