Organization of Jewish Worship in Jerusalem During the Teispid Period

Abstract

The focus of this article is the testimony of the book of Ezra (Ezra 3, 1–6) about the construction of an altar in Jerusalem under Cyrus II (539–530 BC) by the Jews of the first waves of repatriation. The restoration of the cult of Yahweh in Yehud was not only of religious significance, but also played an important role in the administrative and political forms of the Jewish community and in resolving the socio-economic situation in the southern Levant. However, before Darius Hystaspes (522–486 BC), there were no conditions for the construction of a temple, which would become the center of unification of the Jews of this region in the civil-temple community. Based on the text of the book of Ezra, it seems that the construction of the open altar in the first year of Cyrus the Great is the beginning of the construction of the Jerusalem temple. The beginning of the construction of the temple under Cyrus II in the absence of sufficient material resources, Divine sanction in the form of prophecy and clearly formulated royal sanction causes justified criticism in the scientific literature. In addition, the consecration of the altar in the open air contradicted the usual order of consecration of the temple, in which the consecration of the altar occurred at the very end, after the construction of the temple walls, and was combined with the investiture of the priests of this temple. All this casts doubt on the ancient reliability of the text of Ezra 3, 1–6. However, researchers of the initial period of the Second Temple era do not pay attention to ancient Israelite liturgical practices with their gradation of sacred places. The article attempts to explain the message of the indicated pericope of the book of Ezra in the ninth variety of Old Testament liturgical practices and systems of places adapted for worship. According to the hypothesis put forward in this education, the altar discussed in the indicated Conservative narrative could indeed have been built in the reign of Cyrus II, but it was not the altar of the restored Jerusalem Temple, a single altar with limited liturgical functionality.