Post-exilian Government

Post-exilian Government.

On the return of a body of Jews from the various lands into which they had been scattered, a new method of government was adopted. The province of which Judea was a part was ruled by a Persian satrap. Israel's new territory was ruled by a governor, Zerubbabel, and later by Ezra and Nehemiah, etc. These subrulers paid tribute to Persia; and only on especial appointments were they granted extraordinary prerogatives, for example, Ezra. How far down into the so-called inter-Biblical period these conditions prevailed, it is not yet possible to affirm. The Maccabean revolt against the Hellenizing edicts of the Seleucid rulers was a forcible protest against a violation of the favorable treatment accorded the Jews by Alexander the Great. Nearly one hundred years of practical independence resulted in the downfall of Jewish authority, brought about by Pompey in 63 B.C. Thenceforth Palestine as part of a province became subordinate to a Roman governor. Information as to the line of demarcation between the rights of the Jews and Roman authority, the methods of administration adopted by Roman appointees, and a multitude of other questions of local interest is abundantlysupplied in the documents of this period. See Government, Procurators, Rome, Sanhedrin.

Judaic, Archeology and Biblical

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