The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 2: Commonly Called the MinorSmith, George Adam
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 2: Commonly Called the Minor
Smith, George Adam
Bible. Minor Prophets -- Commentaries
But this has by no means satisfied all modern critics. Some in the
interests of the authenticity and correct order of the Book of Ezra,
and some for other reasons, argue that the Darius under whom the Temple
was built was Darius II., or Nothus, 423—404, and thus bring down
the building of the Temple and the prophets Haggai and Zechariah a
whole century later than the accepted theory;[528] and that therefore
the Artaxerxes, under whom Ezra and Nehemiah laboured, was not the
first Artaxerxes, or Longimanus (464—424), but the second, or Mnemon
(404—358).[529] This arrangement of the history finds some support
in the data, and especially in the _order_ of the data, furnished by
the Book of Ezra, which describes the building of the Temple under
Darius _after_ its record of events under Xerxes I. (Ahasuerus) and
Artaxerxes I.[530] But, as we shall see in the next chapter, the
Compiler of the Book of Ezra has seen fit, for some reason, to violate
the chronological order of the data at his disposal, and nothing
reliable can be built upon his arrangement. Unravel his somewhat
confused history, take the contemporary data supplied in Haggai and
Zechariah, add to them the historical probabilities of the time, and
you will find, as the three Dutch scholars Kuenen, Van Hoonacker and
Kosters have done,[531] that the rebuilding of the Temple cannot
possibly be dated so late as the reign of the second Darius (423—404),
but must be left, according to the usual acceptation, under Darius I.
(521—485). Haggai, for instance, plainly implies that among those who
saw the Temple rising were men who had seen its predecessor destroyed
in 586,[532] and Zechariah declares that God’s wrath on Jerusalem has
just lasted seventy years.[533] Nor (however much his confusion may
give grounds to the contrary) can the Compiler of the Book of Ezra
have meant any other reign for the building of the Temple than that
of Darius I. He mentions that nothing was done to the Temple _all the
days of Cyrus and up to the reign of Darius_:[534] by this he cannot
intend to pass over the first Darius and leap on three more reigns, or
a century, to Darius II. He mentions Zerubbabel and Jeshua both as at
the head of the exiles who returned under Cyrus, and as presiding at
the building of the Temple under Darius.[535] If alive in 536, they may
well have been alive in 521, but cannot have survived till 423.[536]
These data are fully supported by the historical probabilities. It is
inconceivable that the Jews should have delayed the building of the
Temple for more than a century from the time of Cyrus. That the Temple
was built by Zerubbabel and Jeshua in the beginning of the reign of
Darius I. may be considered as one of the unquestionable data of our
period.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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