Sources: Mishnah Avot 1:1–2; Nehemiah 8–10; Ezra 7; the Persian period administrative context.

The Anshei Knesset HaGedolah (Men of the Great Assembly, ~450–200 BC) are the traditional scholarly-religious body of the Persian period, bridging the prophetic era and the scribal tradition that follows. Their composition is uncertain — tradition includes Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, and other figures of the Persian restoration period. The Assembly operates in the context of Persian imperial administration: Artaxerxes I authorizes Ezra specifically to teach Torah and establish its legal authority in the province “Beyond the River” (Ezra 7:25–26). Their threefold maxim (Avot 1:2): “Be deliberate in judgment, raise up many disciples, make a fence around the Torah.” The “fence around the Torah” — protective rulings that prevent even approaching a prohibition — is a principle that will define the scribal and eventually the Pharisaic method. The Great Assembly is credited with: standardizing the liturgical text of the Amidah (the central prayer), completing the canonization of the Hebrew scriptures, and establishing the synagogue as the local institution of Torah-centered communal life. Whether these attributions are accurate in detail or represent a later retroactive legitimization of these practices is debated — but the Persian period is clearly when the scribal, text-centered religious culture that defines subsequent Israelite religion takes institutional shape.