Challenging the status quo is always a thankless endeavor that draws fire from all sides, but scholarship is not meant to play by the rules of a popularity contest. When so little data exists about the early Achaemenid period (c. 538–424 BCE) in general and about specific events that took place in Yehud under this political regime, it is necessary to reassess our working hypotheses from time to time to see if they still offer the most logical explanations of the facts at hand. While our interpretation of past events seeks to create a chain of logical cause and effect between events, it is not necessarily the case that such events were interrelated at the time they transpired. In hindsight we link them, whether rightly or wrongly, to fit neatly into an interpretive framework that we find meaningful. The less data available, the more rival hypotheses can be advanced to create interrelationships. However, this being the case, the existence of a comfortable status quo for a period that has little raw data with which to work should raise eyebrows.

A number of plausible recreations of the events surrounding the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem during the early Achaemenid empire (c. 538–424 BCE) should exist and vie for primacy of place, yet they do not. Instead, we find the biblical account of this process accepted at face value as a reliable historical record, with only a few harmonizations and modifications proposed from time to time.