Ezra Nehemiah Research Articles

Introduction and General

Introduction and General Christopher T. Begg, Gerald A. Klingbeil, OP Carol J. Dempsey, David A. Bosworth, Katherine E. Brown, Brent A. Strawn, Andrew W. Litke, Fred W. Guyette, Bradley C. Gregory, Joseph E. Jensen, and Mark S. Smith 1191. Rachel E. Adelman, The Female Ruse: Women's Deception & Divine Sanction in the Hebrew Bible (HBM 74; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2015). Pp. xvii + 256. $95, £60, €80. ISBN 978-1-909597-94-2. From Eve to Esther, the Hebrew Bible is replete with gendered tales of trickery. A lie is uttered, a mask donned, a seduction staged, while redemption is propelled forward, guided by the divine hand. With the first biblical "female ruse"—Eve presenting the fruit of the tree of knowledge to Adam—humanity becomes embodied, engaged in history, moving from the Garden to exile, from wandering to homeland and redemption (and back again). Subsequently, Rebekah dresses her beloved son in goatskins to steal the blessing from his blind father; Lot's daughters lie with their drunken father, and then conceive the founding fathers of Ammon and Moab; Leah and Rachel, the mothers of the twelve tribes of Israel, dupe Jacob on their wedding night; Tamar seduces Judah her father-in-law and then bears the progenitor of the Davidic line; Naomi sends Ruth to the threshing floor to seduce Boaz by night; Bathsheba invokes an oath supposedly made by King David in order to advance her son Solomon to the kingship, and Queen Esther conceals her Jewish identity in the Persian imperial court. A. traces these narratives of female deception over the course of her volume, noting that in each case, God is depicted as "in cahoots" with these feminine agents in their respective promotions of the providential plan. A recurrent tension thus holds between "the best laid plans" of the male characters and the divine will as advanced by women. Drawing on classical rabbinic sources and modern literary exegesis, A. highlights [End Page 376] the conflict in the Hebrew Bible between simple genealogical progression and the process of selection by way of family and kin alliances. Women are at the crux of this conflict, being seemingly compelled to choose the indirect route of deception, even as the deity appears to endorse their lies. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 1192. Peter Altmann, Economics in Persian-Period Biblical Texts: Their Interactions with Economic Developments in the Persian Period and Earlier Biblical Traditions (FAT 109; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016). Pp. xii + 342. €119. ISBN 978-3-16-154813-0. A.'s study is a "lightly edited" version of his Habilitationsschrift, accepted in 2015 at the University of Zurich. Following a brief introduction, noting the immense economic changes in the eastern Mediterranean region during the Persian period (sixth to fourth cents. b.c.e.), A. discusses the history of relevant scholarship and the methodology of his research. The next chapter looks at the tradition of royal involvement with economics in Mesopotamia (discussing prices, wages, debt, and interest). Chap. 3 reviews the connection among economics, cult, and society in preexilic biblical texts, while chap. 4, the longest chapter of the book, focuses on the economic background of the Persian period, both in relationship to the larger empire and to the province of Yehud. The next chapter appraises other larger blocks of biblical material (including Chronicles, P, H, Deutero-Isaiah, and Haggai and Zechariah), highlighting important trends in these materials. Chap. 6 offers suggestions regarding the historical and composition-critical setting of Ezra–Nehemiah. Chaps. 7 and 8 deal with economic topics (e.g., payments of tithes, taxes, commerce, and debt) in Ezra and Nehemiah respectively. Rounding off the volume is a brief conclusion, a bibliography, and several indexes. As A. notes, economical considerations are an important element in Persian-period texts intended to "forge a unified Jewish-Judean community" (p. 303).—G.A.K. 1193. Elizabeth Michael Boyle and Carol J. Dempsey, The Bible and Literature (Theology in Dialogue Series; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2015). Pp. vii + 216. Paper $30. ISBN 978-l-62698-127-0. This volume is the third to appear in the Theology in Dialogue Series. Like...

The Construction of Judean Diasporic Identity in Ezra–Nehemiah

This essay explores how Ezra–Nehemiah partially inverts the traditional paradigm of exile found in other biblical writings. When one community is formed at some distance from another in antiquity, the derivative community normally appears as a dependent community (or colony). Yet, in Ezra–Nehemiah the homeland repeatedly experiences renewal through initiatives undertaken by diaspora Judeans. Particular attention is given to how the vertical alliances forged within the Achaemenid administration by two diaspora leaders—Ezra and Nehemiah—are deployed to benefit Yehud. The commendation of Ezra and Nehemiah raises fascinating issues about developing notions of Judean ethnicity and identity in a world dominated by imperial interests.

The Construction of Judean Diasporic Identity in Ezra–Nehemiah

This essay explores how Ezra–Nehemiah partially inverts the traditional paradigm of exile found in other biblical writings. When one community is formed at some distance from another in antiquity, the derivative community normally appears as a dependent community (or colony). Yet, in Ezra–Nehemiah the homeland repeatedly experiences renewal through initiatives undertaken by diaspora Judeans. Particular attention is given to how the vertical alliances forged within the Achaemenid administration by two diaspora leaders—Ezra and Nehemiah—are deployed to benefit Yehud. The commendation of Ezra and Nehemiah raises fascinating issues about developing notions of Judean ethnicity and identity in a world dominated by imperial interests.

The Verbal Tense System in Late Biblical Hebrew Prose by Ohad Cohen (review)

Reviewed by: The Verbal Tense System in Late Biblical Hebrew Prose by Ohad Cohen Paul Korchin THE VERBAL TENSE SYSTEM IN LATE BIBLICAL HEBREW PROSE. By Ohad Cohen. Trans. Avi Aronsky. HSS 63. Pp. xiv + 304. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013. Cloth, $49.50. Can the Biblical Hebrew verbal system(s) ever truly be solved? Centuries of philological laborings have yielded many insights into the structures and significations of individual verbal components—and yet the actual, precise workings of the system as a whole remain elusive. The functional categories of tense, aspect, and mood compose the trifecta around which most studies variously place their linguistic bets. Traditionally, a winner-take-all approach has been invoked: for example, Biblical Hebrew verbal morphologies must primarily signify aspect, or else they must chiefly convey tense. Yet greater appreciation has developed for less rigid and more nuanced models that aim to account for the complexities of Biblical Hebrew as we actually have it, rather than as we ideally wish it to be. Ohad Cohen’s monograph exhibits this kind of awareness throughout, as he endeavors methodically to describe and, where possible, to explain the forms and functions of Biblical Hebrew in its historically later permutations. The inclusion of “Tense” in the title of the book is somewhat confusing, potentially leading the reader to expect that the author intends to proffer a mainly temporal (as opposed to aspectual and/or modal) analysis of Biblical Hebrew verbs. Yet in his opening paragraph, Cohen avers that “use of the term ‘tense,’ which appears in the title of this work, is a mere formality and carries no significance regarding the actual meaning of the verbal system” (p. 1). Such a formality would thus have been better avoided, given the highly loaded nature of this term for the discussions at hand. Cohen states that he will apply a structuralist methodology to his project—predicated upon classic (neo)-Saussurean oppositions between diachrony versus synchrony, langue versus parole, and paradigm versus syntagm—and in this approach he is commendably consistent (p. 1). Critics who contend that structuralism is an overly rigid, unduly static, ultimately outmoded model for linguistics fail to grant due appreciation to its capacity for crafting productive descriptive analyses of language in terms of oppositions that can be predicated simultaneously upon multiple binarisms across numerous domains (cf. pp. 28–29). Indeed, structural opposition potentially even entails powerful explanatory capacities for language origins and usage, given the adaptive bilateral symmetric morphology of Homo sapiens that evolved in response to selective pressures within Hominin [sic] environments. [End Page 423] Cohen delineates his corpus of study by relying upon the tripartite historico-linguistic distinction between archaic, classical, and late (Second Temple) Biblical Hebrew (pp. 7–15). This yields him a database of Esther, Daniel, Ezra–Nehemiah, and (non-synoptic) Chronicles. He then proceeds to introduce the well-known 1947 model of Hans Reichenbach, which incorporated the notion of reference time (R)—and hence, relative tense—into linguistic relationships between speech time (S) and event time (E) (pp. 16–19). Cohen’s discussion of these potentially complex combinations is reasonably coherent, but his presentation suffers from periodic typographic errors (e.g., past perfect correctly as E - R - S [p. 16], then incorrectly as E - S - R [p. 19]), which render it frustratingly obtuse at times. Despite this, his provisional conclusion is important: “Hebrew verbs are indeed full-fledged relative forms, namely their distinct relationship to reference time is the only parameter for determining their chronological meaning” (p. 19). The author then proceeds to discuss the Biblical Hebrew consecutive forms, where he adopts an eccentric component into his study: “one of the crucial features of a verb form that denotes succession is that it contains its own reference time [E, R], and it is this very trait which allows for the construction of the narrative succession” (p. 25). Cohen throughout adheres to this notion that Biblical Hebrew consecutive forms—originally wayyiqtol and weqatal, and later qatal and the infinitive absolute (see p. 78)—reset, each and every time, the given narrative’s referential clock, thereby constituting independent temporal frames that get joined in varying degrees of contiguity (pp. 77, 95–96, 114, 171–173, 195...

Scripturalization and the Aaronide Dynasties

Priests claiming descent from Aaron controlled the high priesthood of temples in Jerusalem and on Mount Gerizim in the Second Temple period. These Aaronides were in a position to influence religious developments in this period, especially the scripturalization of the Torah. The priests’ dynastic claims were probably a significant factor in the elevation of the Pentateuch to scriptural status. This claim can be tested by correlating what little we know about the Aaronide dynasties with what little we know about the scripturalization of two different portions of the Hebrew Bible, the Pentateuch and Ezra–Nehemiah.

Inklusivisme en eksklusivisme: ‘n Studie van twee tendense

Inclusivism and exclusivism: A study of two trendsThe identity of the church can be either inclusivist or exclusivist. Van Ruler’s theocratic theology views the church as being an inclusive community in service of God’s kingdom. It is the vehicle God uses to introduce his kingdom into the world. According to Van Ruler, however, the church also shows a unique character based on its relationship with Jesus Christ. Although the church can take many forms, Van Ruler’s opinion is that the Christian Church could be advised by Old Testament Israel in this regard. This study shows that both inclusivist and exclusivist trends are present in the Old as well as the New Testament. The New Testament inherited the debate between these two opposing stances from the time of the Second Temple. Returning from exile, Sadocitic priests propagated an exclusivist identity for the Judaeans. Their viewpoint was based on the programme of Ezekiel 40–48, as is illustrated in the literature of Ezra–Nehemiah, the Priestly Writing, Chronicles and Jubilees. On the other hand, indeed there was an inclusivist approach as well, as is depicted in the books of Jonah, Ruth, Trito-Isaiah and even Numbers and Joshua. The conclusion drawn from the study is that both exclusivist and inclusivist trends are present in the Bible. Although the church does not have any other option in the present postmodern world but to be primarily an inclusive community, it should also show some form of exclusivism.

The Function of a Conjunction: Inclusivist or Exclusivist Strategies in Ezra 6.19-21 and Nehemiah 10.29-30?

In spite of the genealogical exclusion of non-Israelites evidenced throughout Ezra—Nehemiah, numerous scholars find strategies of inclusivism within the work. In particular, Ezra 6.19-21 and Neh. 10.29-30 have been understood to envision the incorporation of outsiders into the Golah group. After surveying the evidence for exclusivism in Ezra—Nehemiah, this article presents an alternative reading of these specific passages by providing a different interpretation of the function of the waw. It is argued that, instead of intending to portray outsiders joining the Golah group, Ezra 6.19-21 and Neh. 10.29-30 describe the separation of the Golah group from the impurity of the nations.

Your People, My People: An Exploration of Ethnicity in Ruth

This article reviews competing theories of ethnic identity to suggest different points in the book of Ruth at which Ruth the Moabite may become an Israelite. Close reading of the text favours the suggestion that Ruth enters the Israelite ethnie upon her acceptance by the Bethlehem community in ch. 4. This accords with a Constructivist vision of ethnic identity, where biological descent is not always necessary for ethnic belonging. Though the ethnic vision of Ruth is often supposed to contrast with that in Ezra—Nehemiah, the nuances of ethnological theory suggest a greater congruence between these two texts. The conclusion identifies some advantages and dangers of employing anthropological theory in biblical studies.

Ezra–NehemiahGrabbeLester L. Ezra—Nehemiah Old Testament ReadingsRoutledgeLondon/New York, 1998, x, 209

Ezra–NehemiahGrabbeLester L. <i>Ezra—Nehemiah</i> Old Testament ReadingsRoutledgeLondon/New York, 1998, x, 209

Book Review: Ezra—Nehemiah: A Commentary

Book Review: Ezra—Nehemiah: A Commentary

The Supposed Common Authorship of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemia Investigated Anew

1) There is also a general unanimity regarding the reason for the assumed separation. With light variations it runs as follows: reason for the division has been seen, and probably rightly, in the fact that Ezr.-Neh. became canonical before Chr. for their contents did not appear in the older books which had already become canonical whereas those of Chr. did. When later Chr. too became canonical Ezr.-Neh. still kept its prior place. 0. EISSFELDT, The Old Testament, an Introduction, translated by P. R. ACKROYD, 1965, pp. 530-531. Cf. also J. MYERS, I Chronicles, 1965, p. XVII, and W. RUDOLPH, Die Chronikbiicher, 1955, p. IV. 2) L. ZUNZ: Dibre-Hayamim oder die Bucher der Die Gottesdienstlichen Vortrdge derJuden, historisch Entwickelt, 1832, p. 13-36. 3) F. C. MOVERS: Kritische Untersuchungen iber die biblische Chronik, 1834. 4) Thus it was correctly stated by C. C. TORREY that is at present generally agreed that Chr.-Ez.-Neh. originally formed one book, which was put in its final form by the author of the book of Chronicles, commonly called 'the Chronicler' . Composition and Historical Value of Ezra Nehemiah, B.Z.A. W. 2, 1896, p. I. A systematic summary of the discussion is given by A. KUENEN, Historisch Kritische Einleitung in die Biicher des A.T. 1890, I § 29 p. lllff., and by S. R. DRIVER, Introduction to the literature of the O.T. 1891 (Enlarged in the following editions). It is interesting to note that J. WELLHAUSEN, while accepting the general opinion in the introductory words to his famous chapter on Chr. totally ignores it in the investigation itself, and deals only with Chr. proper.