event · E0008
Galut Bavel גלות בבל
The seventy years between the burning of the First Temple and the completion of the Second — the span Yirmiyahu prophesied and Daniel counted from the sefarim. In Bavel the exiles built houses, planted gardens, and learned to carry the Torah without a Temple; the communities and habits of study formed here would make Bavel the mesorah's second home for over a thousand years.
I. Who
- Hebrew
- גלות בבל
- Also known as
- Babylonian Exile, The Seventy Years
- Era
- bible
II. When
- Traditional
- 3338–3408 AM
- Academic
- 586–516 BCE
- Date range
- 423–353 BCE (traditional) / 586–516 BCE (academic)
- Duration
- ≈70 years
- Precision
- approximate
III. Where
- Places
- Bavel
IV. What
- Events
- Destruction of the First Temple, Building of the Second Temple
V. How do we know
| Claim | Evidence | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yirmiyahu prophesied the exile's fixed term: "When seventy years are completed for Bavel I will remember you... to return you to this place."
Confidence is for what the biblical text states. |
biblical | ★★★★★ | |
| Daniel, in the first year of Daryavesh, "understood from the sefarim the number of years that the word of God had come to Yirmiyahu the prophet — to complete seventy years for the ruins of Jerusalem." | biblical | ★★★★★ | |
| The atlas draws the span 3338–3408 AM, counting the seventy years from churban to the Second Temple's completion. This is one of two traditional countings — the other runs from the first deportation to Koresh's decree — and the Gemara has Belshatzar and Achashverosh each miscounting the same seventy years before their true end.
Schematic span; endpoints are Destruction of the First Temple and Building of the Second Temple. Purim (Purim) falls inside this band.
|
tradition reconstruction | ★★★☆☆ |
Referenced by: Purim