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Yesterday, I read the introduction to Joseph Blenkinsopp’s commentary on Ezra-Nehemiah. Blenkinsopp believes that the school that produced I-II Chronicles also produced Ezra-Nehemiah, for Ezra-Nehemiah continues the story of I-II Chronicles, as well as shares terminology with that of the Chronicler. When the writing styles of the Chronicler and Ezra-Nehemiah differ, Blenkinsopp argues, that’s probably because Ezra-Nehemiah uses a variety of sources, which accounts for its various styles. For Blenkinsopp, I-II Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah were intended to give post-exilic Israel the hope that she had a future.
Rabbinic tradition holds that Ezra wrote Chronicles and Ezra (Babylonian Talmud Baba Bathra 15a), but another rabbinic view states that Nehemiah wrote Ezra-Nehemiah but “did not get credit for it on account of vainglory and his habit of disparaging his predecessors (b. Sanh. 93b)” (page 59).
On pages 56-57, Blenkinsopp discusses what he considers to be a debate within Second Temple Judaism: did Nehemiah restore Jerusalem and the temple, or did Zerubbabel? Blenkinsopp notes that II Maccabees votes “Nehemiah,” and he thinks that’s because the Hasmoneans admired Nehemiah as a political leader and a faithful restorer of Israel’s national traditions, ideals that they sought to emulate. I Esdras, by contrast, attributes to Zerubbabel actions that the Book of Nehemiah ascribes to Nehemiah. Blenkinsopp sees here an anti-Hasmonean swipe on the part of the author of I Esdras. After Judea collapsed as a political entity, Ezra the scribe became the person who was emphasized. II Esdras presents Ezra as the restorer of Jerusalem and the temple.
And then there’s the rabbinic tradition that Zerubbabel was the Babylonian name for Nehemiah, meaning that the two were one and the same person (Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 38a).
