The return from exile
Cyrus permits the exiles to go home, and the Second Temple is built.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 22 years
- Known to
- ± 5 years
- Era
- Iron Age, Holocene
Following the Persian conquest of Babylon, Judean exiles are permitted to return to Jerusalem and rebuild, with the Second Temple completed around 516 BCE. Many do not go. The community that results is a Persian province with a temple at its centre and a growing body of authoritative text, and the diaspora that stays in Babylon becomes a major centre of Jewish scholarship for the next 1,500 years.