DID YOU KNOW?
The answer
Babylon (586 BCE), then Persia (539), then Greece from 332 — first under Alexander, then under the Ptolemies and, from 200 BCE, the Seleucids who actually ruled Judea — then Rome from 63 BCE, when Pompey took Jerusalem, with direct provincial administration from 6 CE.
Why it’s interesting
That succession is the backdrop for the whole later Bible. Daniel dramatizes a four-kingdom sequence of its own — usually read by critical scholars as Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece, since the book reached its final form during the Seleucid crisis. By Jesus' day, Rome was simply the latest in a long line.
Scholarly consensus
You can know the Bible.
Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.