Prophecy in Persian Yehud

The Persian Period (538–333 B.C.E.) was a formative period for ancient Israel’s prophetic literature. During the time that Yehud developed under Persian imperial control, several new prophets arose: Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, and the author of the last parts of Isaiah. They represent the cultural issues surrounding the construction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Also, this period saw the expansion of prophetic literature, which eventually included a historical writing about monarchic prophets (the Deuteronomistic History), three lengthy books of prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel), and a collection of shorter prophetic writings (the Book of the Twelve). The contemporary prophets and the composition of corpora of older prophets occurred in the same centuries, and the two types of prophetic literature influenced each other.