Building the Second Temple: Questions of Time, Text, and History in Haggai 1.1-15

Abstract

The people’s reticence expressed in Hag. 1.2 has been understood by some interpreters as reflecting the belief that Yahweh had not yet authorized the temple’s reconstruction, rather than as a rationalization for the community’s misplaced priorities. However, exegetical, text-, form-, literary- and ideological-critical considerations cast doubt upon this reading. Rather, the text’s redactor presents Haggai as a successful prophet whose words of reproach pierce the people’s recalcitrant hearts. In the light of broader ancient Near Eastern parallels, it is, nevertheless, plausible that objections to the temple’s reconstruction on ideological grounds did exist in Early Persian Yehud. Haggai 1.2 may demonstrate the selectivity with which a historical context may be portrayed, and provides an example of the difficulties of using prophetic texts in historical reconstructions.

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