So, We're coming to the home stretch of the time that you and I have spent together looking at the Persian era of the Bible

that's the first part of Ezra, then Esther happens next, then the second part of

Ezra and then the book of Nehemiah that's the chronological narrative stuff

from this era roughly 600-ish BC to 440-ish BC it's super interesting super juicy

the tone of the writing and the storytelling is a little different

than the older stuff of the Old Testament, you know, the style of storytelling and language evolves

over time. This is reflective of that. We see a lot of these very

colorful characters we've met here in extra biblical sources and they're very

colorful in the extra biblical sources as well.

We get inside the heads of the characters.

We see their flaws more closely, the flaws of the good guys

and the bad guys more closely.

We see the people evolve and change and grow and they go through a metamorphosis

in terms of character as well as it's just super interesting good stuff and all of it again happens against the backdrop of the Persian

empire and we know a few things about them we know a few things about what they believed

and what they were into.

And if you remember, I think we covered this all the way back in Esther last season, one of the really

interesting things about Persian culture and belief is that they primarily practiced Zoroastrianism, but it was a version

of that that was mingled with a Keminidism, a version of the religion that was propped up and promoted and

proliferated by the Akeminid kings of Persia. Here's what I mean by that.

Within Zoroastrianism the chief god is a Hurrah Mazda and there's a big disdain for lying

in that ancient version of that religion.

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