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1 Esdras and the Books of Ezra

Explore 1 Esdras, its account of the return from exile, its connections with Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and its different names and place in Christian Bibles.

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The Books Called Esdras

Greek, Latin, Slavonic, and English readers use different numbers for the books attributed to Ezra, with the account of Zerubbabel's contest distinguished from a later apocalypse about Jerusalem's destruction.

1

What 1 Esdras Is

In the Hebrew Bible, Zerubbabel leads the returning exiles as they rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, and Ezra arrives later to teach the Torah of Moses. Greek-speaking Jewish readers had another account of that history, in which Zerubbabel first wins a debate at the Persian court and uses his reward to secure the king's help for his people. This account, now called 1 Esdras, contains much of the same material as Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, with a different beginning, a different arrangement of events, and a court story found in none of those books.[1][2]
1 Esdras 1:1-2
1 Josiah held the Passover in Jerusalem to his Lord, and offered the Passover the fourteenth day of the first month, 2 having set the priests according to their daily courses, being arrayed in their vestments, in the Lord’s temple.
The history begins before the exile, when King Josiah gathers the priests and Levites to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem. His death is followed by the last kings of Judah, the Babylonian destruction of the temple, and the deportation of its people, before Cyrus conquers Babylon and allows the exiles to return. The returning families, the rebuilding of the altar and temple, and Ezra's journey and reforms occupy most of the remaining chapters. At the end, the people gather to hear Ezra read the Torah, the teaching attributed to Moses, as in Nehemiah 8.[3]

Zerubbabel's debate takes place between Cyrus's permission to return and the list of returning families. Three bodyguards serving the Persian king Darius agree to explain what is strongest, each hoping to give the answer that will win him a place of honor beside the king. One argues for wine, which makes its drinkers forget the differences between rich and poor, another for the king, whose subjects work and fight at his command, and the third for women, who bear and raise the men who wield those powers.[4]
1 Esdras 3:10-12
10 The first wrote, “Wine is the strongest.” 11 The second wrote, “The king is strongest.” 12 The third wrote, “Women are strongest, but above all things Truth is the victor.”
Zerubbabel is the third guard, whose argument for women is followed by the declaration that truth is stronger than them all, earning him Darius's invitation to request a reward. His request concerns Jerusalem and its temple, so the restoration depends on the favor won by a Jewish courtier before Ezra arrives to teach the returned community. Nehemiah, the governor responsible for the walls in the Hebrew account, appears only among names associated with Zerubbabel's time, without the memoirs of his governorship and building work included in Esdras B.[5][6]
Ezra 3:2
2 Then Jeshua the son of Jozadak and his priestly colleagues and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his colleagues started to build the altar of the God of Israel so they could offer burnt offerings on it as required by the law of Moses the man of God.
Ezra 7:10
10 Now Ezra had dedicated himself to the study of the law of the Lord, to its observance, and to teaching its statutes and judgments in Israel.
The Greek translation is usually dated to the second century BCE, probably in Egypt, though its language suggests that the translator worked from Hebrew and Aramaic material now lost, and the surviving Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Arabic versions were made from Greek. The composition of the underlying work is harder to place, with one reconstruction assigning it to third-century BCE Jerusalem, before the Greek translation was made. The proposed dates concern different stages, since the earlier episodes could have been written and combined well before their translation for Greek-speaking readers.[7]

Christian scribes preserved both Greek accounts in the Greek Septuagint translation, the collection of Jewish scriptures rendered in Greek. They copied 1 Esdras under the name Esdras A alongside Esdras B, a closer translation of Ezra and Nehemiah together, with Esdras as the Greek form of Ezra's name. In Codex Vaticanus, a fourth-century manuscript of the Greek Bible, the two are placed after Chronicles, A followed by B. Readers of that manuscript could compare Zerubbabel's success at court with Nehemiah's governorship in two accounts of the restoration copied beside one another.[8][9]

Citations

  1. [1] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 106–109) Oxford University Press, 2021
  2. [2] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 144) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  3. [3] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 107, 110–112) Oxford University Press, 2021
  4. [4] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 108) Oxford University Press, 2021
  5. [5] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 191) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  6. [6] Wooden, R. Glenn 1 Esdras, in A New English Translation of the Septuagint (pp. 392) Oxford University Press, 2007
  7. [7] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 141–142) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  8. [8] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 24) Brill, 2012
  9. [9] Gallagher, Edmon L., and John D. Meade The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (pp. 269) Oxford University Press, 2017

The Books Called Esdras

Greek, Latin, Slavonic, and English readers use different numbers for the books attributed to Ezra, with the account of Zerubbabel's contest distinguished from a later apocalypse about Jerusalem's destruction.

2

The Four Names of 1 Esdras

English readers usually know the account with Zerubbabel's contest as 1 Esdras, from its place in the Apocrypha, the books printed separately from the Hebrew scriptures. Greek readers know it as Esdras A, Latin readers as 3 Esdras, and Slavonic readers as 2 Esdras, because their Bibles count Ezra and Nehemiah differently and place the additional Ezra writings after them in a different order. The names refer to the same book, whose number depends on the collection in which it is read.[1][2]

Greek scribes copied the account with Zerubbabel's debate as Esdras A and the combined Ezra and Nehemiah as Esdras B, placing two histories of the return from exile within the same collection. Their contents overlap through the rebuilding of the temple, although A begins earlier, with Josiah's Passover, and B continues further, through Nehemiah's governorship and reforms. Cyrus's decree is included in both because it belongs to that shared period, giving readers two Greek translations of the permission to return, one within the history containing the contest and one within the combined Ezra and Nehemiah.[3][4]
1 Esdras 2:1-2
1 In the first year of King Cyrus of the Persians, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, 2 the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of the Persians, and he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also by writing,
LXX Ezra 1:1
1 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of the Persians, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremias might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of the Persians, and he issued a proclamation through all his kingdom, and that in writing, saying,
In the Vulgate, the Latin Bible associated with Jerome's translation, scribes also copied Ezra and Nehemiah as one book before manuscripts produced in tenth-century Spain began separating them. Once the two were counted separately, Ezra became 1 Esdras and Nehemiah 2 Esdras, with the account of Zerubbabel's contest numbered 3 Esdras. A further work attributed to Ezra, an apocalypse about the destruction of Jerusalem, became 4 Esdras. In this arrangement, the first and second books are the Hebrew Ezra and Nehemiah, while the third and fourth are the additional writings, so Latin 1 Esdras contains no bodyguard contest.[5]

Slavonic editors kept Nehemiah under its own name and numbered the three Ezra books separately. The Russian Bible published by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1956, for example, has Ezra as 1 Esdras, the account with the contest as 2 Esdras, and the apocalypse as 3 Esdras. A reader looking up 2 Esdras in that Bible would find Zerubbabel arguing before Darius, while a reader looking up the same number in a Latin Vulgate would find Nehemiah rebuilding Jerusalem's walls. Both collections contain Nehemiah, but only one counts him among the numbered Ezra books.[6]

English Protestant editors generally kept Ezra and Nehemiah in the Old Testament under their familiar names and placed the additional Ezra writings in the Apocrypha. They began the numbering there with 1 Esdras for the account of the contest and 2 Esdras for the apocalypse, an arrangement used in the Geneva Bible of 1560, the King James Version, and later editions such as the Revised Standard Version. The Latin third and fourth books thus became the English first and second, because the two Hebrew books had already been named and placed elsewhere.[7][8]

Older references to Esdras have to be read with that numbering in mind. Greek 2 Esdras can mean Ezra and Nehemiah together, Latin 2 Esdras means Nehemiah, Slavonic 2 Esdras contains the contest, and English 2 Esdras is the apocalypse. The difference also persists in modern writing, where English authors usually refer to the contest narrative as 1 Esdras and German authors commonly use 3 Esra, following the Latin number. A reference to Zerubbabel's debate identifies the same account regardless of which number its reader has used.[9][10]

Citations

  1. [1] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 179) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  2. [2] Gallagher, Edmon L., and John D. Meade The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (pp. 269) Oxford University Press, 2017
  3. [3] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 106) Oxford University Press, 2021
  4. [4] Gallagher, Edmon L., and John D. Meade The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (pp. 269) Oxford University Press, 2017
  5. [5] Gallagher, Edmon L., and John D. Meade The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (pp. 269) Oxford University Press, 2017
  6. [6] Metzger, Bruce M. The Fourth Book of Ezra, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 1 (pp. 516) Doubleday, 1983
  7. [7] Stone, Michael E., and Matthias Henze 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch: Translations, Introductions, and Notes (pp. 8) Fortress Press, 2013
  8. [8] Metzger, Bruce M. The Fourth Book of Ezra, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 1 (pp. 516) Doubleday, 1983
  9. [9] Wooden, R. Glenn 2 Esdras, in A New English Translation of the Septuagint (pp. 405) Oxford University Press, 2007
  10. [10] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 179) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015

The Books Called Esdras

Greek, Latin, Slavonic, and English readers use different numbers for the books attributed to Ezra, with the account of Zerubbabel's contest distinguished from a later apocalypse about Jerusalem's destruction.

3

The Unrelated Apocalypse of 2 Esdras

English readers can find 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras beside one another in the Apocrypha, though their authors wrote about different destructions of Jerusalem's temple. In 1 Esdras the Jews return from Babylonian exile and rebuild under Persian rule, while the Jewish author of the central work in 2 Esdras responds to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Writing near the end of the first century, he attributes his questions to Ezra and places them after the Babylonian conquest, using an earlier catastrophe as the setting for a response to the one his own community had suffered.[1]
4 Ezra 3:1-2
1 In the thirtieth year after the ruin of the city, I Salathiel, also called Ezra, was in Babylon, and lay troubled upon my bed, and my thoughts came up over my heart, 2 for I saw the desolation of Zion and the wealth of those who lived at Babylon.
Ezra sees Zion in ruins and Babylon prospering, and asks how God can allow people who disregard his commandments to flourish while Israel suffers. Uriel, the angel sent to answer him, speaks about the limits of human understanding, the judgment still to come, and the world beyond the present one, while Ezra continues to press the injustice of the situation. The conqueror is named Babylon because that is the empire of Ezra's supposed lifetime, though the author was writing after Rome had destroyed the rebuilt temple and left a later generation facing much the same question.[2]
4 Ezra 4:1-2
1 The angel who was sent to me, whose name was Uriel, gave me an answer, 2 and said to me, “Your understanding has utterly failed you regarding this world. Do you think you can comprehend the way of the Most High?”
Ezra receives these answers through seven episodes, with periods of fasting between them. The first three consist mainly of disputes with Uriel, after which Ezra sees visions of the heavenly Jerusalem, an eagle representing imperial power, and a figure who defeats the nations assembled against him. At the end he dictates ninety-four books, twenty-four for public reading and seventy for the wise alone. The author uses the form of an apocalypse, a narrative in which a human recipient learns about the unseen world and the future through revelation, to explain the catastrophe and imagine what will follow it.[3]

The sixteen chapters printed in Latin and many English editions include material written by three different authors. The Jewish apocalypse occupies chapters 3 through 14 and is usually called 4 Ezra in modern scholarship, while chapters 1 and 2 are a Christian introduction called 5 Ezra and chapters 15 and 16 a later addition called 6 Ezra. In other ancient translations the central apocalypse was copied separately, although a Greek fragment of 5 Ezra survives too. The opening identification as the second book of the prophet Ezra belongs to the Christian introduction, rather than to the Jewish author's original beginning.[4]
4 Ezra 1:1
1 The second book of the prophet Ezra, the son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Shallum, the son of Zadok, the son of Ahitub,
Neither the probable Hebrew original of 4 Ezra nor its Greek translation survives complete, so readers depend on versions translated from Greek into Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic, Georgian, Armenian, and Arabic. By contrast, 1 Esdras can still be read in Greek. The two were grouped together because both were attributed to Ezra, despite their different contents and histories of copying. In Latin they are 3 and 4 Esdras, and in Slavonic 2 and 3 Esdras, so the number 4 Ezra used for the Jewish apocalypse follows the Latin arrangement, while distinguishing it from the Christian additions.[5][6][7]

Later writers composed further revelations under Ezra's name, including the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra, the Apocalypse of Sedrach, and the Questions of Ezra. Latin editors also continued printing the older apocalypse alongside the contest narrative, placing both in an appendix after the New Testament in Vulgate editions following the sixteenth-century Council of Trent. Neither was included among the books the council accepted as scripture, but readers could still find them in the same volume as the accepted scriptures. Their shared attribution to Ezra accounts for that association more readily than anything in their stories.[8][9]

Citations

  1. [1] Stone, Michael E., and Matthias Henze 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch: Translations, Introductions, and Notes (pp. 1–3) Fortress Press, 2013
  2. [2] Stone, Michael E., and Matthias Henze 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch: Translations, Introductions, and Notes (pp. 3–4) Fortress Press, 2013
  3. [3] Stone, Michael E., and Matthias Henze 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch: Translations, Introductions, and Notes (pp. 2–4) Fortress Press, 2013
  4. [4] Stone, Michael E., and Matthias Henze 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch: Translations, Introductions, and Notes (pp. 7–8) Fortress Press, 2013
  5. [5] Stone, Michael E., and Matthias Henze 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch: Translations, Introductions, and Notes (pp. 4–5) Fortress Press, 2013
  6. [6] Metzger, Bruce M. The Fourth Book of Ezra, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 1 (pp. 516) Doubleday, 1983
  7. [7] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 142) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  8. [8] Stone, Michael E., and Matthias Henze 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch: Translations, Introductions, and Notes (pp. 7–8) Fortress Press, 2013
  9. [9] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 145) Jewish Publication Society, 2013

The Story From Josiah to Ezra

The history in 1 Esdras begins with Josiah's Passover and ends with Ezra reading the law, while Zerubbabel gains Darius's help to restore Jerusalem and its temple through a debate at the Persian court.

4

Beginning With Josiah’s Passover

Josiah's Passover takes place in the eighteenth year of his reign, when the king gathers the priests and Levites in Jerusalem and supplies animals for the celebration. The opening of 1 Esdras follows 2 Chronicles 35 in describing the arrangements at length, including the Levites' duties, the priests' service, and instructions associated with Moses and David. Readers encounter a temple with its priests, sacrifices, and festivals before the Babylonian destruction, so the sanctuary later rebuilt by the returning exiles has already been described in use, under a king praised for his devotion.[1]

The author of Kings allows Josiah's Passover three verses where the author of Chronicles gives it nineteen, making Chronicles the source for the much fuller festival account with which 1 Esdras begins. Before the history continues through Josiah's death, the last kings of Judah, and the Babylonian conquest, an additional assessment praises the king's godliness and recalls the sins for which Israel was judged. Josiah's devotion is thus distinguished from the earlier offenses of his people, explaining why the reign of an exemplary king is followed by the destruction of the sanctuary where he had celebrated.[2][3]
1 Esdras 1:23-24
23 The works of Josiah were upright before his Lord with a heart full of godliness. 24 Moreover the things that came to pass in his days have been written in times past, concerning those who sinned and did wickedly against the Lord more than any other people or kingdom, and how they grieved him exceedingly, so that the Lord’s words were confirmed against Israel.
The assessment is absent from surviving Hebrew Chronicles, though similar language occurs in 2 Kings, where the praise of Josiah is followed by a declaration that Manasseh's sins still require Judah's destruction. Some of that material also occurs in Greek Chronicles, making it possible that a Hebrew copy used by the Greek translators already contained it. On that explanation, the translator of 1 Esdras rendered a longer source freely, and the difference from Hebrew Chronicles would come partly from that source. The additional passage cannot therefore be assigned to the translator merely because it is absent from the Hebrew copies now available.[4]

The explanation of Josiah's death differs more sharply, since in Chronicles Pharaoh Necho warns Josiah to keep away from a war on the Euphrates, claiming that God has sent him and that interference will endanger the Judean king. Josiah nevertheless enters the battle, is wounded, and dies after being taken back to Jerusalem. The author of Chronicles identifies Necho's message as a warning received from God, which makes Josiah's failure a refusal to accept divine instruction even when it comes through a foreign ruler.[5]
2 Chronicles 35:22
22 But Josiah did not turn back from him; he disguised himself for battle. He did not take seriously the words of Necho that he had received from God; he went to fight him in the Plain of Megiddo.
In 1 Esdras the Egyptian king is unnamed, and Josiah is said to have disregarded a warning given by Jeremiah on God's authority. There is no earlier scene in which Jeremiah gives that warning, but naming him changes the explanation of Josiah's conduct: the king has ignored an Israelite prophet, rather than failing to recognize God's instruction through an Egyptian. The names "Lord" and "Lord God" also replace the more general God at points in the Greek account. The event remains Josiah's fatal intervention in the battle, while the person through whom he should have recognized the warning has changed.[6]
1 Esdras 1:28
28 However, Josiah didn’t turn back to his chariot, but tried to fight with him, not regarding the words of the prophet Jeremiah from the Lord’s mouth,
After the loss of the dynasty and the burning of the temple, Cyrus allows the exiles to return and rebuild. His decree appears twice in the Hebrew Bible, at the end of Chronicles and again at the beginning of Ezra, but once in 1 Esdras, between the destruction and the return. The temple vessels are carried away during the conquest and later brought back, while worship lost with the sanctuary resumes after its restoration. Those connections between the first chapter and the later rebuilding depend on the detailed account of temple life with which the history begins.[7][8]

Citations

  1. [1] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 147–148) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  2. [2] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 147, 151) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  3. [3] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 107) Oxford University Press, 2021
  4. [4] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 188) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  5. [5] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 151–152) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  6. [6] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 152) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  7. [7] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 108) Oxford University Press, 2021
  8. [8] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 144) Jewish Publication Society, 2013

The Story From Josiah to Ezra

The history in 1 Esdras begins with Josiah's Passover and ends with Ezra reading the law, while Zerubbabel gains Darius's help to restore Jerusalem and its temple through a debate at the Persian court.

5

The Letter to Artaxerxes Appears Earlier

In Ezra, the returning families establish an altar and begin work on the temple before officials complain to Artaxerxes about rebuilding Jerusalem's walls. In 1 Esdras, the complaint comes immediately after Cyrus's permission to return, before the families are listed or their building work described. The officials also mention marketplaces and temple foundations among the projects they want stopped. The difference affects what Zerubbabel has to accomplish when he later appears at Darius's court, since the account of his success now follows a royal order halting the restoration.[1][2]
Ezra 4:12
12 Now let the king be aware that the Jews who came up to us from you have gone to Jerusalem. They are rebuilding that rebellious and odious city. They are completing its walls and repairing its foundations.
1 Esdras 2:18
18 Let it now be known to our lord the king, that the Jews that have come up from you to us, having come to Jerusalem, are building that rebellious and wicked city, and are repairing its marketplaces and walls, and are laying the foundation of a temple.
The officials warn that a rebuilt Jerusalem will withhold tribute and threaten the king's control of the region, appealing to royal records of the city's earlier resistance. Artaxerxes has those records examined and agrees that the work should stop. In Ezra the complaint concerns the city, while in 1 Esdras the officials include the temple among its projects, making the king's order an obstacle to rebuilding the sanctuary too. The correspondence is shorter in Greek, with the separate notice about opposition under Ahasuerus omitted and the officials' names combined into one list.[3][4]
Ezra 4:23-24
23 Then, as soon as the copy of the letter from King Artaxerxes was read in the presence of Rehum, Shimshai the scribe, and their colleagues, they proceeded promptly to the Jews in Jerusalem and stopped them with threat of armed force. 24 So the work on the temple of God in Jerusalem came to a halt. It remained halted until the second year of the reign of King Darius of Persia.
1 Esdras 2:30
30 Then, when the letter of King Artaxerxes had been read, Rathumus, and Samellius the scribe, and the rest of their associates, went in haste to Jerusalem with cavalry and a multitude of people in battle array, and began to hinder the builders. So the building of the temple in Jerusalem ceased until the second year of the reign of King Darius of the Persians.
The position of these letters is difficult historically, because Darius ruled from 522 to 486 BCE and the first Artaxerxes from 465 to 424 BCE. Both accounts nevertheless place the Artaxerxes correspondence between Cyrus and Darius. In Ezra the letters can be read as later examples of opposition inserted during a description of resistance under Cyrus, before the account resumes with Darius. In 1 Esdras the letters have been placed earlier in the narrative, leaving the stop order directly before the contest in which Darius grants Zerubbabel permission to rebuild.[5]

When Zerubbabel later asks Darius to authorize the rebuilding of Jerusalem and its temple, the king provides letters allowing the work to proceed after Artaxerxes has halted it. The returning families are listed afterward, associating Zerubbabel's return with Darius, whereas in Ezra he appears among those returning under Cyrus. A leader already involved in the return in the Hebrew account becomes, in the Greek one, the courtier whose wisdom wins the renewed royal permission on which the return and rebuilding depend.[6]

Once the letters are moved, the opposition described in chapter 5 is followed more directly by Haggai and Zechariah's encouragement of the rebuilding in chapter 6. Those events are connected more closely, but the Persian rulers remain out of historical order, so the rearrangement does not amount to a consistent correction of Ezra's chronology. The scope of the permission differs too: Darius allows Zerubbabel to rebuild city and temple together in 1 Esdras, while in Ezra and Nehemiah the temple is restored first and Nehemiah later undertakes the walls.[7][8]

Citations

  1. [1] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 143) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  2. [2] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 189) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  3. [3] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 108) Oxford University Press, 2021
  4. [4] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 189) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  5. [5] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 179, 189) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  6. [6] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 109) Oxford University Press, 2021
  7. [7] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 189) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  8. [8] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 116) Oxford University Press, 2021

The Story From Josiah to Ezra

The history in 1 Esdras begins with Josiah's Passover and ends with Ezra reading the law, while Zerubbabel gains Darius's help to restore Jerusalem and its temple through a debate at the Persian court.

6

The Contest of the Three Bodyguards

Darius has entertained the officials of his empire and gone to bed when three young bodyguards begin discussing what is strongest. Each writes down his answer, seals it, and places it beneath the king's pillow, with the expectation that the wisest answer will earn its author a reward. When Darius wakes and reads them, he summons his officials and requires the guards to explain their choices before the court. The men begin with a discussion among themselves, but their promotion now depends on persuading the ruler whose household they serve.[1]
1 Esdras 3:4-5
4 Then the three young men of the bodyguard, who guarded the king, spoke one to another: 5 “Let every one of us state what one thing is strongest. King Darius will give him whose statement seems wiser than the others great gifts and great honors in token of victory.
The rewards they imagine include purple clothing, golden drinking vessels and a couch, a chariot with golden bridles, a turban and necklace, and a seat beside the king as his kinsman. These are the visible honors of membership in the royal household, comparable to the clothing and positions bestowed on Joseph, Daniel, and Mordecai in other Jewish court stories. The three guards agree on the honors before making their arguments, though Darius has not yet promised them anything, an awkward detail in a story about their dependence on the king's favor.[2]

The first guard argues for wine by describing how drinkers lose the distinctions that normally separate them. Kings and orphans, slaves and free people, the wealthy and the poor forget their grief and debts, imagine themselves rich, and quarrel with people they had treated as friends. The second argues for the king, whose subjects fight, kill, die, and bring back spoils at his command, while farmers surrender their produce as tribute. The king himself eats and sleeps under guard, an example close to the speakers' own work, since they protect the man whose power they are debating.[3]

Darius's empire is described as extending across 127 provinces from India to Ethiopia, the same number and extent given for Ahasuerus's kingdom in Esther. That description does not fit the early part of Darius's reign in which the contest is placed, suggesting that the author used a picture of Persian court life already familiar from Jewish writing. The similarity concerns the setting and scale of royal power, without establishing that the contest itself had ever taken place or that its writer had firsthand knowledge of the Persian household.[4]
Esther 1:1
1 The following events happened in the days of Ahasuerus. (I am referring to that Ahasuerus who used to rule over 127 provinces extending all the way from India to Ethiopia.)
1 Esdras 3:2
2 and for all the local governors and captains and governors who were under him, from India to Ethiopia, in the one hundred twenty-seven provinces.
Jewish authors repeatedly described capable members of their community gaining influence under foreign rulers, as in Esther, Judith, and Daniel. The author of the Letter of Aristeas also places discussions of wisdom at a king's table, while the writers of Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon consider human conduct and the value of wisdom. The bodyguards' arguments belong to that broader world of writing, where a speaker demonstrates his understanding of ordinary life before a ruler who has the power to advance him. The guards discuss everyday sources of power before a king who can reward their wisdom with a higher position at court.[5][6]

The earlier form of the contest remains uncertain, with some features of the Greek suggesting Aramaic material and another explanation treating the episode as a Greek addition to a translated book. There are loose connections in the surviving story too, including two notices that Darius wakes, as well as the guards' agreement about a reward the king has yet to offer. Only the third speaker receives a name, Zerubbabel, linking the contest to the returning exiles. Once he is identified, his victory becomes the occasion for a request on behalf of Jerusalem.[7][8][9]

Citations

  1. [1] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 162–164) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  2. [2] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 163) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  3. [3] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 165–167) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  4. [4] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 162–163) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  5. [5] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 6) Brill, 2012
  6. [6] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 108) Oxford University Press, 2021
  7. [7] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 184) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  8. [8] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 115) Oxford University Press, 2021
  9. [9] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 162–164) Jewish Publication Society, 2013

The Story From Josiah to Ezra

The history in 1 Esdras begins with Josiah's Passover and ends with Ezra reading the law, while Zerubbabel gains Darius's help to restore Jerusalem and its temple through a debate at the Persian court.

7

Zerubbabel’s Speech on Women and Truth

Zerubbabel argues for women by describing the dependence of both the king and the men who make wine on the women who bear them, raise them, and later influence them as husbands. Men with public authority may leave parents, country, and possessions for the women to whom they are attached, giving Zerubbabel a way to answer the claims about kings and wine through the conduct of the people responsible for those powers. His examples concern familiar relationships within households before he describes a relationship within Darius's own household, between the king and his concubine.[1]

A man's departure from his father and mother echoes the language of Genesis 2:24, where he becomes attached to his wife. Zerubbabel uses the relationship as evidence of women's influence, adding the dangers and sacrifices men accept for their sake. He then names Apame, daughter of Bartacus, as a woman whose behavior he claims to have observed in the royal household. Attempts to identify the two with historical people remain inconclusive, but the example within the story is specific: Apame treats Darius with a familiarity that his officials could hardly afford.[2]
1 Esdras 4:30
30 and taking the crown from the king’s head, and setting it upon her own head. Yes, she struck the king with her left hand.
Apame takes Darius's crown, puts it on her own head, and strikes his face while the king watches her and tries to regain her favor, submitting to treatment that his officials could hardly risk. Zerubbabel gives this example before the assembled court, describing the personal dependence of the ruler whose commands the previous guard has praised as the greatest power. After a pause he begins a further argument about the earth, the heavens, and the sun, asking the court to consider an authority that endures beyond the powerful people described in the earlier speeches.[3]
1 Esdras 4:35-38
35 Isn’t he who makes these things great? Therefore the truth is great, and stronger than all things. 36 All the earth calls upon truth, and the sky blesses truth. All works shake and tremble, but with truth there is no unrighteous thing. 37 Wine is unrighteous. The king is unrighteous. Women are unrighteous. All the children of men are unrighteous, and all their works are unrighteous. There is no truth in them. They shall also perish in their unrighteousness. 38 But truth remains, and is strong forever. Truth lives and conquers forevermore.
Truth, in Zerubbabel's explanation, endures while wine, kings, and women are temporary and can be associated with injustice. He describes its superiority through the order of the world and its creator, extending the debate beyond the ways people influence one another. This gives him two answers to a contest in which each guard had agreed to give one. The change has supported the proposal that someone added the praise of truth to an earlier story about wine, kings, and women, either before the contest was incorporated into 1 Esdras or during its composition.[4][5]

The descriptions of truth resemble language used about God elsewhere in scripture. The sun's course has parallels in Psalm 19 and Ecclesiastes 1:5, the absence of partiality resembles Jehoshaphat's instructions concerning God's justice in 2 Chronicles 19:7, and the strength, kingship, and majesty assigned to truth recall David's blessing in 1 Chronicles 29. Zerubbabel names the God of truth only at the end, using a designation also found in 2 Chronicles 15:3. His Persian audience has first heard divine attributes explained through the superiority of truth, before the speaker identifies the God he praises.[6]
1 Esdras 4:39-40
39 With truth there is no partiality toward persons or rewards, but truth does the things that are just, instead of any unrighteous or wicked things. All men approve truth’s works. 40 There is no unrighteousness in truth’s judgment. Truth is the strength, the kingdom, the power, and the majesty of all ages. Blessed be the God of truth!”
When Darius offers the promised honors and invites a further request, Zerubbabel asks for Jerusalem and its temple to be rebuilt and the temple vessels returned, appealing to a vow the king is said to have made when he received the kingdom. No earlier episode describes that commitment, so readers learn about it only when Zerubbabel claims his reward. Darius nevertheless agrees and provides letters arranging assistance for the journey, construction, and sacrifices, making the restoration possible through the king's response to the argument about truth.[7]

The list of returning families introduces a difficulty in identifying the successful guard. Zerubbabel is named during the contest, but Joakim, son of Zerubbabel, is later described as the man who spoke wisely before Darius. The two notices connect the same achievement with different people, without explaining the change. That inconsistency is another sign that the contest and the surrounding history were not combined without problems, even though the royal reward supplies a reason for including the episode in an account of Jerusalem's rebuilding.[8]

Citations

  1. [1] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 168–169) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  2. [2] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 168–169) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  3. [3] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 169–170) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  4. [4] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 165, 170–171) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  5. [5] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 109) Oxford University Press, 2021
  6. [6] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 170–171) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  7. [7] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 172–173) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  8. [8] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 109) Oxford University Press, 2021

The Story From Josiah to Ezra

The history in 1 Esdras begins with Josiah's Passover and ends with Ezra reading the law, while Zerubbabel gains Darius's help to restore Jerusalem and its temple through a debate at the Persian court.

8

Ezra Reads the Law Without Nehemiah

After Ezra deals with marriages between members of the returned community and foreign women, the people ask him to read the Torah attributed to Moses. In 1 Esdras this follows directly from his reforms, keeping his journey, his intervention in the marriages, and his public teaching together. In the Hebrew Bible the marriages conclude Ezra, while the public reading appears in Nehemiah 8, after Nehemiah has arrived and rebuilt the walls. The sequence in 1 Esdras allows Ezra's work to conclude with the restored community assembled to hear the Torah, without the intervening account of another leader's governorship.[1]
Ezra 10:44
44 All these had taken foreign wives, and some of them also had children by these women.
Nehemiah 8:1
1 all the people gathered together in the plaza which was in front of the Water Gate. They asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had commanded Israel.
1 Esdras 9:36-39
36 All these had taken foreign wives, and they put them away with their children. 37 The priests and Levites, and those who were of Israel, lived in Jerusalem and in the country, on the new moon of the seventh month, and the children of Israel in their settlements. 38 The whole multitude gathered together with one accord into the broad place before the porch of the temple toward the east. 39 They said to Ezra the priest and reader, “Bring the law of Moses that was given by the Lord, the God of Israel.”
Ezra's authority at the final assembly is established through his descent from Aaron and his arrival in Artaxerxes's seventh year with temple gifts, priests and Levites, and royal permission to teach the Torah and appoint judges. His preparations concern the safe delivery of the vessels and the king's gifts before the reforms and reading that follow his arrival in Jerusalem. At the assembly he is named as the chief priest and reader in 1 Esdras, rather than the priest and scribe of Nehemiah, and both accounts place him on a wooden platform, with his position described as one of honor in 1 Esdras 9:45 and as elevated above the people in Nehemiah 8:5.[2][3]
Nehemiah 8:4-5
4 Ezra the scribe stood on a towering wooden platform constructed for this purpose. Standing near him on his right were Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Masseiah. On his left were Pedaiah, Mishael, Malkijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam. 5 Ezra opened the book in plain view of all the people, for he was elevated above all the people. When he opened the book, all the people stood up.
1 Esdras 9:42-45
42 Ezra the priest and reader of the law stood up upon the pulpit of wood which had been prepared. 43 Beside him stood Mattathias, Sammus, Ananias, Azarias, Urias, Ezekias, and Baalsamus on the right hand, 44 and on his left hand, Phaldeus, Misael, Melchias, Lothasubus, Nabarias, and Zacharias. 45 Then Ezra took the book of the law before the multitude, and sat honorably in the first place before all.
When the people weep at the reading, someone intervenes to tell them that the day is holy and should be celebrated. In Nehemiah that instruction comes from Nehemiah the governor together with Ezra and the Levites. In 1 Esdras someone named Attharates addresses Ezra, leaving a place for an official in the ceremony without identifying him as Nehemiah. The change is small beside the omission of the governor's history, but it removes his name from the one scene in that history where he could otherwise have appeared alongside Ezra.[4]
Nehemiah 8:9
9 Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priestly scribe, and the Levites who were imparting understanding to the people said to all of them, “This day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping when they heard the words of the law.
1 Esdras 9:49
49 Then Attharates said to Ezra the chief priest and reader, and to the Levites who taught the multitude, even to all,
Attharates appears to reproduce the Hebrew word for the governor as though it were a person's name, leaving an official at the assembly without identifying him as Nehemiah. Ezra remains the chief priest and reader before men and women, with Levites explaining the teaching and an official directing the people to celebrate the holy day. Their response is to eat, drink, and share food with those who have none, so the priest's teaching is followed by a communal observance in which understanding the Torah and providing for neighbors belong to the same occasion.[5][6]

The emphasis on Ezra's priesthood may reflect the period in which 1 Esdras was composed, when Judea lived under foreign rulers and the high priest stood at the head of its community. Zerubbabel gains help from a king, and Ezra exercises authority through priesthood and teaching, forms of leadership suited to that later setting. Another explanation places the reading in an earlier Ezra narrative, before it was combined with Nehemiah's memoirs. On that reconstruction, Nehemiah's absence would come from the source available to the author, rather than from a decision to remove him.[7][8][9]

Other Jewish authors wrote about Nehemiah without mentioning Ezra, praising his rebuilding of the fallen walls in Sirach 49:13 and crediting him with the collection of books in 2 Maccabees 2:13. Those passages give him a place in the community's history without describing Ezra's contribution, just as readers of 1 Esdras encounter Ezra's work without an account of Nehemiah's governorship. The differences make the absence of a leader difficult to interpret as opposition to him, since each writer selects material appropriate to the history or example being described.[10]

Citations

  1. [1] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 143, 145) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  2. [2] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 111–112) Oxford University Press, 2021
  3. [3] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 186) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  4. [4] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 112) Oxford University Press, 2021
  5. [5] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 112) Oxford University Press, 2021
  6. [6] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 145) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  7. [7] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 145) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  8. [8] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 190) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  9. [9] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 116) Oxford University Press, 2021
  10. [10] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 116) Oxford University Press, 2021

The Story From Josiah to Ezra

The history in 1 Esdras begins with Josiah's Passover and ends with Ezra reading the law, while Zerubbabel gains Darius's help to restore Jerusalem and its temple through a debate at the Persian court.

9

The Book Ends in the Middle of a Sentence

At the end of 1 Esdras, the people assemble after Ezra's reading, without a further account of what they do together. At the corresponding point in Nehemiah they gather on the second day and begin preparations for a festival, so the ending has often been understood as a break in an unfinished sentence. If that explanation is right, some of the Greek account was lost after the assembly began, leaving readers with the notice of their assembly but no description of the occasion for which the people had gathered.[1]
1 Esdras 9:54-55
54 Then they went their way, every one to eat, drink, enjoy themselves, to give portions to those who had nothing, and to rejoice greatly, 55 because they understood the words they were instructed with. And they were gathered together.
The gathering in Nehemiah is attended by family leaders, priests, and Levites, who study the Torah with Ezra and find the command to live in shelters during the seventh-month festival. Their preparations and observance continue through Nehemiah 8, where the people build shelters and live in them while Ezra reads each day, giving an identifiable continuation for the gathering mentioned at the end of 1 Esdras. If the Greek account once included those events, its surviving final phrase would belong to the beginning of another festival episode, lost before its purpose could be explained.[2]
Nehemiah 8:13-18
13 On the second day of the month the family leaders met with Ezra the scribe, together with all the people, the priests, and the Levites, to consider the words of the law. 14 They discovered written in the law that the Lord had commanded through Moses that the Israelites should live in temporary shelters during the festival of the seventh month, 15 and that they should make a proclamation and disseminate this message in all their cities and in Jerusalem: “Go to the hill country and bring back olive branches and branches of wild olive trees, myrtle trees, date palms, and other leafy trees to construct temporary shelters, as it is written.” 16 So the people went out and brought these things back and constructed temporary shelters for themselves, each on his roof and in his courtyard and in the courtyards of the temple of God and in the plaza of the Water Gate and the plaza of the Ephraim Gate. 17 So all the assembly which had returned from the exile constructed temporary shelters and lived in them. The Israelites had not done so from the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day. Everyone experienced very great joy. 18 Ezra read in the book of the law of God day by day, from the first day to the last. They observed the festival for seven days, and on the eighth day they held an assembly as was required.
Josephus describes a continuation through the festival in his history of Ezra, with the people dwelling in shelters for eight days before the priest's death in old age. His use of 1 Esdras elsewhere makes this relevant to the ending, since a first-century historian could have read a longer account than the one preserved in the complete Greek manuscripts, copied centuries later. A few Greek manuscripts and some Vulgate editions also contain further material, though the language of an original continuation cannot be recovered with certainty from those additions or from Josephus's retelling.[3]
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews Book 11 5:5
… So upon Esdras’s exhortation, they began to feast; and when they had done so for eight days, in their tabernacles, they departed to their own homes: singing hymns to God; and returning thanks to Esdras, for his reformation of what corruptions had been introduced into their settlement. …
A conclusion with Tabernacles would also correspond to the Passover celebration at the beginning, placing a history of temple destruction and rebuilding between two festivals led by Josiah and Ezra. Passover occurs at the start of the festival year and Tabernacles is its last major festival, an arrangement appropriate to an account concerned with the restoration of communal worship. Josephus's continuation makes such an ending possible without proving that he read it in 1 Esdras, because he adapted his sources and could have supplied the festival from Nehemiah or another account.[4][5]

The final Greek phrase can also be understood as part of a completed sentence. The people rejoice because they have understood the teaching and because they have assembled together, with both reasons belonging to the explanation already underway. On that reading, the account ends at the gathering itself, and the impression of a break comes from treating the final phrase as the beginning of the next Hebrew sentence in Nehemiah. The dispute concerns the construction of the surviving Greek, which can be read either with that Hebrew continuation in mind or within its own sentence.[6]

The choice affects how the whole book is understood. An unfinished ending, together with a beginning in Josiah's reign without an introduction to his life, could indicate that only part of a longer history survives. A complete ending would make it easier to understand the opening festival and final assembly as the boundaries chosen for this account of destruction and restoration. There is no surviving Hebrew or Aramaic copy against which to check the Greek ending, so the question depends on its language, its relationship to Nehemiah, and the later accounts of Ezra.[7][8]

Citations

  1. [1] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 112) Oxford University Press, 2021
  2. [2] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 190) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  3. [3] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 190) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  4. [4] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 113, 117) Oxford University Press, 2021
  5. [5] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 190) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  6. [6] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 190) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  7. [7] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 182, 190) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  8. [8] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 2) Brill, 2012

The Two Greek Books of Ezra

The translators of Esdras A and Esdras B describe the return from exile in different Greek, while comparisons with Daniel and Esther place the two accounts among other Jewish scriptures preserved in more than one Greek form.

10

The Differences Between Esdras A and Esdras B

Cyrus permits the rebuilding of the temple in both Esdras A and Esdras B, but the translators describe his authorization differently. In Esdras B, the combined Greek Ezra and Nehemiah, the translator keeps close to the Hebrew and Aramaic language. In Esdras A, or 1 Esdras, the translator more often expresses the sense in ordinary Greek without reproducing the source's sentence structure. The decree supplies an example at its opening, where the God credited with giving Cyrus his kingdom is named differently in the two Greek versions.[1][2]
Ezra 1:2
2 “This is what King Cyrus of Persia says: “‘The Lord God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has appointed me to build a temple for him in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
LXX Ezra 1:2
2 Thus said Cyrus king of the Persians, The Lord God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has given me a charge to build him a house in Jerusalem that is in Judea.
1 Esdras 2:3-4
3 saying, “Cyrus king of the Persians says: The Lord of Israel, the Most High Lord, has made me king of the whole world, 4 and commanded me to build him a house at Jerusalem that is in Judea.
Esdras B has Cyrus speak of the “God of the heavens,” corresponding closely to the Hebrew, while in 1 Esdras he names “the Lord of Israel” and “the Most High Lord.” The latter expressions identify the deity with Israel more explicitly within the Persian king's speech. The translator of 1 Esdras also frequently uses Lord where God occurs in Ezra and Esdras B, and writes Greek names for a sanctuary where the other translator keeps the Hebrew description of the temple as a house. These are differences in how the same events and institutions are expressed.[3][4]

Where Hebrew connects phrases with and, the translator of 1 Esdras may make one phrase depend on another or express two elements of the source with a single Greek expression. Names receive varied treatment too, with some written out from their Hebrew sounds, some given familiar Greek forms, and others supplied with Greek endings. A changed name can therefore result from translation, although mistakes in copying the source or the Greek can produce the same sort of difference.[5][6]

At other points the Greek translators agree against the surviving Hebrew and Aramaic. Darius threatens anyone who changes his decree in Ezra 6:11, requiring the offender's house to become a rubbish heap in the Aramaic account. In both Greek versions, the house or property is instead taken into the king's possession. The translators use different language for the penalty but describe the same confiscation, suggesting that they may have worked from an Aramaic reading different from the one now preserved in the Hebrew Bible.[7]
Ezra 6:11
11 “I hereby give orders that if anyone changes this directive a beam is to be pulled out from his house and he is to be raised up and impaled on it, and his house is to be reduced to a rubbish heap for this indiscretion.
1 Esdras 6:32
32 He commanded that whoever should transgress, yes, or neglect anything written here, a beam shall be taken out of his own house, and he shall be hanged on it, and all his goods seized for the king.
LXX Ezra 6:11
11 And a decree has been made by me, that every man who shall alter this word, timber shall be pulled down from his house, and let him be lifted up and killed upon it, and his house shall be made over to me.
The differences between Greek readings can also arise from interpretation of the same source, as with an Aramaic expression written without vowels that can mean either the Jewish elders or the captivity of Judah. Both understandings sometimes occur in 1 Esdras, where a difference in Greek can therefore result from the way an expression was understood rather than a different Hebrew or Aramaic copy. The freer translator's practice makes the distinction difficult to establish, since a Greek sentence expressing the sense in a different construction need not retain the features by which its source could be identified.[8][9]

The Greek language and style of 1 Esdras resemble those of Greek Esther, Sirach, Judith, and the books of Maccabees, helping place its translation in the second century BCE, probably in Alexandria. Its translator appears to have worked independently of Esdras B, and may have worked earlier, though the date of a translation cannot determine the age of every episode translated. Later scribes also revised copies of 1 Esdras toward Hebrew Ezra and Esdras B, so a reading in a surviving manuscript may reflect subsequent correction as well as the translator's original language.[10][11][12]

Citations

  1. [1] Wooden, R. Glenn 2 Esdras, in A New English Translation of the Septuagint (pp. 405) Oxford University Press, 2007
  2. [2] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 185) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  3. [3] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 108) Oxford University Press, 2021
  4. [4] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 191) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  5. [5] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 186–187) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  6. [6] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 142) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  7. [7] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 110) Oxford University Press, 2021
  8. [8] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 110) Oxford University Press, 2021
  9. [9] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 185) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  10. [10] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 183, 187) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  11. [11] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 106) Oxford University Press, 2021
  12. [12] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 5) Brill, 2012

The Two Greek Books of Ezra

The translators of Esdras A and Esdras B describe the return from exile in different Greek, while comparisons with Daniel and Esther place the two accounts among other Jewish scriptures preserved in more than one Greek form.

11

Daniel and Esther in Two Greek Versions

Greek-speaking readers could read more than one version of Daniel and Esther as well as Ezra. These are often called the double traditions of the Greek Septuagint translation, though the differences have to be explained separately for each book. With Ezra, one account includes the bodyguard story and material from Chronicles while the other translates Ezra and Nehemiah together. With Daniel and Esther, both the language and the additional episodes require comparison, because Greek scribes preserved material absent from the Hebrew forms as well as alternative ways of telling familiar events.[1]

The earlier Greek Daniel is usually called the Old Greek, while a later version conventionally named Theodotion follows the Hebrew and Aramaic more closely. Both contain Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and the prayer and song of the young men in the furnace, none of which appears in the Hebrew and Aramaic book. The Old Greek survives in only three witnesses, and its chapters 4 through 6 differ substantially in their descriptions of Daniel's court life. The additions and the different account of familiar episodes are therefore separate features of the Greek versions.[2]
LXX Daniel 3:24-25
24 So then Ananias and Azarias and Misael prayed and sang hymns to the Lord, when the king commanded that they be cast into the furnace. 25 And Azarias stood and prayed thus, and he opened his mouth and gave thanks to the Lord together with his companions in the midst of the fire, while the furnace was heated exceedingly by the Chaldeans; and they said,
One difference is particularly close to 1 Esdras, since in Aramaic Daniel Darius appoints 120 satraps, the officials responsible for the provinces of his kingdom, while in the Old Greek he appoints 127 and has Daniel clothed in purple. The number matches the provinces in the bodyguard story, and the purple clothing matches one of the rewards the guards hope to receive. In both accounts, Jewish men gain positions within a Persian household whose size and honors are described with similar language, even though their stories of gaining those positions differ.[3][4]
Daniel 6:1
1 It seemed like a good idea to Darius to appoint over the kingdom 120 satraps who would be in charge of the entire kingdom.
LXX Daniel 6:1-4
1 And Artaxerxes of the Medes received the kingdom; and Darius was full of days and glorious in old age. 2 And he appointed a hundred and twenty-seven satraps over all his kingdom, 3 and over them three men as their leaders; and Daniel was one of the three men, 4 having authority above all in the kingdom. And Daniel was clothed in purple, and great and glorious before Darius the king, since he was glorious and knowledgeable and understanding, and a holy spirit was in him, and he prospered in the king's business which he carried out. Then the king resolved to set Daniel over all his kingdom, with the two men whom he had appointed with him and the hundred and twenty-seven satraps.
Greek Esther survives in the Septuagint form and in a second form called the Alpha Text, preserved in four manuscripts, with the relationship between them still disputed. The Septuagint form contains six substantial passages absent from Hebrew Esther, including the prayers of Mordecai and Esther and the full language of royal decrees, making it more than half as long again. Neither Greek form is generally explained as a straightforward revision of the other, so differences in translation have to be considered alongside the development of the accounts they contain.[5]

The names for officials, correspondence, and the temple in 1 Esdras have parallels in Greek Esther, the Old Greek Daniel, and the books of Maccabees. Those similarities help place its translation among other Greek Jewish writings, but do not explain its selection of contents. Both Greek Daniels include the twelve chapters of the Hebrew and Aramaic account along with additions, whereas Esdras A begins with material from Chronicles and omits most of Nehemiah. Esdras B includes the later Nehemiah episodes, giving readers a much fuller account of the governor's work.[6][7][8]

Later Christian editors treated these Greek versions differently, with Jerome translating Esther from Hebrew and moving the Greek additions to the end, removing them from the places they occupied within the Greek account, while rejecting 1 Esdras because it was absent from the Hebrew collection. The Council of Trent later included the Esther additions in Catholic scripture but excluded 1 Esdras. An expanded account preserved in Greek could therefore be accepted in one case and excluded in another, even when readers found both in earlier Greek Bibles.[9][10]

Citations

  1. [1] Wooden, R. Glenn 1 Esdras, in A New English Translation of the Septuagint (pp. 392) Oxford University Press, 2007
  2. [2] McLay, R. Timothy Daniel (Old Greek and Theodotion), in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 544–545) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  3. [3] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 183) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  4. [4] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 163) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  5. [5] Boyd-Taylor, Cameron The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 204, 211) T&T Clark, 2015
  6. [6] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 183–184) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  7. [7] McLay, R. Timothy Daniel (Old Greek and Theodotion), in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 545) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  8. [8] Gallagher, Edmon L., and John D. Meade The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (pp. 269) Oxford University Press, 2017
  9. [9] Boyd-Taylor, Cameron The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 204) T&T Clark, 2015
  10. [10] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 145) Jewish Publication Society, 2013

Explanations for the Book’s Origin

The selection and arrangement of material in 1 Esdras have been explained as the remains of a longer history, a later compilation around the contest, or an earlier account of Ezra before its combination with Nehemiah.

12

A Surviving Part of a Longer History

Cyrus's decree is repeated at the boundary between Chronicles and Ezra in the Hebrew Bible, at the end of one book and the beginning of the next. In 1 Esdras it occurs once, after the destruction of the temple and before the return. That difference encouraged an older explanation of the book as part of a longer history, one that had originally extended through Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah without a break. The surviving 1 Esdras would then be a portion of its Greek translation, preserved after the rest had been lost.[1]

The author or group responsible for the proposed history is usually called the Chronicler, understood in this reconstruction to have described Israel's earlier past and continued through the restoration. Temple worship, genealogies, and written records occupy a prominent place in all three Hebrew books, supporting the idea that their authorship could be shared. The repeated decree would mark where a continuous history had been divided, with the decree retained on either side. Combining the end of Chronicles with the beginning of Ezra produces the sequence found in 1 Esdras, without the repetition.[2][3]
2 Chronicles 36:22-23
22 In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in fulfillment of the Lord’s message spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord motivated King Cyrus of Persia to issue a proclamation throughout his kingdom and also to put it in writing. It read: 23 “This is what King Cyrus of Persia says: ‘The Lord God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has appointed me to build a temple for him in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Anyone of his people among you may go up there, and may the Lord his God be with him.’”
Ezra 1:1-3
1 In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in fulfillment of the Lord’s message spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord motivated King Cyrus of Persia to issue a proclamation throughout his kingdom and also to put it in writing. It read: 2 “This is what King Cyrus of Persia says: “‘The Lord God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has appointed me to build a temple for him in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3 Anyone of his people among you (may his God be with him!) may go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and may build the temple of the Lord God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem.
1 Esdras 2:1-5
1 In the first year of King Cyrus of the Persians, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, 2 the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of the Persians, and he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also by writing, 3 saying, “Cyrus king of the Persians says: The Lord of Israel, the Most High Lord, has made me king of the whole world, 4 and commanded me to build him a house at Jerusalem that is in Judea. 5 If therefore there are any of you that are of his people, let the Lord, even his Lord, be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem that is in Judea, and build the house of the Lord of Israel. He is the Lord who dwells in Jerusalem.
The surviving beginning and ending could then be explained as the limits of a damaged copy. Material before Josiah's Passover would once have described the earlier kings, and a continuation after Ezra's reading could have included the festival in Nehemiah 8. Readers who accepted this reconstruction compared the accounts to decide which reading, order of events, or historical detail was earlier, treating 1 Esdras as evidence for the longer history behind the Hebrew books. Its selection of episodes would largely be the result of loss, rather than the work of an author composing a separate account.[4][5]

The proposed longer history depends on common authorship for Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, a connection challenged through differences in their Hebrew grammar and other features. If the books were written by different authors or groups, the history combined in 1 Esdras could no longer be assumed to be a surviving portion of their original continuous work. The grammatical argument remains disputed, leaving the reconstruction dependent on a question of Hebrew authorship that cannot be settled by the connection between the end of Chronicles and the beginning of Ezra in Greek.[6]

There are difficulties in explaining the Greek copying as well. The reconstruction requires two translations of closely connected material, apparently made at similar dates and in the same place, and an explanation for why scribes kept copying the supposed fragment alongside the complete Esdras B. Josiah's festival and Ezra's assembly can also be understood as appropriate beginning and ending points for a history of restored worship. If the author chose them for that purpose, an abrupt introduction to Josiah would not by itself establish that the preceding history had been lost.[7][8]

A modified explanation distinguishes the age of a reading from the position of the passage containing it, allowing a compiler to use older material while rearranging the episodes to accommodate the bodyguard contest. On this reconstruction, some readings in 1 Esdras could be earlier than their counterparts in Hebrew Ezra even where the sequence in Ezra is considered older. A comparison would then have to assess the language and the arrangement separately, rather than assigning the entire Greek account to one stage in the development of the history.[9]

Citations

  1. [1] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 108, 113) Oxford University Press, 2021
  2. [2] Wills, Lawrence M. Introduction to the Apocrypha: Jewish Books in Christian Bibles (pp. 111) Yale University Press, 2021
  3. [3] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 113) Oxford University Press, 2021
  4. [4] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 112–114) Oxford University Press, 2021
  5. [5] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 141) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  6. [6] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 113–114) Oxford University Press, 2021
  7. [7] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 181) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  8. [8] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 114, 119) Oxford University Press, 2021
  9. [9] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 181) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015

Explanations for the Book’s Origin

The selection and arrangement of material in 1 Esdras have been explained as the remains of a longer history, a later compilation around the contest, or an earlier account of Ezra before its combination with Nehemiah.

13

A Book Assembled Around the Bodyguard Story

Another explanation treats the court contest as the reason for a compiler to assemble the book from material available in Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Selecting the history from Josiah onward and moving the Artaxerxes letters before the contest would give Zerubbabel an opportunity to gain renewed royal permission, followed by the returning families and the rebuilding. Ezra's reading in Nehemiah 8 would provide the conclusion to his work, while the governor's memoirs would be omitted, making the surviving selection a result of composition rather than the damaged remains of a longer history.[1]

Such work is often called rewritten Bible, a modern description of the way ancient authors changed, omitted, and added to inherited scriptural narratives. Comparable practices occur in Jubilees, the Biblical Antiquities of Pseudo-Philo, the Genesis Apocryphon, and Josephus's Antiquities, though the reason for each author's changes has to be explained from the particular work. In 1 Esdras, Zerubbabel demonstrates wisdom and gains influence over a foreign king. A leader descended from David consequently becomes responsible for securing the city's restoration, giving his ancestry and court success a place in the same account.[2][3][4]
1 Esdras 4:47-48
47 Then King Darius stood up, kissed him, and wrote letters for him to all the treasurers and governors and captains and local governors, that they should safely bring on their way both him, and all those who would go up with him to build Jerusalem. 48 He wrote letters also to all the governors who were in Coelesyria and Phoenicia, and to them in Lebanon, that they should bring cedar wood from Lebanon to Jerusalem, and that they should help him build the city.
Darius's permission extends to Jerusalem as well as its temple, giving Zerubbabel responsibility for work undertaken by Nehemiah in the Hebrew account. This has encouraged explanations in which the compiler wanted to emphasize Zerubbabel, improve the sequence of events, or express priestly opposition to Nehemiah. Evidence for that opposition remains uncertain, especially since other Jewish writers praise the governor. The long account of Ezra also requires explanation if promoting Zerubbabel was the main purpose, because much of the book concerns Ezra's journey, reforms, and teaching after the courtier has secured the royal assistance.[5][6]

The surviving sequence is difficult to explain as an attempt to correct the chronology, because the Artaxerxes correspondence remains before Darius and references to Cyrus remain in episodes now placed after the contest under Darius. An author selecting and rearranging material from the Hebrew books would have had an opportunity to remove those problems, yet the Persian rulers are still out of historical order. A compiler could have been concerned with other connections between the episodes, but a thorough correction of the royal sequence does not account for the result.[7][8]

The introductions to two gatherings provide a more specific argument for dependence on a combined Ezra and Nehemiah. The list of returnees appears twice in Hebrew, in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7, accompanied by material about the families settling in their homes. The list appears once in 1 Esdras, but similar notices of settlement occur before the establishment of the altar and again before Ezra's reading. A compiler could have retained the introduction from Nehemiah's second list while omitting the list itself, leaving a sign of the material he had removed.[9]
Ezra 3:1
1 When the seventh month arrived and the Israelites were living in their towns, the people assembled in Jerusalem.
1 Esdras 5:46-47
46 The priests and the Levites and some of the people lived in Jerusalem and the country. The holy singers also and the gatekeepers and all Israel lived in their villages. 47 But when the seventh month was at hand, and when the children of Israel were each in their own place, they all came together with one purpose into the broad place before the first porch which is toward the east.
Nehemiah 7:73
73 The priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, some of the people, the temple servants, and all the rest of Israel lived in their cities. When the seventh month arrived and the Israelites were settled in their towns,
1 Esdras 9:37
37 The priests and Levites, and those who were of Israel, lived in Jerusalem and in the country, on the new moon of the seventh month, and the children of Israel in their settlements.
The repetition can be explained in another way, since the notices suit both occasions. Families who have settled in their homes gather first for worship and later to hear the Torah, with no need to repeat the names of everyone who returned. The Greek introductions are similar without being identical, so an author could have reused appropriate language for the second gathering. Their resemblance supports an argument for use of the combined Hebrew work, but does not exclude separate use of familiar language about a community assembling after settlement.[10]

Citations

  1. [1] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 114–115) Oxford University Press, 2021
  2. [2] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 8) Brill, 2012
  3. [3] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 114–115, 119) Oxford University Press, 2021
  4. [4] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 182) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  5. [5] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 144) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  6. [6] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 114–115) Oxford University Press, 2021
  7. [7] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 109, 115) Oxford University Press, 2021
  8. [8] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 189) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  9. [9] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 117) Oxford University Press, 2021
  10. [10] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 117–118) Oxford University Press, 2021

Explanations for the Book’s Origin

The selection and arrangement of material in 1 Esdras have been explained as the remains of a longer history, a later compilation around the contest, or an earlier account of Ezra before its combination with Nehemiah.

14

Which Version of the Ezra Story Came First

A third explanation separates the history of Ezra from the later combination of Ezra and Nehemiah. In 1 Esdras, Darius gives Zerubbabel permission to rebuild Jerusalem and its temple together, while in the Hebrew account the temple is restored before Nehemiah undertakes the walls. The Greek book could contain an earlier Ezra narrative, composed before Nehemiah's memoirs were added to that history. Material from Chronicles and the bodyguard contest could still have been attached later, leaving an older account of Zerubbabel and Ezra within a book whose surviving form includes subsequent additions.[1]
1 Esdras 4:63
63 to go up and to build Jerusalem and the temple which is called by his name. They feasted with instruments of music and gladness for seven days.
Ezra 4:21
21 Now give orders that these men cease their work and that this city not be rebuilt until such time as I so instruct.
Nehemiah 1:3
3 They said to me, “The remnant that remains from the exile there in the province are experiencing considerable adversity and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem lies breached, and its gates have been burned down!”
In Hebrew Ezra, Darius's authorization concerns the temple and Artaxerxes's stop order the city, leaving the breached walls and burned gates as work still awaiting a governor when Nehemiah hears about Jerusalem. His arrival has a purpose distinct from the earlier restoration of the sanctuary, which gives his memoirs a place after the account of the returning exiles. In 1 Esdras the permission covers city and temple together, without a subsequent history of Nehemiah completing the walls, a difference consistent with the leaders included in each account but insufficient by itself to establish which arrangement came first.[2]
Ezra 6:7-8
7 Leave the work on this temple of God alone. Let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews rebuild this temple of God in its proper place. 8 “I also hereby issue orders as to what you are to do with those elders of the Jews in order to rebuild this temple of God. From the royal treasury, from the taxes of Trans-Euphrates, the complete costs are to be given to these men so that there may be no interruption of the work.
Nehemiah 2:5-8
5 and said to the king, “If the king is so inclined and if your servant has found favor in your sight, dispatch me to Judah, to the city with the graves of my ancestors, so that I can rebuild it.” 6 Then the king, with his consort sitting beside him, replied, “How long would your trip take, and when would you return?” Since the king was pleased to send me, I gave him a time. 7 I said to the king, “If the king is so inclined, let him give me letters for the governors of Trans-Euphrates that will enable me to travel safely until I reach Judah, 8 and a letter for Asaph the keeper of the king’s nature preserve, so that he will give me timber for beams for the gates of the fortress adjacent to the temple and for the city wall and for the house to which I go.” So the king granted me these requests, for the good hand of my God was on me.
Under this reconstruction, Ezra's journey and teaching originally followed the restoration associated with Zerubbabel. An editor later distinguished the rebuilding of the temple from that of the city when incorporating Nehemiah's memoirs, creating a place for the governor's work. This would be a change in the source history, separate from the date at which it was translated into Greek. A translation made in the second century BCE could contain an older account than the surviving Hebrew one, alongside episodes or language added after that older account was composed.[3]

The selection of Ezra material gives a further reason to consider an earlier independent history. An author with the whole of Nehemiah available could have included Ezra's participation in the dedication of the wall in Nehemiah 12, but 1 Esdras contains only the public reading from chapter 8. That selection is easier to explain if the reading already belonged to an Ezra account without the surrounding Nehemiah history. Different editors could then have added Nehemiah's memoirs in one version and the Chronicles opening and contest in another, without a single original work extending through all three Hebrew books.[4]
Nehemiah 12:36
36 and his colleagues—Shemaiah, Azarel, Milalai, Gilalai, Maai, Nethanel, Judah, and Hanani—with musical instruments of David the man of God. (Ezra the scribe led them.)
The shorter Greek form of Jeremiah, with some material arranged differently from the Hebrew, provides a comparison for a book preserved at different stages of development. The relationship between those versions establishes no particular sequence for Ezra, whose freer Greek translation makes a shorter passage harder to identify as evidence for an earlier source. Where a translator expresses the same Hebrew or Aramaic material more briefly in Greek, the difference in length comes from the translation, leaving the original extent of the source uncertain.[5]

No Hebrew or Aramaic copy of 1 Esdras survives for a direct comparison. The relevant Dead Sea Scrolls contain only three small fragments of Ezra, including portions of chapter 4 and chapters 5 through 6, with many expressions incomplete. Their few variant readings cannot decide the relationship between the larger narratives. The proposed earlier Ezra account consequently has to be reconstructed from the books now available, especially the division of rebuilding work, the position of Ezra's reading, and the material included or omitted around it.[6]

Citations

  1. [1] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 116–117) Oxford University Press, 2021
  2. [2] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 116) Oxford University Press, 2021
  3. [3] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 106, 116–117) Oxford University Press, 2021
  4. [4] Grabbe, Lester L. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 117, 119) Oxford University Press, 2021
  5. [5] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 181, 185) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  6. [6] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 190) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015

Later Readers and Canonical Status

Josephus used 1 Esdras in his history of the returning exiles, and Christian writers quoted the praise of truth, while later editors gave the book different places and different authority in their Bibles.

15

Josephus Follows 1 Esdras

Josephus retells the bodyguard contest in the Antiquities of the Jews, his history written in the 90s CE, giving Darius's guards the same arguments about wine, kings, women, and truth. He follows 1 Esdras through the last kings of Judah in book 10 and from Cyrus to Ezra in book 11. The contest identifies his source particularly well because there is no corresponding episode in Hebrew Ezra and Nehemiah. His account is therefore early evidence of someone reading the Greek history and using its distinctive material in a wider retelling of Jewish antiquity.[1][2]
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews Book 11 3:2
… Darius feasted those that were about him, and those born in his house, with the rulers of the Medes, and princes of the Persians, and the toparchs of India and Ethiopia, and the generals of the armies of his hundred and twenty seven provinces. …
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews Book 11 3:6
… For which cause we also ought to esteem truth to be the strongest of all things; and that what is unrighteous is of no force against it. …
Josephus likely knew the Hebrew accounts too, though he preferred 1 Esdras for much of this period, perhaps partly because of its more fluent Greek and its account of Zerubbabel's success with Darius. His readers encounter the same main sequence of a courtier securing royal help through wisdom, followed by the priest Ezra's leadership of the returned community. Josephus retells that sequence within his own history for a Greek-speaking audience, changing details of the court relationships and Persian rulers rather than reproducing every episode as it appears in the surviving Greek book.[3][4][5]

The vow on which Zerubbabel bases his request is one place where Josephus supplies background missing from 1 Esdras. In the Greek book, the courtier asks Darius to honor an earlier commitment without any prior account of it, whereas Josephus describes both the vow before Darius becomes king and an old friendship with Zerubbabel. The request can then refer to an obligation already established in the history, making the transition from court debate to rebuilding easier to follow, though Josephus could have supplied that connection himself or found it in material available to him.[6]
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews Book 11 3:1
… Now he, while he was a private man, had made a vow to God, that if he came to be King, he would send all the vessels of God that were in Babylon to the temple at Jerusalem. …
Josephus also changes the Persian rulers. He addresses the complaint sent to Artaxerxes in 1 Esdras to Cambyses, Cyrus's son, and places Ezra's arrival under Xerxes, the son of Darius, instead of Artaxerxes. Those substitutions affect the sequence of kings while keeping the complaint and Ezra's journey within the Persian history. He gives Ezra additional attention as a respected leader acquainted with the king, making the priest's standing at court part of his authority before the journey and the teaching in Jerusalem.[7]
Ezra 7:7-8
7 In the seventh year of King Artaxerxes, Ezra brought up to Jerusalem some of the Israelites and some of the priests, the Levites, the attendants, the gatekeepers, and the temple servants. 8 He entered Jerusalem in the fifth month of the seventh year of the king.
After Ezra's death, Josephus continues with Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the walls, using material absent from the surviving 1 Esdras. This makes him a difficult witness to a supposed lost ending of the Greek book, since he could have continued from another source or arranged the material himself. His account predates the complete Greek manuscripts by centuries and may preserve older readings, but the places where he fills gaps or changes the royal sequence require separate consideration. His use of 1 Esdras is identifiable without making every detail of his history evidence for its earlier text.[8][9]

The author of Josippon, a Hebrew history composed in tenth-century Italy and wrongly attributed to Josephus, later used both Josephus and 1 Esdras for the Persian period, probably reading the latter in Latin. Surviving quotations from Josippon by medieval Jewish writers do not reflect the portions derived from 1 Esdras, so they provide little evidence for how widely those particular stories were read. Jewish readers had largely ceased using the book, though modern Jewish translators later included it in collections of the Apocrypha. Its medieval Hebrew retelling depended on an account preserved chiefly by Christian copyists.[10]

Citations

  1. [1] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 26) Brill, 2012
  2. [2] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 191) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  3. [3] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 26) Brill, 2012
  4. [4] Wills, Lawrence M. Introduction to the Apocrypha: Jewish Books in Christian Bibles (pp. 113) Yale University Press, 2021
  5. [5] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 145) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  6. [6] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 148–149) Brill, 2012
  7. [7] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 135, 231, 235) Brill, 2012
  8. [8] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 145) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  9. [9] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 191) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  10. [10] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 145–146) Jewish Publication Society, 2013

Later Readers and Canonical Status

Josephus used 1 Esdras in his history of the returning exiles, and Christian writers quoted the praise of truth, while later editors gave the book different places and different authority in their Bibles.

16

Early Christian Writers Quote Zerubbabel’s Speech on Truth

The New Testament contains no direct quotation from 1 Esdras, but later Christian writers found a connection between Zerubbabel's praise of truth and Jesus's declaration in John 14:6 that he is the truth. They used the speech in disputes about error, authority, and conduct, applying language spoken at a Persian court to their own circumstances. The description of truth as enduring and free from injustice could be quoted without the rest of the return narrative, so the passage became familiar beyond readers interested in Zerubbabel or the rebuilding of Jerusalem.[1][2]

Cyprian, the third-century bishop of Carthage, makes that connection in a letter urging his correspondent to abandon error. He quotes Zerubbabel's description of enduring truth and connects it with Jesus's identification as truth in John, making acceptance of the teaching he defends the appropriate response. The speech had concerned the power of truth before Darius, while Cyprian uses its language within a dispute among Christians. His quotation shows how a reader could apply the courtier's claim to a new argument without treating the whole history as an account of Christian events.[3]
1 Esdras 4:38-40
38 But truth remains, and is strong forever. Truth lives and conquers forevermore. 39 With truth there is no partiality toward persons or rewards, but truth does the things that are just, instead of any unrighteous or wicked things. All men approve truth’s works. 40 There is no unrighteousness in truth’s judgment. Truth is the strength, the kingdom, the power, and the majesty of all ages. Blessed be the God of truth!”
Athanasius uses the court setting more directly in a fourth-century defense addressed to the emperor. He cites Zerubbabel's success with Darius as an example of a ruler benefiting from truth, appealing to an earlier king's conduct while defending his own position before a later one. The comparison depends on the king's willingness to hear the successful speaker, as well as the language of the speech. A Jewish account of favor at a Persian court thus supplies an example for a Christian author addressing imperial authority.[4]

In book 18 of the City of God, Augustine includes Esdras in his account of prophecy while classifying the work as historical, before considering whether Zerubbabel's winning answer might concern Jesus. His qualification, introduced with “unless, perhaps,” allows a possible prophecy within the court debate without extending that description to the history of the return or to Ezra's work. The connection depends on the praise of truth at a particular point in the narrative, rather than an assertion that the author described Christian events throughout the book.[5]
Augustine, City of God 18 36:1
… unless, perhaps, Esdras is to be understood as prophesying of Christ in that passage where, on a question having arisen among certain young men as to what is the strongest thing, when one had said kings, another wine, the third women, who for the most part rule kings, yet that same third youth demonstrated that the truth is victorious over all. For by consulting the Gospel we learn that Christ is the Truth. …
Augustine connects the passages through John 14:6, where Jesus calls himself the truth, allowing the earlier declaration that truth is victorious to be read as referring to him. The identification comes from Augustine's comparison of the two passages, rather than from an explicit reference to Jesus in Zerubbabel's speech. He consequently keeps the distinction between a historical work and a possible prophecy within it, describing how the language about truth might be understood by a Christian reader who knows John's account.[6]

The crowd's response was repeated as the Latin proverb magna est veritas et praevalet, meaning that truth is great and prevails, allowing people to use the saying without naming its speaker or recounting the contest. Attention to the answer is visible in Codex Vaticanus too, where a marginal sign appears beside the third guard's written declaration about truth's victory. The purpose of the mark remains uncertain, so it identifies a passage singled out in that copy without establishing how the person responsible interpreted its praise of truth.[7]
1 Esdras 4:41
41 With that, he stopped speaking. Then all the people shouted and said, “Great is truth, and strong above all things!”
Clement of Alexandria used 1 Esdras for the Persian period, and quotations or allusions also occur in Origen, Tertullian, Eusebius, Cyril of Alexandria, Ephrem the Syrian, and Theodoret. Most references are brief enough that the passage being used is easier to identify than the full collection of books each writer regarded as scripture. A quotation of Zerubbabel's praise of truth consequently demonstrates use of that passage without establishing the author's judgment of the whole work, whose authority and placement beside Ezra and Nehemiah require further evidence.[8][9][10]

Citations

  1. [1] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 191) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  2. [2] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 26) Brill, 2012
  3. [3] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 179) Brill, 2012
  4. [4] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 179) Brill, 2012
  5. [5] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 29) Brill, 2012
  6. [6] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 29) Brill, 2012
  7. [7] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 26, 179) Brill, 2012
  8. [8] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 191) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  9. [9] Wills, Lawrence M. Introduction to the Apocrypha: Jewish Books in Christian Bibles (pp. 116) Yale University Press, 2021
  10. [10] Gallagher, Edmon L., and John D. Meade The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (pp. 269) Oxford University Press, 2017

Later Readers and Canonical Status

Josephus used 1 Esdras in his history of the returning exiles, and Christian writers quoted the praise of truth, while later editors gave the book different places and different authority in their Bibles.

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1 Esdras in Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Bibles

Early Greek and Latin lists of scriptural books often include two books of Esdras, very likely Esdras A and Esdras B, the account with the contest and the combined translation of Ezra and Nehemiah. Later Latin writers could use the same number for Ezra and Nehemiah counted separately, making the contents difficult to identify from the name alone. The history of 1 Esdras therefore involves both the books scribes copied and the books communities accepted as authoritative, which did not always coincide. Its continued presence in a Bible can be established more readily than agreement about its standing there.[1]

Lists associated with Melito, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, Augustine, and the Synod of Carthage around 397 include Esdras, though some identify the intended account more readily than others. A writer's reference to a specific passage can help resolve an ambiguous name. Augustine's discussion of truth's victory identifies Esdras A, because that speech belongs to the contest and has no counterpart in Ezra and Nehemiah. In his case the contents he discusses provide evidence beyond the number of books named in a list.[2]
Augustine, City of God 18 36:1
… After these three prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, during the same period of the liberation of the people from the Babylonian servitude Esdras also wrote, who is historical rather than prophetical, as is also the book called Esther, which is found to relate, for the praise of God, events not far from those times; …
At the end of the fourth century, Jerome translated Ezra and Nehemiah into Latin as one Hebrew book, following the Jewish Hebrew collection and rejecting the third and fourth books of Esdras absent from it. His decision left 1 Esdras untranslated, but scribes continued copying its older Latin version in Vulgate manuscripts as 3 Esdras, so readers could encounter it beside the works he accepted. Its preservation in those copies did not give it Jerome's approval or make its Latin text part of his translation, despite its place in volumes associated with his work.[3][4][5]

The distinction remained visible in printed Bibles, where Luther omitted the contest narrative and the apocalypse from his German Bible of 1534 and the Council of Trent excluded 1 Esdras from its canon in 1546. Catholic Vulgate editors nevertheless included the work in an appendix, printed in small type, for readers familiar with its presence in older copies. Its separate placement allowed continued access while distinguishing it from the books accepted by the council, preserving a familiar work without the authority granted to the rest of the collection.[6][7]

English Protestant editors used the name 1 Esdras when including it in an Apocrypha, beginning the numbering again after retaining Ezra and Nehemiah under their own names in the Old Testament. The Church of England's Thirty-Nine Articles, finalized in 1571, permitted reading the book for examples of conduct and moral instruction, while excluding it from the establishment of doctrine. The distinction allowed the same community to preserve and read a work without granting it the authority assigned to the Hebrew scriptures, with its separate placement reflecting that judgment.[8][9]

Greek Orthodox Bibles include the book as Esdras A, while Slavonic Bibles number it as 2 Esdras. That history differs from Jerome's restriction to the Hebrew books and from Protestant placement in a separate Apocrypha. The different number in Slavonic follows the way Ezra, Nehemiah, and the additional Ezra writings are counted, rather than a different version of Zerubbabel's contest. The account can thus remain familiar in one Christian tradition while being absent from the ordinary Bible of another.[10]

In the modern West, 1 Esdras became less familiar, probably partly through the preference for Hebrew sources associated with the Reformation, though the court debate remained available in retellings such as Josippon and the Chronicles of Jerahmeel. The authors of those histories described the arguments about power and truth for readers who could learn of Zerubbabel's victory without consulting the Greek book. Alongside the independent use of the proverb about truth, these retellings allowed familiarity with the contest even in communities whose ordinary Bibles contained no 1 Esdras.[11][12]

Citations

  1. [1] Gallagher, Edmon L., and John D. Meade The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (pp. 269) Oxford University Press, 2017
  2. [2] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 27, 29) Brill, 2012
  3. [3] Gallagher, Edmon L., and John D. Meade The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (pp. 201) Oxford University Press, 2017
  4. [4] Hogan, Karina Martin The Preservation of 4 Ezra in the Vulgate: Thanks to Ambrose, not Jerome, in Fourth Ezra and Second Baruch: Reconstruction after the Fall (pp. 385) Brill, 2013
  5. [5] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 191) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  6. [6] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 191) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  7. [7] Japhet, Sara Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (pp. 145) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
  8. [8] Stone, Michael E., and Matthias Henze 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch: Translations, Introductions, and Notes (pp. 8) Fortress Press, 2013
  9. [9] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 192) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  10. [10] Patmore, Hector M. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 179, 192) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
  11. [11] Bird, Michael F. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (pp. 27) Brill, 2012
  12. [12] Wills, Lawrence M. Introduction to the Apocrypha: Jewish Books in Christian Bibles (pp. 116) Yale University Press, 2021
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Read More

  1. Bird, Michael F.. 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus. Brill, 2012.
  2. Boyd-Taylor, Cameron. The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint. T&T Clark, 2015.
  3. Gallagher, Edmon L., and John D. Meade. The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis. Oxford University Press, 2017.
  4. Grabbe, Lester L.. 1 Esdras (Greek Ezra), in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha. Oxford University Press, 2021.
  5. Hogan, Karina Martin. The Preservation of 4 Ezra in the Vulgate: Thanks to Ambrose, not Jerome, in Fourth Ezra and Second Baruch: Reconstruction after the Fall. Brill, 2013.
  6. Japhet, Sara. Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture. Jewish Publication Society, 2013.
  7. McLay, R. Timothy. Daniel (Old Greek and Theodotion), in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint. Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015.
  8. Metzger, Bruce M.. The Fourth Book of Ezra, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 1. Doubleday, 1983.
  9. Patmore, Hector M.. 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint. Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015.
  10. Stone, Michael E., and Matthias Henze. 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch: Translations, Introductions, and Notes. Fortress Press, 2013.
  11. Wills, Lawrence M.. Introduction to the Apocrypha: Jewish Books in Christian Bibles. Yale University Press, 2021.
  12. Wooden, R. Glenn. 1 Esdras, in A New English Translation of the Septuagint. Oxford University Press, 2007.
  13. Wooden, R. Glenn. 2 Esdras, in A New English Translation of the Septuagint. Oxford University Press, 2007.

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