Darius I, King of Persia, claims to have accomplished many deeds in the early years of his reign, but was one of them the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem? The editor who added the date to the books of Haggai and Zechariah thought so, and the author of Ezra 1-6 then relied on his dates when writing his account of the rebuilding process

Introduction 1. When Generations Really Count: Dating Zerubbabel and Nehemiah using Genealogical Information in the Book of Nehemiah 2. What's in a Date? The Unreliable Nature of the Dates in Haggai and Zechariah 3. It's all in the Sources: The Historicity of the Account of Temple-Rebuilding in Ezra 1-6 4. Setting the Bounds: The Territory Comprising Yehud under Artaxerxes I in the Mid-Fifth Century BCE 5. Excavating the Past: Settlement Patterns and Military Installations in Persian-Era Yehud 6. Piety or Pragmatism? The Policy of Artaxerxes I for the Development of Yehud