IV. Interrelation of Data

(a) Intricacy of parallels. The intricacy of the list E 2. N 7. for the history of Cyrus, Darius (E) and Artaxerxes does not stand alone. The close connexion in the narratives relating to Cyrus and Darius appears in E 3:7 compared with E 4:48, in 3:1 with E 5:6, and in E 3:2 with E 5:4–6. The Temple, according to Hag. and Zech., was not commenced before the time of Darius, in contrast to E 3.; but the laments in E 3:12 in the time of Cyrus curiously recall Hag. 2:3 seqq. The social and religious reorganization implied in E 2:59, 62, 6:21 finds a parallel in the reforms of E, and while E 2:70, 3:1, introduce the erection of the altar, the text in E 5:46 seq. presupposes a later period, and in fact these verses in N 7:73, 8:1, form the prelude to the Reading of the Law. The latter event is the sequel to the record of a return (N 7.) which in E 9. is that of E himself. E 3. is unhistorical, and has probably been influenced by material relating to the time of N; thus Meyer (73, 99) points to N 8:17 seq., and Jahn compares 3:10–13 with N 12:40–3. The account of the opposition in E 4. is untrustworthy, and there is a marked resemblance between the details and N 4., 6., enhanced by the insertion in E 4:7–24 of a record of the time of Artaxerxes. This record attests a return of some importance, which, however, has yet to be identified, and while the decrees of Cyrus and Darius agree (cf. also Artaxerxes and E) in presenting several very similar features (Torrey, 125 seqq., 158; Bayer, 117 seqq.), the historical basis for any decree on the lines they take cannot be found in their reigns. For parallels in the stories of E and N see above, p. 9 (d). Such is the interrelation of the contents that it is hardly surprising that later sources should not infrequently combine Zerubbabel and Ezra (Lag. 18; Torrey, 49 n. 17) and that both should be united with Jeshua in a return in the time of Darius (Lag. 84). Even N 12:47 looks back and mentions together Zerubbabel and N (see Berth.); and if Hashabiah and Sherebiah in N 12:24 may be identified with the names in E 8:18 seq., Joiakim (son of Jeshua) and E appear to be correlated much in the same way that N 12:12–26 seem to confuse the times of Joiakim, N and E (see also the view of Kosters, 91 seq.).

(b) Some modern views. The endeavour to recover the historical facts has led to very divergent conclusions among modern scholars. One favourite view has retained Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes in E 4., between Cyrus and Darius, by the simple device of changing the names or of assuming an alternative nomenclature. Equally popular has been the theory that Artaxerxes and Darius are to be identified with the second bearer of each name, and, indeed, this may have been the view of the compiler or writer (see Torrey, 38 seq., 178 seq.). Although this leaves an astonishing gap between Cyrus and Darius II, the belief that the Artaxerxes of the stories of N and E was the later king (404–359 b.c.) has found very weighty support (de Saulcy, Maspero, Hoonacker, and Howorth [partly], Marq., H. P. Smith [382], &c., see further Berth., 30; and PSBA;, 23. 319 seqq.). It has also been proposed to identify the Cyrus of the narratives with Darius and Darius with Art. I, and so close is the interconnexion of events that N 8–10. has been placed in the time of Zerubbabel, and the whole of E-N (extending from 537 to 432) has been compressed within a few years (see H. Winckler, Helmholt’s World’s Hist. 3. 216 seq., and the summaries in Jampel, 2:1 seq.). Others hold that Zer. first returned in the time of Darius, and that E 3:8 seqq. properly belongs to that later period. Moreover, the historical and prophetical writings are necessarily co-ordinated, and thus Hag. and Zech. have appeared to some to be of or about the time of Cyrus, although if Darius be D. II they are brought down to (about) 423–404 (see Howorth, PSBA, 23. 324). So, also, the prophecies in Is. 40–66., are subdivided and connected with the history of the times of Cyrus and Artaxerxes, although, under the influence of another theory of the history, the chapters are once more treated as virtually a whole, either relatively early (c. 537–520; Sellin, Stud. 160; Rothstein) or relatively late (H. P. Smith, 371 n. 1, 379 n. 3; Torrey, 288 n. 8, 314; Kennett). In contrast to these efforts to overcome the difficulties are the views of those scholars who do not admit the intricacies but continue to maintain the essential trustworthiness of E-N, the unhistorical character of Chron. itself being, nevertheless, almost unanimously realized. In so far as this is based upon the manner in which the narratives appear to be mutually confirmatory—cf. the conservative attitude to the criticism of the Pentateuch—and superficially, at least, consistent, it is necessary to observe that the chronicler’s history is singularly simple compared with the forms taken in E, or in Jos., or in the traditions that prevailed elsewhere in ancient times.

(c) Some ancient views. Jos., who is well-informed on the last Babylonian kings, asserts that the kingdom fell to Cyrus the Persian and Darius the Mede; the two were kinsmen and the latter, whose father was Astyages, had another name among the Greeks (x. 11 2, 4). Cyrus, son of Cambyses, was the father of the better-known Cambyses; his mother, according to tradition, was the sister of Cyaxares and daughter of Astyages. Astyages, the last Median king, was the son of Cyaxares and was defeated by Cyrus. But this name is also given by Alexander Polyhistor and others to Cyaxares (c. 624–584), the founder of the Median empire, who took part with Nabopolassar in the attack upon Assyria.1 When the father of Darius is called Ahasuerus (Dan. 9:1; cf. the synopsis, Lag. 15, where he is born of Vashti), and the latter and Nebuchadrezzar capture Nineveh (Tobit 14:15), the names Ahasuerus and Cyaxares have evidently been confused (Rawlinson). The Ahasuerus of Esther was certainly placed soon after the deportation of Jehoiachin by Nebuchadrezzar (so 2:5 seq.), but in Judith 4:1–6 the last-mentioned reigns over the Medes at a time when the Jews had recently returned from captivity and the high-priest was one Joiakim. The historical foundation for Esther’s king can only be Xerxes, although Jos., LXX, and early writers identify him with Artaxerxes. Jos., moreover, states that he was also called Cyrus—in Dan. 5:31, 6:28, Darius the Mede becomes king after the fall of Babylonia and is followed by Cyrus—and gives the name Xerxes to the Artaxerxes of the stories of E and N. The difficulty of distinguishing the names would obviously be increased by the fact that Darius I was actually followed by Xerxes (485–465), and D. II (423–404) by Art. II (404–359), and that D. II had a son Cyrus, famous for the unsuccessful expedition against his elder brother Art. II. Not to pursue the confusing details further, it is enough to notice that the later historians had behind them a series of events of vital importance. During a relatively brief period the power of Assyria was broken up, Scythians and Medes entered into W. Asiatic politics, a new Babylonian empire was restored only to fall before the Persian régime under Cyrus; a little more than a century later another Cyrus created a turmoil in W. Asia (400), and finally the Greeks, who had been gradually coming into closer touch with the Oriental world, established a new age under Alexander the Great. How soon history became enwrapped in legend is obvious from Herodotus and Xenophon (fifth century b.c.) and from Ctesias, who is even said to have drawn upon Persian records. Jos., for his part, endeavoured to reduce the confusion into some order; the Seder Olam (ch. 30) ingeniously identifies all the Persian kings: Cyrus, Darius, Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes—Dan. 11:2 knows only of four—and the whole of the Persian age from the restoration of the Temple to the time of Alexander the Greek was even compressed into a few decades. The appearance of simplicity in the chronicler’s history of the period is misleading; see further § 6 e.