에스라-느헤미야 연구 서설

Abstract

Ezra and Nehemiah are the most prominent figures who, along with the Israelite people taken captive to Babylon, returned to their homeland during the Persian era and campaigned for the political, religious, and social reform. With the temple of Zerubbabel and the walls of Jerusalem as their focal point, they worked, and, above all, fought against the religious syncretism caused by marriages to foreign women. The Book of Ezra-Nehemiah has been criticized as a book that gave birth to legalism and nationalism, reflecting the Judaism of the Second Temple period. However, this era has recently begun to be recognized as important because it was the time when the canonization of the Old Testament including the Pentateuch began to take place and because it is believed to have given birth to the Jewish origin of the New Testament times. In order to properly understand the continuity and discontinuity of Judeo- Christian tradition, we should grasp the earlier tradition (Deuteronomy, Ezekiel) and the comtemporary tradition (Malachi) that formed the Ezra-Nehemiahs theology, and the later tradition (Maccabees). Although the Book of Ezra-Nehemiah, along with the First and the Second Chronicles, are traditionally known to be a part of the Chronicler’s historical books, the Chronicles and the Book of Ezra-Nehemiah are now considered separate books and thus need to be researched independently. This article aims to function as a prolegomena which introduces various topics for the study of the Book of Ezra-Nehemiah.