Hellenistic periods. The Persian period is no longer a ‘desert sea’ as Ricciotti called it,2 but has come to be seen as a very creative period in Jewish history. While the sources are often ancient, the criteria that led to the definitive structure date from after the exile. Judaism was born during the Persian period, though I feel that the importance of the Hellenistic period in the development of Judaism remains to be fully appreciated. The trend, however, to lower the dates of all the biblical
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