Day 68
How a Conversation Changed the World
Dedicated by the directors of Vintage Financial Ltd in loving memory of the late Ivor Hartnell and the late Sandra Stein.
Could one ancient conversation begin to change history and continue to affect us today? The biblical book of Ezra1 records such a conversation in Babylonia (modern day Iraq), which occurred around 2,500 years ago and put in place a sequence of events which would ultimately lead to the contemporary society that we recognise today.
THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND CHARACTERS
The participants were Artaxerxes, King of Persia, and Ezra, a courtier and outstanding young Jewish scholar of the vibrant Babylonian Jewish community, which had developed after the destruction of the First Temple. The king instructed Ezra to travel to Jerusalem, with a royal decree authorising him to revitalise the Jewish community and fledgling Second Temple there. Nehemiah, another great leader, later worked together with Ezra; their respective biblical books sit side-by-side.
