Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 09.01 19/07/99 +1200, Bill Rea wrote:
>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?

Dear Bill,

The end of the first century seems to be what the evidence points to and
Josephus tells us that 1 Esdras was around at that time and the book we
have of 1 Esdras was translated from Hebrew into Greek. While we know for
sure 1 Esdras was around, do we know anything about the canonical Ezra? The
best bet to me was that Ezra was a reworking of the Hebrew 1 Esdras, done
sometime after Josephus wrote his Antiquities. When I mention evidence for
canonical Ezra, none seems to exist prior to the later date, so sometime
between the writing of Antiquities and the appearance of canonical Ezra
evidence, the reworking was done.

Sorry, I can't get any closer.


Cheers,


Ian