Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <cctr114 AT its.canterbury.ac.nz>]

Ian Hutchesson wrote:-

>But, the fact that he was using the Greek text of 1 Esdras -- which is
>obviously a translation from a Hebrew source which is not the canonical
>book of Ezra -- when he had a good idea of which texts were available,
>including numerous other sources of Hebrew knowledge, brings into doubt the
>existence of the canonical book, especially when you look at the evidence
>for the existence of the book of Ezra prior to the second or third century.
>Josephus is the evidence that 1 Esdras existed.

Got to ask a question here. I was my understanding that the Jewish
people had pretty much finalised their canon by the end of the 1st
century A.D.  If you are going to propose that Ezra wasn't even written
until one or two centuries after that, how did that book find  its
way into the canon?

Bill Rea, Information Technology Services, University of Canterbury  \_ 
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