[b-hebrew] Neh. 1:2

Lisbeth S. Fried lizfried at umich.edu
Mon Feb 17 20:13:50 EST 2003


Dear Russell,
This is extremely interesting.
Would it be possible for me to obtain an advance
copy of your book somehow?
Liz

> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-hebrew-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-hebrew-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of
> RGmyrken at aol.com
> Sent: Mon, February 17, 2003 8:04 PM
> To: b-hebrew at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Neh. 1:2
>
>
> Dear Liz,
>
>     I think it rather doubtful that the so-called Nehemiah
> Memoir (i.e. Neh.
> 1:1-7:72a; 11:1-2; 12:31-43; 13:4-31) constituted in its
> entirety a source
> document as commonly presumed.  My own analysis suggests that
> the oldest
> source document in Ezra-Nehemiah is Neh. 1-6; 7:1b-4 (the
> Nehemiah Building
> Account), which concerned itself almost exclusively with Nehemiah's
> rebuilding of Jerusalem's walls.  (You might be right that
> Neh. 1 is not of a
> piece with the rest of Neh. 1-6, i.e. that the Building
> Account has its own
> textual evolution; and that the Persian period was believed
> to be of very
> short duration.)  The Nehemiah Building Account does not
> appear to display
> awareness of any other portions of Ezra-Nehemiah, and does
> not display
> awareness of any sort of a return from Babylon.  (Neh. 1:2-3
> and the rest of
> the Building Account rather pictures a desolate Jerusalem
> occupied by those
> who escaped captivity under Nebuchadnezzar IMO.)  Further,
> the themes of Neh.
> 11-13 appear to be based on the Ezra Memoir (i.e. Ezra 7-10,
> Neh. 8-9), and
> the portions of Neh. 11-13 usually attributed to the Nehemiah
> Memoir have
> closer linguistic affinities to Chronicles, Ezra, and Neh.
> 8-10 than the
> Building Account does.  The Ezra Memoir includes first person
> material, and
> it appears likely that the author of the Ezra Memoir also
> wrote the first
> person portions of Neh. 11-13.
>     I discuss these matters in greater depth in a forthcoming book.
>
> Best regards,
> Russell Gmirkin
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