I Esdras
specific purpose, e.g. to influence Gentiles in favour of the Jews, or (Lupton) to prepare the way for the building of the temple of Onias at Alexandria, or simply, perhaps, to bring together narratives relating to the Temple; cf. the conclusion of LC 'explicit Esdrae liber primus de templi restitutione'. But the feature may also be explained on the view that the book, which begins somewhat abruptly, is merely a fragment of a larger work (Michaelis, Eichhorn, Trendelenburg, Rödiger, Treuenfels, Howorth, Torrey, and others). This raises several interesting questions; in particular, ix. 38–55 belong in N viii. to the concluding chapters of Ezra's history, and it is very noteworthy that Josephus finishes his account of Ezra before his introduction of Nehemiah—what was the original sequel of E? Moreover, not only was E used by this orthodox Jewish historian, the book was important enough to find a place in the Greek Bible, it was known to early Christian writers, and is referred to in terms which indicate that its canonicity and value were not doubtful (see § 2).
Now, the criticism of the O.T. has advanced sufficiently to prove that the biblical records E-N bristle with the most intricate and serious difficulties, the extent of which is manifest in the widely-differing conclusions that prevail. As can be seen from other sources (see § 4, iv. c), the history of the Persian period is plunged in obscurity, upon which some light has only recently been shed by contemporary records (Babylonian inscriptions, Jewish-Aramaic papyri from Upper Egypt). It can no longer be assumed that the MT necessarily represents a more trustworthy record of the age, and that E is necessarily arbitrary and methodless. Both share fundamental imperfections. E, therefore, in any case deserves impartial consideration, and its problems involve those of E-N. These problems, owing to the absence of decisive and independent evidence, can be handled only provisionally; but enough is clear to permit the conclusion that E represents a text in some respects older than the present MT, to which, however, some attempt seems to have been made to conform it (cf. Ewald, 138 n. 6; Howorth, PSBA, xxiii. 306 seq.). From a comparison of both with Jos. and other sources (notably Daniel) it would further appear that E represents one of the efforts to give an account of a period, the true course of which was confused and forgotten, if not intentionally obscured; different attempts were made to remove difficulties and inconsistencies, and the desire to give greater prominence to the priestly Ezra than to the secular governor Nehemiah is probably responsible for the arrangement of the extant texts.
E-N and E (with Jos.) exhibit diverging views of the history. But E, even in its present incomplete form, overlaps with Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah, and since it provides a distinctly paraphrastic and free rendering of the MT, it seems probable that when it was superseded by the more literal Greek translation—of Theodotion (cf. the two Greek texts of Daniel)—this confused and self-contradictory book (or fragment) was preserved mainly on account of the excellent story of Zerubbabel (cf. Howorth, PSBA, xxiv. 167). To the Jews, both Zerubbabel and Nehemiah pale before the growing majesty of Ezra; to the early Christians, the Praise of Truth was a familiar passage, and Augustine (de Civ. Dei, xviii. 36) saw in it a prophecy of Christ.[1] Dating, apparently, about the first century B.C., E's view of history was familiar to Josephus and his readers, to the Hellenist Jews, and to the Christians. The form in E-N, with the omission of the story of Zerubbabel (and the chronological confusions which attend it), represents that of the Rabbinical schools, and subsequently (through Jerome) of the Christian Church. Through these vicissitudes E fell into unmerited neglect, and by this omission (apparently intentional) there was removed a story which could not fail to interest the Christians—for it is surely significant that although the two genealogies of Jesus are hopelessly inconsistent, the two lines of ancestry of 'David's greater Son' converge in the person of Zerubbabel.
§ 2. Title and Standing.
The book is known as (1) Esdras A or 1 Esdras, so GBA, L, S, and English Bibles since the Geneva edition of 1560 (where the name 'Ezra' is reserved for the canonical book); or (2) as Esdras B or 2 Esdras, so GL (where 1 Es. = Ezra and Nehemiah); or (3) as 3 Esdras, so Latin Bibles since Jerome, the 'Great Bible' of 1539, and also the Anglican Article VI in the Prayerbook. The name 3 Paraleipomenōn (i.e. Chronicles) is found in a Florentine Greek MS., cf. the title Sermones Dierum (the Heb. title of Chron.) Esdrae in Hilary's list (H. B. Swete, Introd. to O.T. in Greek, 210). It is also styled Tertius Neemiae by Franciscus Robles, 1532 (Lupton, 4). A convenient name for the book is the 'Greek Ezra', to distinguish it from the other and literal translation of the canonical books.[2]
- ↑ A late Midrash (Jellinek, ii. 54-7) makes Zerubbabel the centre of 'a short apocalypse on the certainty of the ultimate appearance of the Messiah son of David, on his precursor the Messiah son of Joseph, and on their friends and foes (Ew. 128).
- ↑ On the title ὁ ἱερεύς in G^ (to distinguish E from 2 or 4 Esdras of the Apocrypha?), see Nestle, 29.
2
