By Anke Halner - Hebrew and Spanish Student @ St Anne's College, Oxford
The Jewish experience during the time of The Second temple, which stood between 349 BCE and 70 CE, differed extensively from that of The First Temple period through which Israelites were mainly not under the control of other groups but were free to rule over themselves. During the era of The Second Temple, Jews were under the foreign rule of a wide range of political powers: the Persians, the Hellenists, and eventually the Romans. It was a period in which Israel as a people was forced to defend itself not only on a physical level but also on an intellectual level. This short article will give a brief description of events up to the Revolt of the Maccabees at the end of the era of the Hellenists.