Statement
The Persians may have encouraged this development, since they cared how the communities they ruled were run. In the Bible's account, Ezra and Nehemiah were charged by the Persian king himself with governing Judah by the law of God, and there may be some truth in that.
References
p. 49
supports · main text · ch. 2
Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman. The Jews: A History. 3rd edition. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.
Verification anchor recorded · checked against the page text
Scholarly debate
Did Persia shape the Torah's authority?
2 positions · no single answer · take a seat →
- A
Persian government encouragement
A hypothesis the authors find plausible
The Torah would have taken root among the people of Judah in Persian times as a charter of religion and social life, perhaps with government encouragement; Persia may have enlisted officials such as Ezra, or the Hananiah of the letter, to instruct people in it and apply it as a regional code.
- B
Israelite legacy, not Persian invention
The authors' own caveat
The authors do not suggest that Persian rule created the Five Books or that they were canonized to serve Persian interests: they were part of the cultural legacy inherited from Israel.