Revised by Jione Havea, 6/23
Historiographical ambiguities
The presence of two kings named Artaxerxes in PersiaPersia was a southwestern Asian country. The Persian empire was a series of empires that occupied what is currently Afghanistan and Iran from 600 B.C.E. forward. Rulers of the Persian empire mentioned in the Bible are Cyrus and Darius. in the fifth century and the biblical text’s ambiguity regarding them has led to a number of reconstructions of the ordering of the two reformers. The traditional view places Ezra in the seventh year of Artaxerxes I (458 BCE, Ezra 7:8), with Nehemiah arriving 13 years later in the 20th year of Artaxerxes’s reign (445 BCE, Nehemiah 2:1). Others reverse this order to better explain certain difficulties in the text, such as why it took Ezra 13 years to implement the mission designated by Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:25-26; 8:1-14) or how Nehemiah can be the contemporary of the high priestThe high priest was the most powerful priest in the temple in Jerusalem. The high priest Caiaphas held the office during the trial of Jesus. Later, in the New Testament book of Hebrews, the role of merciful high priest is ascribed to the resurrected Jesus. Eliashib (Nehemiah 3:1; 12:22; 13:4) when Ezra is a contemporary of Jehohanan, a priestA priest is a person who has the authority to perform religious rites. In New Testament times priests were responsible for daily offerings and sacrifices in the temple. who is also Eliashib’s grandson (Ezra 10:6; Nehemiah 12:11). In this view, Nehemiah still arrives in 445, but Ezra comes later in the seventh year of Artaxerxes II (398 BCE). Still others place Ezra’s arrival before Nehemiah’s but suggest that their missions overlapped. This is accomplished by altering the text of Ezra 7:8-9 from the “seventh year of the king” to the “twenty-seventh” or the “thirty-seventh.” The historiographical (writing of history) debate is ongoing.
Textual migration
Many commentators are troubled by the placement of Ezra’s reading of the law in the book of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 7:73b–8:18) and propose to relocate it to the Ezra memoir between Ezra 8 and 9, which better suits the chronological sequencing. While the original setting of these verses was probably in Ezra, some scholars also ask theological questions, such as why the move was made, and attempt to deal with the text as it now stands. How one reads this textual dislocation depends on the method and lens (e.g., historical, theological, political) that one uses.
Original language
Ezra contains sections written in the imperial Aramaic of the Persian Empire in addition to the standard Hebrew of the postexilic period. The Aramaic sections include the official correspondence of the Persian rulers Artaxerxes and Darius about Jerusalem (Ezra 4:8–6:18) and Artaxerxes’s commission to Ezra (Ezra 7:12-26).
Relation to Chronicles
Theological differences between Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah have caused a revision of the view that Ezra, Nehemiah, and the books of Chronicles share common authorship and comprise the so-called “Chronicler’s History.” These differences include Chronicles’ inclusive attitude toward the people of the Northern KingdomThe Northern Kingdom consisted of ten of the twelve tribes of Israel and lasted for 200 years until it was destroyed by Assyria in 721 B.C.E. In the northern kingdom the kings were evil. Prophets like Elijah and Amos railed against them and their evildoing.; emphasis upon the Davidic monarchy; and concern with retributive justice–all essentially absent from Ezra-Nehemiah–as well as the differing understanding of “Israel” in the two works. In Chronicles, Israel is defined as all twelve tribes; Ezra-Nehemiah, however, limits Israel to Judah and Benjamin. Currently, most scholars read Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah as separate literary entities.
