Книга Ездры и Неемии: История и различные версии

a summary of conflicting names for related books
Book of the Bible

The Book of Ezra is a book of the Hebrew Bible which formerly included the Book of Nehemiah in a single book, commonly distinguished in scholarship as Ezra–Nehemiah. The two became separated with the first printed rabbinic bibles of the early 16th century, following late medieval Latin Christian tradition. Composed in Hebrew and Aramaic, its subject is the Return to Zion following the close of the Babylonian captivity. Together with the Book of Nehemiah, it represents the final chapter in the historical narrative of the Hebrew Bible. Book of Ezra is divided into two parts: the first telling the story of the first return of exiles in the first year of Cyrus the Great (538 BC) and the completion and dedication of the new Temple in Jerusalem in the sixth year of Darius I (515 BC); the second telling of the subsequent mission of Ezra to Jerusalem and his struggle to purify the Jews from marriage with non Jews. In the book's recurring narrative pattern, the God of Israel three times inspires a king of Persia to commission a leader from among the Jews to carry out a mission: the first to rebuild the Temple, the second to purify the Jewish community, and the third to seal the holy city behind a wall. This third mission, that of Nehemiah, is not part of the Book of Ezra. The theological program of the book explains the many problems its chronological structure presents. It probably appeared in its earliest version around 399 BC, and continued to be revised and edited for several centuries before being accepted as scriptural in the early Christian era.

The single Hebrew book Ezra–Nehemiah, with title "Ezra", was translated into Greek around the middle of the 2nd century BC. The Septuagint calls Esdras B to Ezra–Nehemiah and Esdras A to 1 Esdras respectively. This usage is noted by the early Christian scholar Origen, who remarked that the Hebrew 'book of Ezra' might then be considered a 'double' book.

1 Esdras, also known as "Esdras α", is an alternate Greek language version of Ezra. This text has one additional section, the 'Tale of the Three Guardsmen' in the middle of Ezra 4.

Koresh of Ezra 1:1 is called "king of Persia", which title was introduced by Cyrus the Great some time after he defeated Astyages of Media (585–550 BC). Scholars are divided over the chronological sequence of the activities of Ezra and Nehemiah. Ezra 7:8 says that Ezra arrived in Jerusalem in the seventh year of king Artaxerxes, while Nehemiah 2:1–9 has Nehemiah arriving in Artaxerxes' twentieth year. If this was Artaxerxes I (465–424 BC), then Ezra arrived in 458 and Nehemiah in 445 BC. Nehemiah 8–9, in which the two (possibly by editorial error) appear together, supports this scenario.

The contents of Ezra–Nehemiah are structured in a theological rather than chronological order: "The Temple must come first, then the purifying of the community, then the building of the outer walls of the city, and so finally all could reach a grand climax in the reading of the law." The narrative follows a repeating pattern in which the God of Israel "stirs up" the king of Persia to commission a Jewish leader (Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah) to undertake a mission; the leader completes his mission in the face of opposition; and success is marked by a great assembly. The tasks of the three leaders are progressive: first the Temple is restored (Zerubabbel), then the community of Israel (Ezra), and finally the walls which will separate the purified community and Temple from the outside world (Nehemiah). The pattern is completed with a final coda in which Nehemiah restores the belief of Yahweh. This concern with a schematic pattern making, rather than with history in the modern sense of a factual account of events in the order in which they occurred, explains the origin of the many problems which surround both Ezra and Nehemiah as historical sources.

Twentieth century views on the composition of Ezra revolved around whether the author was Ezra himself, and who may have also authored the Books of Chronicles, or was another author or authors who also wrote the Chronicles. More recently it has been increasingly recognised that Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles all have extremely complex histories stretching over many stages of editing, and most scholars now are cautious of assuming a unified composition with a single theology and point of view. As an indication of the many layers of editing which Ezra has undergone, one recent study finds that Ezra 1–6 and Ezra 9–10 were originally separate documents, that they were spliced together at a later stage by the authors of Ezra 7–8, and that all have undergone extensive later editing. Israel Finkelstein has recently argued that the Book of Ezra is suffused with late second century BCE “Hasmonean realities,” casting doubt on the historicity of the Book of Ezra. Other scholars find this theory problematic.

Seven purported Persian decrees of kings or letters to and from high officials are quoted in Ezra. Their authenticity has been contentious. While some scholars accept them in their current form, most accept only part of them as genuine, while still others reject them entirely. L. L. Grabbe surveyed six tests against which the documents can be measured (comparative known Persian material, linguistic details, contents, presence of Jewish theology, the Persian attitude to local religions, and Persian letter writing formulas) and concluded that all the documents are late post Persian works and probable forgeries, but that some features suggest a genuine Persian correspondence behind some of them.