Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Dates of Ezra and Nehemiah

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Dates of Ezra and Nehemiah
  • Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2006 09:24:25 +0200


----- Original Message ----- From: "Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>
Perhaps both. He may not have known. I think actually that he -- like Rashi
-- assumed that
all the Persian kings used the throne name Artaxerxes. Therefore, according
to Rashi, and I think according to our author, Nisan of the 7th year of
Artaxerxes is the month after Adar of the 6th year of Darius. Artaxerxes is
Darius' (and every king's) throne name. Artaxerxes and Darius refer to the
same man. Also, I think that it would have made sense to him that the temple
vessels be deposited in the temple immediately after its dedication. We have
no mention of what happened to the vessels that Cyrus counted out. Nothing.
I think the story of their being deposited in the temple is deferred to
after the temple's dedication when Ezra brings them.

Now you sound like Shoshanna. Do you really think that a writer living in Judah, even a few decades after Alexander's conquest, would think that all Persian kings used the throne name Artaxerxes? Is there any evidence that anyone in the Hellenistic world thought so?

I don't see the necessity of positing that these are heads of work-gangs.
Sometimes it says "sons of", or "men of", but sometimes it just lists
individuals. I saw a list of those who built a wall in a Greek city from
about the same time period, and just individuals were listed. It appeared to
be all the men of the town who participated in building the wall, and they
were all listed. The reference to the text is in Blenkinsopp's commentary on
Neh. 3.

Because I think that it's unlikely that a single person would have built a section of the wall, no matter how small. Look at verses 2-5: the men of Jericho built a segment, and next to them, Zakur son of Imri. The gate of the fish was built by the sons (meaning inhabitants) of Senaah, and next to them Meremoth son of Uriah son of Hakotz (probably a clan name), next to them Meshullam, next to them Zadok, next to them the Tekoites. Each mentioned name, whether a group of townsmen or an individual, was responsible for building a segment of the wall. I find it hard to believe that a single person would have been able to build a segment. Thus - heads of work-gangs.


I'm not sure exactly what that would mean, or if jubilees were even
observed
at the time.
Two sabbatical years in a row.

That's a different issue. Do we have evidence that jubilees were observed during the second temple period? Modern Judaism (mainly in Israel) observes sabbaticals (mostly by arguing about how to get around them), but recognizes that the jubilee cycle has been lost.


Why is it terrible to remove Ezra's name in a couple of places, but not
terrible to remove "of Artaxerxes the king"?

Nothing is "terrible". The question is, what the redactor would have gained by adding either Ezra or Artaxerxes. I have argued here (probably worth a paper) that he added "Artaxerxes" because that's what he assumed that "the seventh year" in his source meant. This would have been an honest mistake. However, by positing that he added Ezra into places where he was not, you are assuming that he has a motive for doing so - basically he wishes to make Ezra and Nehemiah contemporaries, even though he knows that they lived nearly half a century apart. Why?


Yigal




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page