Contains proceedings of the third of the conferences on Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, which was held in Muenster, Germany, in August 2005. This work focuses on the century during which the Persian Empire fell to Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic kingdoms came to the fore.

Part I: The History of the Fourth Century: A View from the CenterThe Achaemenid Empire in the Fourth Century B.C.E.: A Period of Decline? Josef WiesehöferPart II: Judah in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic PeriodsThe Settlement Archaeology of the Province of Judah: A Case Study Oded Lipschits and Oren TalAdministration in Fourth Century B.C.E. Judah in Light of Epigraphy and Numismatics André LemaireYehud Stamp Impressions of the Fourth Century B.C.E.: A Time of Administrative Consolidation? Oded Lipschits and David Vanderhooft‘And They Did Not Care to Speak Yehudit’: On Linguistic Change in Judah during the Late Persian Era Ingo KottsieperArchaeology and Archaiologias: Relating Excavations to History in Fourth-Century B.C.E. Palestine Lester L. GrabbePart III: Edom and Samaria: Judah’s Neighbors in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic PeriodsIdumea in the Late Persian Period (Fourth Century B.C.E.) Amos Kloner and Ian SternThe Onomasticon of Mareshah in the Persian and Hellenistic Periods Esther EshelThe Dating of the First Phase of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim in Light of the Archaeological Evidence Yitzhak MagenDo the Earliest Samaritan Inscriptions Already Indicate a Parting of the Ways? Bob BeckingThe Governors of Samaria in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.E. Hanan EshelPart IV: Biblical Literature in the Late Persian and Hellenistic PeriodsThe Late Persian Formation of the Torah: Observations on Deuteronomy 34 Konrad SchmidThe Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Torah in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.E. Reinhard AchenbachThe Canonical Alignment of the Book of Joshua Rainer AlbertzNehemiah and Sanballat: The Enemy Without or Within? Gary N. KnoppersA New Model for the Composition of Ezra-Nehemiah Jacob L. WrightWho Knew What? The Construction of the Monarchic Past in Chronicles and Implications for the Intellectual Setting of Chronicles Ehud Ben Zvi‘Those Doing the Work for the Service in the House of the Lord’: 1 Chronicles 23:6-24:31 and the Sociohistorical Context of the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem in the Late Persian/Early Hellenistic Period John W. WrightThe Development of Jewish Sectarianism from Nehemiah to the Hasidim Joseph Blenkinsopp