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July 1, 2020

Two Rare Discoveries Are Evidence of the Original Return to Zion

Fake writing and filling an archaeological “black hole.”

In 586 BCE, Babylonia destroyed Jerusalem and sent most of its population into exile; 50 years later, Persia overran the Babylonian empire, and the Persian king, Cyrus the Great, allowed the exiled Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild their Temple. These events are narrated in the Hebrew Bible and attested by contemporaneous evidence, but the period between the Babylonian conquest and the fall of Persia to Alexander the Great around 333 BCE is, in the words of the Yiftaḥ Shalev of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “a black hole in archaeology.” But two items recently unearthed in Jerusalem may help to change that, writes Amanda Borschel-Dan:

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July 1, 2020

  1. The U.S. Has the Legal Tools to Maintain the Arms Embargo on Iran—if It’s Willing to Use Them

    Snapback.

  2. The UK Labor Party Censures Those Who Blame Israel for the Abuses of American Police, but the “New York Times” Hires Them

    One institution improves as the other declines.

  3. The South African Chief Justice Who Praised Israel and Sparked the Ire of His Own Government

    Mogoeng Mogoeng.

  4. The Hebrew Bible Never Speaks of Religion, Belief, or Even Law

    Evidence that Judaism can’t be reduced to intellectual abstractions.

  5. Two Rare Discoveries Are Evidence of the Original Return to Zion

    Fake writing and filling an archaeological “black hole.”