Ezra

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Lisbeth Fried's commentary on Ezra is the first instalment of a projectedtwo-volume commentary on Ezra-Nehemiah. It is the first fulllengthscholarly commentary on Ezra-Nehemiah to be written since1988 and takes advantage of recent results in archaeology, of recenthistorical studies on the Persian Empire, and of recent studies of theinfluence of Hellenistic textual and legal traditions on Judeanthought. It also draws extensively on the author's own research intothe mechanisms by which the Persian Empire dominated and controlledits subject populations.The present volume includes a new translation of the Book of Ezra, plus annotations on each verse that compare and contrast the Greek, Latin and Syriac variations, including the text of Greek Esdras A. Italso provides an extensive Introduction and chapter commentariesthat discuss larger historical and literary issues.Fried concludes that Ezra-Nehemiah was written as one book at thebeginning of the Hellenistic period. Although written then, it wasformed from earlier texts: an Ezra memoir, a letter to Ezra from ArtaxerxesII, and a Nehemiah memoir. All of these have been heavily edited, however. Fried concludes that both Ezra and Nehemiah werePersian officials, Ezra a Persian episkopos, and Nehemiah a Persiangovernor, and that both acted with the goals of their Persian overlordsin mind, not the goals of the subject Judean population. TheJudean author, writing under Hellenic domination, transformedthese men into Judean heroes in order to promote the novel idea of along tradition of foreign imperial support for local institutions-cultic, legal and physical.Fried's commentary promises to revolutionize how one reads thebook of Ezra.This is the first volume in a new series of substantial works, CriticalCommentaries.