Ezra and King Cyrus's Edict-Artifact on Tour
Posted: Mon Apr 15, 2013 11:40 am
In case any of you are close. A great opportunity:
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/exhi ... ican-tour/
"The Book of Ezra begins by telling of an edict of King Cyrus of Persia that permitted the Jewish exiles in Babylonia (which Cyrus had just conquered) to go up to Jerusalem in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel, which the Babylonian troops had destroyed, and to return to their homes (Ezra 1:1“4; see also 2 Chronicles 36:22“23; Ezra 5:13“17, 6:3,14). Likewise in the cuneiform inscription of the clay Cyrus Cylinder (c. 539 B.C.E.), which finishes the first leg of a museum tour at the end of April, the Persian king boasts of how he conquered the lands of Babylon and saw to the peoples well-being, including a statement about the holy cities beyond the Tigris whose sanctuaries had been in ruins over a long period, the gods whose abode is in the midst of them, I returned to their places and housed them in lasting abodes. I gathered together all their inhabitants and restored (to them) their dwellings.*