Part 2 of my blog about Temple Mount ended with the destruction of Solomon’s Temple by the Babylonians in the year 586 BCE, along with the forced exile of the Jewish elite to Babylon. Soon after this event the Babylonian empire fell to the Persian Empire. The Persian ruler, Cyrus the Great, had a policy of live and let live, allowing exiled peoples return to their native countries and letting them practice their religions as they saw fit. How liberal! Somewhere around the y