Identity in Persian Egypt

On an island in the Nile in the fifth century BCE, a garrison of Judean mercenaries guarded the southwestern edge of the Persian Empire. Bob Becking follows these Yehudites of Elephantine from their origins to their eventual fate, setting their story against the rise and fall of Persia itself. Working from Aramaic and Demotic texts excavated on the island and at Syene across the river, he finds neighbours who intermarried, traded together and even made a little room for one another's gods under the pax persica.

At the centre is their unorthodox Yahwism, the faith of a community some call the first Jews, and a reminder of how varied early Jewish life was before Judaism took its later shape. Clearly written and wide in scope, it will reward anyone curious about biblical history, the ancient diaspora, or how a religion grows far from home.