Wednesday Bible Study: Let ' s do the time warp again

The Book of Ezra continues to be chronologically challenged. The character of Ezra finally appears, in the 7th year of the reign of Ataxerxes, which would be 72 years after the death of Cyrus and something like 80 years after the return from exile described in the opening chapters. Therefore Ezra ' s father, and grandfather must have chosen to remain in Babylon, along with other priests, musicians, and temple servants as described in verse 8. While in Babylon, these people apparently exercised their offices, and Ezra studied to assume his hereditary priesthood. Why and how this happened is not explained, and it ' s especially puzzling since, obviously, they didn ' t have a temple to serve in. Anyway, all these decades later, Ezra suddenly decides to go to Jerusalem, and the emperor sends him on his way along with all the loot he can scrounge, and a commission to take charge of religious practice in Judah. Why the Persian emperor has this authority over Jewish religion is not explained, but again, the Jews evidently accept this hierarchy. A final note: in the last verse, the narrative shifts to first person. Until then, Ezra is the subject of a third-person omniscient narrator. What this may mean for the actual provenance of the text, and whether the first narrative that follows really was originally composed by the protagonist, we can only guess, but given the essential implausibility of the story it seems unlikely to me.7 After these things, during the reign o...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs