Sheshbazzar, Zerubabbel, Nehemiah & Ezra

[DCHindley]

I put a lot of work into study of the Books of Ezra-Nehemiah, its Greek version (Lxx Esdras beta & gamma) the end of 2 Chronicles, and 1 Esdras (Lxx Esdras alpha) and have uploaded a table comparing English translations these books (RSV for the MT, Brenton's Septuagint for 1 & 2 Esdras), where they overlap and where they don't to Ben Smith's Text Excavation website (search on my last name, as my stuff tends to be tucked away in the corner). I have also created a file that separates the Sheshbazzar, Zerubbabel, Nehemiah and Ezra stories and puts them into what I think represents their original sequence, which I have not uploaded anywhere, except maybe Scribd.

Many years ago I was encouraged by a stranger on Crosstalk2 (I think) to look at C. C. Torrey's work on Ezra-Nehemiah & 1 Esdras*, which to be honest made sense to me. For a guy who wrote most of his best stuff between 1896 and 1910 (that's 120 - 106 years ago!), he was very expressive in his own gregarious manner even while sharing many of the prejudices of his day.

Of course, EVERYBODY (including every one of us) shares SOME of the prejudices of their/our own day so I just have to look past some of his statements about how deported Israelites made the best damn merchants and financiers in Babylon, or Media, or wherever they were deported to. He is not trying to suggest that there is anything wrong with that - they just did the best they could under the circumstances (it doesn't seem that they were provided any land to farm), but you get the idea.

However, he does not think there were any mass returns in the Persian period, but that much of it was a re-write of history to justify conditions of the period of composition, which he places about the 3rd century BCE.

Torrey agreed with some of his peers who thought that the author of 1 & 2 Chronicles (mainly a re-write of Samuel through 2 Kings) was also the author of the Ezra story, created whole cloth to support his Levite agenda and sense of ethnic exclusiveness. In other words, "Ezra" never existed. The first person stuff was done inconsistently and really shows what a stuffy idiot the Chronicler was, not even being able to effectively maintain the plausibility of his fictional "Ezra" memoirs.

He thinks that the stories of Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel are pious legends taken out of context (temple building he thinks actually occurred under Darius II) and projected earlier, to the times of Cyrus etc., and not very artfully, drawn from fragmentary sources available to the final redactors.

The only genuine source that was not reworked very extensively was Nehemiah's memoirs.

I have never got around to checking his ideas against mine, and in preparing to do so very recently was surprised to find that I already owned a copy of a book History of New Testament Times: With an Introduction to the Apocrypha, by Robert Pfeiffer (1949), which contained very high praise for Torrey's work in the section on the Apocryphal books dealing with 1 Esdras, and rightly so.

However, checking the web the other day for modern scholarship on the matter of the compositional history of Ezra-Nehemiah-1 Esdras, all I can find was obviously apologetic, and nothing even mentions Torrey. The Wikipedia entry on Ezra-Nehemiah is almost a cheer squad for the God breathed work. No wonder I was met with dead silence when I said off handedly in an e-list discussion that I wanted to study Torrey's proposals more closely.

So I am not sure I really want to wade through the apologetic mire of the rah-rah supporters of orthodoxy (Christian or Jewish). But at least I can read what was written since the 1960s, when this turn came about. There is a chapter on "The Chronicler's History" in Steven L McKenzie & Matt Patrick Graham, eds., The Hebrew Bible Today: An Introduction to Critical Issues (1998). Its a little more even handed but clearly considers Ezra-Nehemiah to be inspired scripture.
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=ow ... &q&f=false

Has anyone else looked into Ezra-Nehemiah and/or 1 Esdras?

DCH

* Principally The Composition and Historical Value of Ezra-Nehemiah (1896) and Ezra Studies (1910), and yes, I own copies and have read them. I believe they are both available online as PDFs at archive.org

[Ben C. Smith]

I put a lot of work into study of the Books of Ezra-Nehemiah, its Greek version (Lxx Esdras beta & gamma) the end of 2 Chronicles, and 1 Esdras (Lxx Esdras alpha) and have uploaded a table comparing English translations these books (RSV for the MT, Brenton's Septuagint for 1 & 2 Esdras), where they overlap and where they don't to Ben Smith's Text Excavation website (search on my last name, as my stuff tends to be tucked away in the corner).

These pages link to your synopsis: http://www.textexcavation.com/nehemiah.html; http://www.textexcavation.com/ezra.html; http://www.textexcavation.com/esdras.html.

And here is the synopsis itself: http://www.textexcavation.com/documents ... ehezra.pdf.

[DCHindley]

I put a lot of work into study of the Books of Ezra-Nehemiah, its Greek version (Lxx Esdras beta & gamma) the end of 2 Chronicles, and 1 Esdras (Lxx Esdras alpha) and have uploaded a table comparing English translations these books (RSV for the MT, Brenton's Septuagint for 1 & 2 Esdras), where they overlap and where they don't to Ben Smith's Text Excavation website (search on my last name, as my stuff tends to be tucked away in the corner).

These pages link to your synopsis: http://www.textexcavation.com/nehemiah.html; http://www.textexcavation.com/ezra.html; http://www.textexcavation.com/esdras.html.

And here is the synopsis itself: http://www.textexcavation.com/documents ... ehezra.pdf.

Thanks, Ben. Yes, I acknowledge that they are there, although I don't think they are indexed like you have in some of your pages, but I have not looked at them recently. There was no intent to suggest that these things are being hidden by "the man!"

The thing that resonated with me WRT Torrey was his belief that "Ezra" (notice "scare quotes") was a fictitious character who never existed in the real world.

To the question whether there may not have been some facts at the basis of this story of Ezra and the Law, the answer, so far as any can be given, must be in the negative, for the following reasons:

1. Because of the improbability of the story itself. It is a kind of narrative of which we have abundant examples in the so-called “priestly stratum” of the Ο. T. The representation is mechanical and unnatural to the last degree. It is understood in Babylonia that Ezra is to proceed to Jerusalem and reinstate the Law, as an officer would serve a writ. Jerusalem was a city of some size, with rulers, nobles (Neh. 2, 16, &c.; cf. 1, 2), [60] native priests (Zech. 3, 8, &c.), a population partly, at least, in very good circumstances (Hag. 1, 4), and with old and well established religious traditions. But Ezra conducts matters with a high hand, and the people of the city, priests and laymen alike, stand huddled together like frightened sheep while the ceremony of “restoring the Law” is being carried through. This is the Chr.’s own way of manufacturing history. To suppose, as is now commonly done, that a new law-code was introduced (i.e., made canonical) on this occasion involves still greater difficulties. It is not in itself a probable theory that the Priestly Law should have been written — or edited — in Babylonia; and there is certainly nothing in the law itself that could be regarded as proof of such an origin. The sole witness to this theory is the story told in Ezra-Neh. As for the way in which the Law came to be regarded as sacred and binding, it may be that there are those who can see how it would be easier for Babylonian priests to suddenly foist a “canonical” law-code upon the people of Jerusalem, than for native priests gradually to gain for it its place of authority.

2. The second reason for believing that the Ezra story has no basis of fact need only be stated. It is because of what we already know concerning the Chr.’s talent for manufacturing just such stories in favor of his own view of the history of Israel. The wealth of incident with which the narrative is set forth (e. g. Neh. 8, 4; Ezra 10, 6. 9) will not deceive those who have read the Chronicles.

3. The motive for composing such a story at this point in the history is especially plain to see. The Law was carried to Babylonia with the children of Israel. Now that the temple was rebuilt, and it was once more possible to observe [61] the Law, it was fitting that it should be brought, with due ceremony, to Jerusalem. It had been sadly neglected, moreover, and here was the opportunity to exhibit the fact in a most impressive way. It was necessary, too, to create a fitting character to do this work. Nehemiah could not be used for the purpose; for he was not suited, either by birth or by profession, for the task; besides, everybody knew who he was and what he had done. To a history written from the standpoint of this one, an Ezra was indispensable. The Chr. certainly took the simplest and most direct way to provide one, concerning himself only with the immediate object, and leaving the rest to his readers. A lineal descendant of Aaron, an “expert scribe”, the absolute power of a dictator—these were the necessary properties of the character.

4. A fourth reason is derived from the significant silence concerning Ezra in Sirach 49, 11—13 (written about 180 B. C. ?). The more carefully one reads this long hymn (ch. 44—50) in praise of the names revered in the Jewish church, the more remarkable the omission of Ezra seems. Zerubbabel, Joshua and Nehemiah receive appreciative mention. Notice also the writer’s enthusiasm over Josiah and his reforms, 49, 1—4. It is hardly credible that Bar Sira, with his zeal for the [62] Jewish Law, should have intentionally slighted Ezra; the one satisfactory explanation of his silence is, that he had never heard of him. And this is in every way probable. The Chronicler’s book of history was not one that would be often copied or widely circulated.

The account of Ezra’s social reforms is quite as destitute of any internal probability or external support. The inhabitants of Jerusalem here presented to us are puppets, made to act according to a theory (as in Num. 31, Judg. 20 f., I Chr.13, &c.), not men and women of flesh and blood. The monstrous proceeding described in Ezr. 9, 10 would be sufficiently incredible even if it were demanded by the Jewish Law, which is not the case. Race exclusiveness is not brought about suddenly and violently, by a wave of the hand. Whether the Chr.’s purpose in this part of his narrative was to account for this same exclusiveness, or to work in its interests, or to deal a blow at the founders of the Samaritan church, need not here be conjectured.

The Composition and Historical Value of Ezra-Nehemiah (1896)

DCH

[DCHindley]

Well, we know for sure Torrey was no fan of the figure of Ezra.

He was an adherent of the belief that 1 & 2 Chronicles plus a unified "Ezra-Nehemiah" book was all the work of the same author, who had been dubbed "the Chronicler" by some previous critics. Now this idea was apparently demolished by Sarah Japhet and others, although she was not so sure of the historicity of the figure of Ezra.*

Many critics, on the other hand, seem to rejoice at the renewed ability to speculate about this "Ezra" with relation to the "ministries" of Zerubbabel and Nehemiah.**

Perhaps as a way to span the gap is the attempt by Lisbeth Fried to make Ezra a historical figure, although she thinks he was an "Overseer", who reported directly to the Persian king himself. These officials would be sent on one year assignments to random districts to make all political appointments for the district he was assigned to and ensure justice was being administered. In Persian society, there were no formal "law" codes, so officials governed in whatever way seemed sensible to them, as long as order was preserved and justice served. This diminishes the likelihood that Ezra was the religious figure who brought a law code with him, although Fried could accept the possibility that he was a Judean exile, and this aspect of the figure was transferred from Zerubbabel and/or Jesus his High priest.

DCH

* (Japhet, Sara) 'The Relationship between Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah' (Ch 9 in From the Rivers of Babylon to the Highlands of Judah, 2006)

** (Graham, M Patrick) 'The 'Chronicler’s History'' (Ch 8 in The Hebrew Bible Today, Steven L McKenzie & Matt Patrick Graham eds, 1998)

*** (Fried, Lisbeth) Ezra & the Law in Hist & Tradn (ISSR, 90-2, 2015, Art 9)