The span of Jewish history from the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem by the returning exiles under Zerubbabel (completed 516 BC) to its destruction by the Romans under Titus (AD 70). Often extended backward to include the Persian period of return (539 BC, Cyrus's decree) and forward to AD 135 (Bar Kokhba revolt). The Bible's narrative covers the beginning (Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi) and the end (the New Testament); between the testaments lie roughly 400 years — the so-called "intertestamental period" — critically shaping the world into which Jesus was born.
The Second Temple era is where much of the New Testament's background operating system was installed. Four phases: (1) Persian (539-332 BC) — return under Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah; consolidation of the Torah; rise of the synagogue and the scribal class; (2) Greek / Hellenistic (332-164 BC) — Alexander the Great, Ptolemies, Seleucids, the Maccabean revolt (168-164 BC) preserving Jewish worship against Antiochus IV's attempted forced Hellenization; (3) Hasmonean (164-63 BC) — independent Jewish kingdom, emergence of Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes; (4) Roman (63 BC - AD 70) — Pompey's conquest, Herod the Great's massive temple expansion, the ministry of Jesus, the apostles, the Jewish War, and the temple's final destruction. Understanding Second Temple Judaism clarifies: messianic expectations Jesus both fulfilled and overturned; apocalyptic imagery in the Gospels and Revelation; the synagogue as Paul's missionary base; the tension between Pharisaic Torah-observance and Sadducean temple-politics; the context of Jewish sects the NT mentions; and the cultural situation of diaspora Jews across the Roman world.