Abstract
In five clearly written chapters, bibliography, and indices of authors and references, Tiemeyer has provided an ideal model of what such introductions and study guides can be. It includes a short list of key studies that are suitable for further reading in relation to its theme at the end of each chapter as well as a useful current bibliography at the end of the book. Chapter one, concerned with the structure of Ezra-Nehemiah, provides a brief synopsis of some thirty-four sections of text, each followed by an indication of issues raised by that section, sometimes directing readers to fuller discussion in a later chapter. In chapter two, in discussing compositional history, she advances the likelihood of a gradual process that ‘extended well into the Hellenistic period and possibly also into the Hasmonean period’.
Chapter three raises questions concerning what it was like to live in post-monarchic Yehud and the role of Yehud within the larger Persian Empire, particularly with respect to the roles played by Ezra and Nehemiah respectively in relation to the compilation of Torah and to the imperial policy of defence against Egypt. Important questions here concern possible Persian interest in and influence upon Temple and Torah and Tiemeyer briefly exposes several aspects of the current debate. The fourth chapter is concerned, albeit briefly, with the ‘marriage crisis’—another area of lively debate—and notes some five aspects of the dangers associated with intermarriage as these are reflected in the scholarly literature.
By providing some insight into the later reception of Ezra-Nehemiah, especially in its earliest stages, Tiemeyer’s closing chapter provides an innovative and welcome departure from the usual content of such introductory study guides. As the format of the book necessarily limits the amount of such material that can be introduced she has chosen to restrict her examples for the most part to three main characters, Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah, although a few others occasionally feature. These issues of reception history are traced through 1 Esdras, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, Ben Sira, 2 Maccabees, Rabbinic Judaism, the New Testament, the Ezra Apocalypse, Samaritan tradition, Islamic tradition, patristic writings and Bede—who is very much an exception among Christian writers of the age in which he lived in that his work supplies the only complete commentary of that time on these two books in the Hebrew Bible.
This is an accessible introduction to Ezra-Nehemiah and the complex of problems that arise in relation to understanding the involved situations, time and place out of which the material contained in its pages may have arisen and developed. Yet it is not a book for anyone who wishes to be spoon-fed the answers. Tiemeyer is never dogmatic in advancing her own solution to the questions raised, but helpfully indicates where problems lie and briefly sets out potential solutions that have been proposed in the scholarly literature, while her reading lists and bibliography provide sufficient resources to permit readers to begin to make their own judgements.