Judaism, the First Phase: The Place of Ezra and Nehemiah in the Origins of Judaism by Joseph Blenkinsopp

Author:Joseph Blenkinsopp [Joseph Blenkinsopp]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2009-11-12T05:07:00+00:00

The Prehistory of the Ideology in Ezra-Nehemiah

Both confessional prayers in Ezra-Nehemiah (Ezra 9:6-15; Neh 9:6-37) lament the condition of servitude which had long been the lot of the Jewish people, but there is no longer any prospect of a reversal of fortunes, a return to the past. The situation has changed. What we have seen so far of the ideology of Ezra-Nehemiah is one reaction to that changed situation. The question we want to ask now is whether the few texts datable to the exilic or early postexilic period give us any information on the prehistory of that ideology. Though the law book referred to on several occasions in Ezra-Nehemiah cannot be simply identified with Deuteronomy, the influence of Deuteronomy will be at once obvious, especially in legal matters. Not surprisingly, there is no consensus on the editorial history of Deuteronomy or the dates to be assigned to the successive stages in its formation. Since it refers quite specifically at times to deportation and exile, most commentators have allowed for a postexilic strand.23 More speculatively, there are several features of the homiletic and legal material in the book which make better sense after than before the disasters of the early sixth century: Moses addresses a people poised to enter the land, and the requirement of cult centralization fits the much reduced dimensions of NeoBabylonian or early Persian Yehud better than the kingdom of Judah. This said, the influence of Deuteronomic theology on Ezra-Nehemiah is pervasive. The prayers are Deuteronomic in language and theme, and the law which Ezra was commissioned to enforce was basically Deuteronomic. A first instance concerns what the immigrants were to do after arriving in the land:

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