the shifting frontier: the achaemenid empire's treatment of western colonies

Until recently, most formulations of ancient Israel's history within the biblical time-frame separated the time-line into four broad segments: pre-monarchic (also called patriarchal), monarchic, exilic, and postexilic. This outline allowed the construction of many major interpretations, based upon presumed differences between these periods. Newer presentations of that history, however, have called into question many parts of this reconstruction. Other terms are more descriptive than the appellation "postexilic," which has two chief drawbacks. The first is that it is open-ended; the last 25 centuries have been after the exile, and so will the centuries. The second is that "postexilic" defines the period in terms of its predecessor, and it is not surprising that much scholarship of this period has been reductionistic.