Book of Ezra

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The Book of Ezra is a book of the Hebrew Bible which formerly included the Book of Nehemiah in a single book, commonly distinguished in scholarship as Ezra–Nehemiah. The two became separated with the first printed rabbinic bibles of the early 16th century, following late medieval Latin Christian tradition.<ref name="Bogaert">Template:Cite journal</ref> Composed in Hebrew and Aramaic, its subject is the Return to Zion following the close of the Babylonian captivity. Together with the Book of Nehemiah, it represents the final chapter in the historical narrative of the Hebrew Bible.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The Book of Ezra is divided into two parts: the first telling the story of the first return of exiles in the first year of Cyrus the Great (538 BC) and the completion and dedication of the new Temple in Jerusalem in the sixth year of Darius I (515 BC); the second telling of the subsequent mission of Ezra to Jerusalem and his struggle to purify the Jews from marriage with non-Jews.

In the book's recurring narrative pattern, the God of Israel three times inspires a king of Persia to commission a leader from among the Jews to carry out a mission: the first to rebuild the Temple, the second to purify the Jewish community, and the third to seal the holy city behind a wall. This third mission, that of Nehemiah, is not part of the Book of Ezra.

There is no historical consensus on Ezra's existence or mission due to a lack of extrabiblical evidence and conflicting scholarly interpretations, ranging from viewing him as a historical Aramean official to a literary figure, with debates hinging on the authenticity of the Artaxerxes rescript and its dating.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

SummaryEdit

The Book of Ezra consists of ten chapters: chapters 1–6, covering the period from the decree of Cyrus the Great to the dedication of the Second Temple, are told in the third person. Chapters 7–10, dealing with the mission of Ezra, are told largely in the first person. The book contains several documents presented as historical inclusions, written in Aramaic while the surrounding text is in Hebrew (1:2–4, 4:8–16, 4:17–22, 5:7–17, 6:3–5, 6:6–12, 7:12–26) <ref name="torrey">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Chapters 1–6 (documents included in the text in italics)

1. Decree of Cyrus, first version: Cyrus, inspired by God, returns the Temple vessels to Sheshbazzar, "prince of Judah", and directs the Israelites to return to Jerusalem with him and rebuild the Temple.
2. 42,360 exiles, with men servants, women servants and "singing men and women", return from Babylon to Jerusalem and Judah under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Jeshua the High Priest.
3. Jeshua the High Priest and Zerubbabel build the altar and celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. In the second year the foundations of the Temple are laid and the dedication takes place with great rejoicing.

File:Schnorr von Carolsfeld Bibel in Bildern 1860 126.png

Ezra calls for the rebuilding of the temple in this 1860 woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld

4. Letter of the Samaritans to Artaxerxes, and reply of Artaxerxes: The "enemies of Judah and Benjamin" offer to help with the rebuilding, but are rebuffed; they then work to frustrate the builders "down to the reign of Darius." The officials of Samaria write to king Artaxerxes warning him that Jerusalem is being rebuilt, and the king orders the work to stop. The narrative then returns to the times of Darius I. "Thus the work on the house of God in Jerusalem came to a standstill until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia."
5. Tattenai's letter to Darius: Through the exhortations of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, Zerubbabel and Joshua recommence the building of the Temple. Tattenai, satrap over both Judah and Samaria, writes to Darius warning him that Jerusalem is being rebuilt and advising that the archives be searched to discover the decree of Cyrus.
6. Decree of Cyrus, second version, and decree of Darius: Darius finds the decree, directs Tattenai not to disturb the Jews in their work, and exempts them from tribute and supplies everything necessary for the offerings. The Temple is finished in the month of Adar in the sixth year of Darius, and the Israelites assemble to celebrate its completion.

Chapters 7–10

7. Letter of Artaxerxes to Ezra (Artaxerxes' rescript): King Artaxerxes is moved by God to commission Ezra "to inquire about Judah and Jerusalem with regard to the Law of your God" and to "appoint magistrates and judges to administer justice to all the people of Trans-Euphrates—all who know the laws of your God." Artaxerxes gives Ezra much gold and directs all Persian officials to aid him.

File:Schnorr von Carolsfeld Bibel in Bildern 1860 128.png

Ezra reads the Law in this 1860 woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld

8. Ezra gathers a large body of returnees and much gold and silver and precious vessels for the Temple and camps by a canal outside Babylon. There he discovers he has no Levites, and so sends messengers to gather some. The exiles then return to Jerusalem, where they distribute the gold and silver and offer sacrifices to God.
9. Ezra is informed that some of the Jews already in Jerusalem have married non-Jewish women. Ezra is appalled at this proof of sin, and prays to God: "O God of Israel, you are righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence."
10. Despite the opposition of some of their number, the Israelites assemble and send away their foreign wives and children.

Historical backgroundEdit

In the early 6th century BC, the Kingdom of Judah rebelled against the Neo-Babylonian Empire and was destroyed. As a result, the royal court, the priests, the prophets, and the scribes were taken into captivity in the city of Babylon. There, a profound intellectual revolution took place, the exiles blaming their fate on disobedience to their God and looking forward to a future when he would allow a purified people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. The same period saw the rapid rise of Persia, previously an unimportant kingdom in present-day southern Iran, to a position of great power, and in 539 BC Cyrus II, the Persian ruler, conquered Babylon.<ref>Fensham, F. Charles, "The books of Ezra and Nehemiah" (Eerdmans, 1982) p. 10</ref>

It is difficult to describe the parties and politics of Judea in this period because of the lack of historical sources, but there seem to have been three important groups involved: the returnees from the exile who claimed the reconstruction with the support of Cyrus II; "the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin"; and a third group, "people of the land", who seem to be local opposition against the returnees building the Temple in Jerusalem.

The following table is a guide to major events in the region during the period covered by the Book of Ezra:

Template:Nowrap<ref>Coggins, R.J., "The books of Ezra and Nehemiah" (Cambridge University Press, 1976) p. xi</ref>	Reign Template:Nobold	Main events<ref>Fensham, F. Charles, "The books of Ezra and Nehemiah" (Eerdmans, 1982) pp. 10–16</ref>	Correlation with Ezra–Nehemiah<ref>Min, Kyung-Jin, "The Levitical authorship of Ezra-Nehemiah" (T&T Clark, 2004) pp. 31–32</ref>
Cyrus II	550[?]–530	539 BC Fall of Babylon	Directive to the Jews to rebuild the Temple and first return of the exiles to Jerusalem Template:Small
Cambyses	530–522	525 Conquest of Egypt
Darius I	522–486	Secures the throne in 520/519 after fighting off various rivals; failed punitive invasion of Greece	515 Temple rebuilt.
Xerxes	486–465	Failed attempt to conquer Greece; beginning of struggle with Greeks for control of the eastern Mediterranean	According to Template:Bibleverse, Xerxes (biblical Ahasuerus) received complaints from the Samaritans against the inhabitants of Yehud in the context of the enmities between the two groups.
Artaxerxes I	465–424	460–456 Successful suppression of Greek-supported revolt in Egypt 449 Revolt by Megabyzus, governor of the territory which included Judah	Currently most widely accepted period for arrival of Ezra "in the seventh year of Artaxerxes" Second return of the exiles to Jerusalem Template:Small 445–433 Nehemiah's mission Template:Small
Darius II	423–404		(Alternative) Temple rebuilt.
Artaxerxes II	404–358	401 Egypt regains independence	(Alternative) period for arrival of Ezra and second return of exiles to Jerusalem Template:Small
Artaxerxes III	358–338	Egypt reconquered
Darius III	336–330	The Achaemenid Empire conquered by Alexander the Great

TextsEdit

Ezra–NehemiahEdit

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| belowstyle = border-top:1px solid #aaa;padding-top:0.15em;border-bottom:1px solid #aaa; | below = Hebrew Bible

}} The single Hebrew book Ezra–Nehemiah, with title "Ezra", was translated into Greek around the middle of the 2nd century BC.<ref>Graham, M.P, and McKenzie, Steven L., "The Hebrew Bible today: an introduction to critical issues" (Westminster John Knox Press, 1998) p. 202</ref> The Septuagint names Ezra–Nehemiah and 1 Esdras Esdras B and A respectively. This usage is noted by the early Christian scholar Origen, who remarked that the Hebrew 'book of Ezra' might then be considered a 'double' book.<ref name="Bogaert" />

Jerome, writing in the early 5th century, noted that this duplication had since been adopted by Greek and Latin Christians. Jerome himself rejected the duplication in his Vulgate translation of the Bible into Latin from the Hebrew. Consequently, all early Vulgate manuscripts present Ezra-Nehemiah as a single book.<ref name="Bogaert" />

From the 9th century onwards, Latin bibles are found that for the first time separate the Ezra and Nehemiah sections of Ezra-Nehemiah as two distinct books, then called the first and second books of Ezra. This becomes standard in the Paris Bibles of the 13th century. It was not until 1516/17, in the first printed Rabbinic Bible of Daniel Bomberg that the separation was introduced generally in Hebrew Bibles.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

First EsdrasEdit

1 Esdras, also known as "Esdras α", is an alternate Greek-language version of Ezra. This text has one additional section, the 'Tale of the Three Guardsmen' in the middle of Ezra 4.<ref name="Bogaert" /> 1 Esdras (3 Esdras in the Vulgate) was considered apocryphal by Jerome.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Date, structure and compositionEdit

DateEdit

Koresh of Ezra 1:1 is called "king of Persia" (מלך פרס Melekh Pāras); the title was introduced by Cyrus the Great sometime after he defeated Astyages of Media (585–550 BC).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Scholars are divided over the chronological sequence of the activities of Ezra and Nehemiah. Ezra 7:8 says that Ezra arrived in Jerusalem in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes, while Nehemiah 2:1–9 has Nehemiah arriving in Artaxerxes' twentieth year. If this was Artaxerxes I (465–424 BC), then Ezra arrived in 458 and Nehemiah in 445 BC. Nehemiah 8–9, in which the two (possibly by editorial error) appear together, supports this scenario.<ref name="google204">M. Patrick Graham, The "Chronicler's History": Ezra-Nehemiah, 1–2 Chronicles in Graham, M.P, and McKenzie, Steven L., "The Hebrew Bible today: an introduction to critical issues" (Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), pp. 204–05</ref>

StructureEdit

The contents of Ezra–Nehemiah are structured in a theological rather than chronological order: "The Temple must come first, then the purifying of the community, then the building of the outer walls of the city, and so finally all could reach a grand climax in the reading of the law."<ref>R.J. Coggins, "The books of Ezra and Nehemiah" (Cambridge University Press, 1976)p.107, quoted in Throntveit, Mark A., "Ezra-Nehemiah" (John Knox Press, 1992) p. 3</ref>

The narrative follows a repeating pattern in which the God of Israel "stirs up" the king of Persia to commission a Jewish leader (Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah) to undertake a mission; the leader completes his mission in the face of opposition, and success is marked by a great assembly.<ref>Throntveit, Mark A., "Ezra-Nehemiah" (John Knox Press, 1992) pp.2–4</ref> The tasks of the three leaders are progressive: first the Temple is restored (Zerubabbel), then the community of Israel (Ezra), and finally the walls which will separate the purified community and Temple from the outside world (Nehemiah).<ref>Throntveit, Mark A., "Ezra-Nehemiah" (John Knox Press, 1992) p. 3</ref>

The pattern is completed with a final coda in which Nehemiah restores belief in Yahweh.<ref>Throntveit, Mark A., "Ezra-Nehemiah" (John Knox Press, 1992) p. 2</ref> This concern with a schematic pattern-making, rather than with history in the modern sense of a factual account of events in the order in which they occurred, explains the origin of the many problems which surround both Ezra and Nehemiah as historical sources.<ref name="Thront">Throntveit, Mark A., "Ezra-Nehemiah" (John Knox Press, 1992) pp. 1–3</ref>

CompositionEdit

Twentieth-century views on the composition of Ezra revolved around whether the author was Ezra himself, and who may have also authored the Books of Chronicles, or was another author or authors who also wrote the Chronicles.<ref>Fensham, F. Charles, "The books of Ezra and Nehemiah" (Eerdmans, 1982) pp. 1–2 ff.</ref> More recently it has been increasingly recognised that Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles all have extremely complex histories stretching over many stages of editing,<ref>Pakkala, Juha, "Ezra the scribe: the development of Ezra 7–10 and Nehemiah 8" (Walter de Gryter, 2004) p. 16</ref> and most scholars now are cautious of assuming a unified composition with a single theology and point of view.<ref>Grabbe, L.L., "A history of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Volume 1" (T&T Clark, 2004) p. 71</ref> As an indication of the many layers of editing which Ezra has undergone, one recent study finds that Ezra 1–6 and Ezra 9–10 were originally separate documents, that they were spliced together at a later stage by the authors of Ezra 7–8, and that all have undergone extensive later editing.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Tamara Cohn Eskenazi argues that the final composition of Ezra took place during the late Persian period (c. 370–350 BCE), with some small additions from the Hellenistic period. She states that the language and ideology of the book seem to best fit within a Persian-period context.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

ManuscriptsEdit

File:CodxAmiatinusFolio5rEzra (cropped).jpg

Ezra at work in the Codex Amiatinus (AD 716 or earlier)

The oldest surviving manuscript of Ezra is 4QEzra, also called 4Q117; it contains Ezra 4:2–6, 9–11; 5:17; 6:1–5. It dates to the Hasmonean period (140–37 BC).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A 7th-century Egyptian ostracon contains a fragmentary text of the Septuagint (Greek translation): 1 Esdras 2:10, 9:21–24.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> A Vulgar Latin translation is found in the Codex Amiatinus (8th century). The Hebrew text in full is found in the Aleppo Codex (10th century) and Leningrad Codex (11th century).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Persian documentsEdit

Seven purported Persian decrees of kings or letters to and from high officials are quoted in Ezra. Their authenticity has been contentious. While some scholars accept them in their current form, most accept only part of them as genuine, while still others reject them entirely. L.L. Grabbe surveyed six tests against which the documents can be measured (comparative known Persian material, linguistic details, contents, presence of Jewish theology, the Persian attitude to local religions, and Persian letter-writing formulas) and concluded that all the documents are late post-Persian works and probable forgeries, but that some features suggest a genuine Persian correspondence behind some of them.<ref>Grabbe, L.L., "A history of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Volume 1" (T&T Clark, 2004) p. 78</ref> By contrast, Richard C. Steiner and H. G. M. Williamson argue that the linguistic and other evidence suggests that the documents are authentic.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>