Between the construction of the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem, c. 515 BCE, and its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE, Judaism witnessed major historical upheavals and significant religious changes that would affect not only it but also Christianity (which calls it the Deuterocanonical period or Intertestamental period). The origins of the authority of scripture, of the centrality of law and morality in religion, of the synagogue and of apocalyptic expectations for the future all developed in the Judaism of this period.

The Second Temple was an important Jewish Holy Temple (, Bet HaMikdash HaSheni; : Beit al-Quds) which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period, between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced Solomon's Temple (the First Temple) which was destroyed by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE, when Jerusalem was conquered and a portion of the population of the Kingdom of Judah was taken into exile in Babylon.