The Complementary Nature of the Bible and Ancient Cuneiform Texts in the Persian Period
About 50 years after the first temple was destroyed, a group of Jews set out from Babylon to rebuild the second. Ancient tablets discovered in the area around ancient Babylon reveal that many, if not most, of the Jewish people decided to stay put, some even living in a town named after their former homeland: Al-Yahudu (“Judah Town”).
Although the Bible and the tablets are different styles of texts, Prof. Tova Ganzel of Bar-Ilan University believes the information they provide is complementary to each other, with the tablets providing a helpful cultural backdrop to the biblical books. On today’s program, Brent Nagtegaal interviews Professor Ganzel about her new research synthesizing the 2,500-year-old tablets with the biblical text.
Show Notes
“The Judean Community Within the Persian Imperial Framework: Insights From Biblical and Extrabiblical Sources,” by Prof. Tova Ganzel