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.
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.
I'm not sure exactly what that would mean, or if jubilees were evenobserved
at the time.Two sabbatical years in a row.
Why is it terrible to remove Ezra's name in a couple of places, but notNothing 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?
terrible to remove "of Artaxerxes the king"?
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