If we are sure (are we, absolutely?) that Jerusalem was the seat of a Persian governor then we also know that it wasn’t a complete desolation or the sort of place for which Donald Trump would have had a pungent name. There would have had to be some economic and some military activity and so a population more than negligible, so at least some attention to fortifications. Some attention, but how much? The claim of Nehemiah is, I think, that he gave the city the symbolic appearance of an independent state - underlyingly, that there had been a deal whose terms were: no restoration of the former royal house but governors of the province to be Jewish. An international recognition that this was the Land of the Jews, even if the people of the land thought otherwise, would have been emphatically achieved. How far does - or can - archaeology render this plausible?
If we are sure (are we, absolutely?) that Jerusalem was the seat of a Persian governor then we also know that it wasn’t a complete desolation or the sort of place for which Donald Trump would have had a pungent name. There would have had to be some economic and some military activity and so a population more than negligible, so at least some attention to fortifications. Some attention, but how much? The claim of Nehemiah is, I think, that he gave the city the symbolic appearance of an independent state - underlyingly, that there had been a deal whose terms were: no restoration of the former royal house but governors of the province to be Jewish. An international recognition that this was the Land of the Jews, even if the people of the land thought otherwise, would have been emphatically achieved. How far does - or can - archaeology render this plausible?