Francesca Stavrakopoulou

But also because by the time that these elites and their descendants return to Jerusalem and start writing the Hebrew Bible, essentially, they're really chummy with the Persian Empire.

The Persian Empire, these are the people in power.

It's like, oh, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Or what have the Persians ever done for us?

Well, actually, they're quite good.

Yeah, he absolutely is referred to as the Messiah in the Book of Isaiah.

Messiah simply means the anointed one, but he is the one in the Book of Isaiah who was chosen by Yahweh to restore his people from exile and to bring them back to the Promised Land, to the homeland.

So...

The Hebrew Bible is a very pro-Persia collection of texts in that sense, whereas it's a very anti-Babylonian and anti-Egyptian collection of texts.

So Zoroastrianism quite possibly has an impact on the monolatrous.

In other words, it's not so much a monotheistic view of Yahweh because they're aware that other gods exist.

It's an emphasis that only Yahweh should be worshipped.

R1 is the god to worship and you can only worship this god.

But that's not to say that there's no Egyptian influence.

And new temples being built, interestingly.

The influence of Egypt is massive in the sense that it always has been.

So even when Egypt is on the wane politically and economically in the ancient world,

Its cultural influence is still huge.

So one of the reflections of this we see, so thinking particularly, I know you talked in one of your other episodes about Psalm 104, which does have massive parallels.

But is it direct borrowing or is it not?