According to the Book of Ezra, construction of the Second Temple was called for by Cyrus the Great and began in 538 BCE, after the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire the year before. According to some 19th-century calculations, work started later, in April 536 BCE (), and was completed in 515 BCE—February 21–21 years after the start of the construction. This date is obtained by coordinating (the third day of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the Great) with historical sources. The accuracy of these dates is contested by some modern researchers, who consider the biblical text to be of later date and based on a combination of historical records and religious considerations, leading to contradictions between different books of the Bible and making the dates unreliable. The new temple was dedicated by the Jewish governor Zerubbabel. However, with a full reading of the Book of Ezra and the Book of Nehemiah, there were four edicts to build the Second Temple, which were issued by three kings: Cyrus in 536 BCE (Ezra ch. 1), Darius I of Persia in 519 BCE (ch. 6), and Artaxerxes I of Persia in 457 BCE (ch. 7), and finally by Artaxerxes again in 444 BCE (Nehemiah ch. 2).