ABSTRACT
By any reckoning the Persian period was a seminal episode in Jewish history. Despite the fact that great sections of it are largely blank, we have some direct evidence of the changes that were going on and a good deal of indirect evidence of what began in this period but for which the actual attestation is documented only later. The accumulation of evidence-direct and indirect-makes us view this period as extremely significant for the character taken on by Second Temple religion and the directions in which it was to move during the subsequent centuries.
