After the exile the Jewish people built a second Temple, and this is the world that Jesus and the first rabbis grew up in.
Shared roots516 BCE to 70 CEgrew out of Israel and Judah: the First Temple
A second Temple was dedicated in Jerusalem under Persian rule, traditionally dated to about 516 BCE. Later enlarged under Herod, it stood until Rome destroyed it in 70 CE. During this period Jewish scriptures, interpretation and institutions developed; the Torah began to be translated into Greek in the third century BC. Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and other groups differed over law and religious life. Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity emerged from this diverse world over time; neither their separation nor the boundaries of scripture were settled by a single event in 70.
After the exile the Jewish people came home to Jerusalem and built a second Temple. It stood for almost six hundred years, through the rule of Persia, Greece and Rome, until the Romans destroyed it in 70 CE.
Cyrus of Persia let the exiles return in 538 BCE 8,13. Led by the governor Zerubbabel and urged on by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, they began the Temple in 521 BCE and finished it about 516 BCE 1,15,16. Ezra the scribe read the Torah aloud to the whole people in the square before the Water Gate, and the Levites explained it as he read; Nehemiah rebuilt the city walls. From then on the Torah, read and explained, stood at the centre of Jewish life 14.
Alexander the Great's conquest in 332 BCE brought Greek language and ways, and in Alexandria the Torah was translated into Greek, the Septuagint, from about 250 BCE 19,18. When the Greek king Antiochus IV outlawed Jewish practice and set up a pagan altar in the Temple, Judah Maccabee's revolt won it back, and its rededication in 164 BCE is kept every year as Hanukkah 6,9,17. His family, the Hasmoneans, ruled until Rome took Jerusalem in 63 BCE. Herod the Great, Rome's client king, rebuilt the Temple on a vast platform from about 20 BCE, and it was that Temple that Hillel taught beside and Jesus walked in 1,4,12.
Within Judaism there were parties: Pharisees, who taught the oral Torah and the resurrection of the dead; Sadducees, priests and nobles who held to the written Torah alone; Essenes, who withdrew from the Temple, most likely the community whose library is the Dead Sea Scrolls 2,3,5,11. In 66 CE Judea rose against Rome. In 70 CE Titus took Jerusalem and the Temple burned, and Josephus, a Jewish commander who had gone over to the Romans, wrote down what he saw 7,12,10.
The Jews of the Second Temple believed in one God who had chosen Israel, kept the Torah he had given, and met him in the Temple and, more and more, in the synagogue and the study of the Law.
The Torah read aloud and explained, as Ezra did it, became the pattern of Jewish life 14. The Temple remained the one place of sacrifice, and Isaiah's promise that it would be a house of prayer for all peoples was read over it 13,20. Jews of the period disagreed about much: the Pharisees taught an oral Torah handed down beside the written one, angels, and the resurrection of the dead; the Sadducees denied all three; the Essenes kept their own calendar and waited for God's judgement 2,3,5. Many hoped for a Messiah, an anointed king sent by God to free Israel, and for the coming of God's kingdom 18.
Two living faiths grew from this one. Rabbinic Judaism carried forward the Pharisees' Torah and the synagogue; Christianity began among Jews of this same world, and its earliest writings were composed while the Temple still stood 5,18.
Worship and practice
People brought offerings to the Temple and came up to Jerusalem three times a year for the pilgrim festivals. In their own towns they gathered on the Sabbath in the synagogue to hear the Torah read and explained.
The daily offerings, the Sabbath, the Day of Atonement and the festivals of Passover, Weeks and Booths set the year, as they had in the First Temple 13. Herod's Temple had courts within courts: the great outer court open to all, then the court of the women, of Israel, and of the priests, and at the centre the sanctuary and the Holy of Holies 1,12. At Passover the city filled with pilgrims from every land where Jews lived 12. In the towns of Judea and Galilee, and in Alexandria, Antioch and Rome, the synagogue was where the Torah was read week by week in the manner Nehemiah describes 14.
Scripture and Bible translations
By the end of this period the Jewish Bible was nearly complete, and it existed in two languages, Hebrew and Greek.
The Torah was fixed and the Prophets gathered; the Writings were still being settled, with Daniel, the latest book, reaching its form in the 160s BCE 18. Greek-speaking Jews read the Septuagint, which came to include books such as the Maccabees and Sirach that the later Hebrew canon did not 19. The Dead Sea Scrolls, found from 1947 in caves near Qumran, are the oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, a thousand years older than any known before, and can be read online 11. Read here: the Hebrew Bible in the JPS translation of 1917 and in the pointed Hebrew of the Leningrad Codex, and the Greek scriptures of this period in Brenton's translation of the Septuagint, Maccabees included.
Selected passages
These passages illustrate themes discussed in this profile; they are not a survey of members' favorite verses. Each is quoted from the JPS TaNaKH 1917 and links to its chapter. You can explore the text for study or personal reflection; memorization is optional.
The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former, saith the LORD of hosts; and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.'
The prophet's word to a people discouraged by their small new Temple, standing in the shadow of the memory of Solomon's.
Then he answered and spoke unto me, saying: 'This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying: Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.
Spoken to Zerubbabel as he rebuilt. It is read at Hanukkah, and it is the answer of a small people to every empire that ruled them.
Even them will I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be acceptable upon Mine altar; for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
A house of prayer for all peoples: the widest vision of the Temple, read in Jerusalem and quoted there four centuries later by Jesus.
People
Zerubbabellate sixth century BCE Governor of Judah under Persia and a descendant of David, who laid the foundation of the second Temple and finished it.16
Ezrafifth century BCE The priest and scribe who brought the Torah from Babylon and read it aloud to the assembled people, the beginning of Judaism as a religion of the book.14
Nehemiahfifth century BCE Cupbearer to the Persian king, who came to Jerusalem as governor and rebuilt its walls in fifty-two days.14
Judah Maccabeedied 160 BCE The leader of the revolt against Antiochus IV who recaptured Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple in 164 BCE, the first Hanukkah.6
Hillelabout 110 BCE to 10 CE The most revered teacher of the late Second Temple, whose sayings open the rabbinic tradition: what is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour.21
Herod the Greatreigned 37 to 4 BCE Rome's king of Judea, a builder on a huge scale and a ruler feared by his own family, who rebuilt the Temple that stood until 70 CE.22
Josephusabout 37 to 100 CE A Jewish priest and commander in the revolt who surrendered to Rome and wrote The Jewish War and the Antiquities, the fullest account of the period we have.12
Today
The Second Temple is gone, but part of the platform Herod built still stands: the Western Wall, where Jews pray today. Jews and Christians both look back to this time as the world their faiths came from.
The Western Wall in Jerusalem is a retaining wall of Herod's Temple platform, and the Temple Mount above it is holy to Jews and Muslims 4. Hanukkah still keeps the rededication of 164 BCE, and Tisha B'Av mourns the destruction of both Temples on one day 9,10. The Dead Sea Scrolls are kept at the Israel Museum and published online for anyone to read 11. Every branch below this one on the tree, Jewish and Christian, grew from the people of these centuries 18.
Antiochus IV's decrees of 167 BCE made keeping the Torah a capital crime, and the books of the Maccabees record the first martyrs, killed for refusing forbidden food or for circumcising their sons 6,17. The siege of 70 CE ended in famine, the burning of the Temple and the death or enslavement of a great part of the city, which Josephus describes at length 7,12. In the centuries that followed, Jews and Christians who had both come from these Temple courts became separate and often hostile, and the New Testament's disputes with the Pharisees were later turned against Jews as a whole, far from who the Pharisees actually were 2.
Words to know
Temple
The house of God in Jerusalem where Israel offered sacrifice: the First Temple built by Solomon and destroyed by Babylon in 586 BCE, and the Second Temple, dedicated about 516 BCE and destroyed by Rome in 70 CE.
Torah
The first five books of the Bible, and more broadly the whole of God's teaching. A Torah scroll is read in every synagogue.
synagogue
A house of gathering where Jews meet to pray and hear the Torah read. It grew up during and after the exile, alongside the Temple, and outlived it.
Septuagint
The Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures made in Alexandria from about 250 BCE. The early Church read it, and Orthodox Christians still do.
Messiah
Hebrew for anointed one. In the Second Temple period many Jews hoped for a king sent by God to set Israel free; Christians hold that Jesus is the Messiah, which is what Christ means in Greek.
exile
The years after 586 BCE when Babylon carried the leaders of Judah away from their land. Much of the Hebrew Bible reached its written form during and after the exile.
Shabbat
The seventh day, from Friday sunset to Saturday nightfall, kept as a day of rest because the Torah commands it in the Ten Commandments; Jews light candles, bless wine and bread, and do no work. Christians who keep a Sabbath on Saturday, such as Seventh-day Adventists, use the same commandment.
Passover, the eight-day festival (seven in Israel) that remembers the Exodus from Egypt, commanded in the Torah and kept with the seder meal and unleavened bread; it begins on 15 Nisan in spring.
The eight-day festival of lights in midwinter, remembering the rededication of the Temple by the Maccabees in 164 BCE; it is told in the books of Maccabees, which the Tanakh does not include, and kept by lighting a candle more each night.
The Temple in Jerusalem rebuilt by the exiles who returned from Babylon, begun in 521 BCE and finished about 516 BCE, enlarged by the Hasmoneans and rebuilt on a grand scale by Herod the Great from about 20 BCE 1,4. It was the centre of Jewish worship until the Romans destroyed it in 70 CE 7,10. Its retaining wall is the Western Wall 4.
Who were the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes?
Three parties within Second Temple Judaism. The Pharisees taught an oral Torah alongside the written one, the resurrection of the dead and the reach of holiness into daily life; Rabbinic Judaism grew from them 2,5. The Sadducees were priests and nobles who held to the written Torah alone and ran the Temple 3,5. The Essenes withdrew into disciplined communities; most scholars identify them with the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls 5,11.
What happened in 70 CE?
After four years of revolt against Rome, the future emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem, took it, and burned the Temple; Josephus, who watched from the Roman side, wrote the account 7,12. Judaism rebuilt itself around the synagogue and the rabbis, and Jews mourn the day each year on Tisha B'Av 10.
Why does this page belong to both Jews and Christians?
Because both faiths come out of this world. The rabbis carried forward the Pharisees' Torah and the synagogue; Jesus and his first followers were Jews of the same Temple, and the earliest Christian writings were composed while it stood 5,18. On the tree, Rabbinic Judaism and the early Church both grow from this branch.
Sources
Numbered references link the account above to its sources. These include the tradition's own documents and outside reference works. The review status below distinguishes source checking from completed member and scholarly review.
BibleVerse. “Second Temple Judaism: where they came from, what they hold, and the Bible they read.” bibleverse.site, version 2026-09-07, https://bibleverse.site/denominations/temple/
Awaiting review by a member of the tradition. First published 2026-09-06; last changed 2026-09-07. Years before the common era are written BCE, and after it CE, as Jewish readers write them.
Found something wrong? Send it through the contact page. A correction checked against two sources is made within a week and logged in this page's change history.
Spoken to a governor rebuilding a ruined Temple with few hands and less money. It has been the courage of small communities ever since, and it takes five days to learn.
Then he answered and spoke unto me, saying: 'This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying: Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.
