#aramaic — Public Fediverse posts

Mysterium Esdrae II: The Curious Case of Nehemiah

This is the second in a series of guest posts by Fenna Capelle (Part I; Part III; Part IV). Fenna studies Hebrew and Aramaic Studies (research) (MA) at Leiden University.

As we concluded at the end of our last blog, the relationship between Ezra-Nehemiah and 1 Esdras, its dark, mysterious, apocryphal look-alike, invites closer examination. It is amusing to notice, even now as I read, research and write for this blog, how much I tend to favour the canonical texts that I grew up with: naturally, apocryphal texts must be secondary to canonical ones, which are ever unaltered and original. There is, however, an overall agreement that the editor(s)/author(s) of both Ezra-Nehemiah (written in Hebrew and interlined with some chapters in Aramaic) and 1 Esdras (composed in Greek) worked from a shared Semitic vorlage, i.e., a hypothetical/reconstructed source text that underlies a later manuscript and that editors or authors work from. The question remains, however, whether the Semitic text underlying 1 Esdras was exactly the same as Ezra-Nehemiah in its present form (Talshir and Talshir 1995; Talshir 1999, 269-270). It would be good, at the outset, to address an obvious question: what are some differences we observe between the two texts and how might we explain these variations?

Nehemiah, a Judean exile and cup-bearer to king Artaxerxes, is granted the king’s permission to return home and help rebuild the city of Jerusalem (Neh. 1:1-2:5), some 13 years after Ezra’s return from exile (see Pakkala 2008, 205-206):

Firstly, it is odd that the character of Nehemiah makes no appearance at all in the book of 1 Esdras, which seems to focus solely on the character of Ezra. As with solving any good mystery, one conjures up possible scenarios: either the author/editor of 1 Esdras has consciously omitted the character of Nehemiah, or 1 Esdras is simply an older, sans-Nehemiah version of the narrative. In this case, another scribe must, at some later stage, have added the Nehemiah material, leading to the form of the text in Ezra-Nehemiah (as Dieter Böhler argues in his 2003 article). I must concede, contrary to this, that most of the extra material (‘pluses’) is found in the book of 1 Esdras, not that of Ezra-Nehemiah – think, for example, of the story of the three guards. Zipporah Talshir, in a monograph dedicated to above matter, argues that 1 Esdras is a section deliberately cut out from the Ezra-Nehemiah sequence to form a framework for the story of the guards, that this lengthy addition is the text’s raison d’être (Talshir 1999). My point is that one would, in most cases, expect a more expansive, elaborate text to be later than a text that is less so — unless, of course, there is a good reason for deletion, as I, and others with me, think might be the case with Nehemiah (see Wright 2011, 145-163; paywalled).

The two texts, however, appear to differ somewhat in their view on these rebuilding efforts. 1 Esdras describes how Zerubbabel and co. “returned to Jerusalem and the rest of Judea, each to his own town” (1 Esd. 5:8 — N.B. all English translations of 1 Esdras taken from A New English Translation of the Septuagint). A few chapters later, when Ezra has returned and confronted the Israelite nation with their missteps, a large crowd gathers around him, weeping and repenting:

While Ezra was praying and making his confession, weeping and lying on the ground before the temple, there gathered around him a very great crowd of men and women and youths from Jerusalem, for there was great weeping among the multitude.

1 Esd. 8:88

1 Esdras makes it seem as if the city of Jerusalem is already repopulated by the time Ezra returns to reinstate YHWH’s law (Böhler 2003, 5). The parallel passage in the canonical book of Ezra, however, describes matters a bit differently:

Then all the people of Judah and Benjamin assembled at Jerusalem within the three days; it was the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the month. All the people sat in the open square before the house of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain.

Ezr. 10:9 (all Biblical quotations taken from the New Revised Standard Version)

People gather from all over the place to hear Ezra speak. Jerusalem appears unpopulated as of yet, the rebuilding of which will eventually be Nehemiah’s task (Böhler 2003, 5).
Some years ago, Jacob Wright, professor of Hebrew at Candler School of Theology, published an article responding to this exact matter (Wright 2011, 145-163). He argues, in my opinion rather convincingly, that 1 Esdras has consciously eliminated Nehemiah from the historical record of the restoration. Given the array of exilic Biblical prophecies foretelling the rebuilding of Jerusalem (see, for example, Jer. 30:18; 31:38-40; Isa. 44:26-28; 49:14-20), it seems suspicious that the writer of 1 Esdras would fail to make the rebuilding explicit (apart from the few cases in which we may infer a rebuilt Jerusalem, as we have seen above). The reason for omission, Wright argues, may lie in the character of Nehemiah himself:

His explicit polemics against the priesthood (Neh.13), his presentation of a gubernatorial jurisdiction that extended to the temple (Neh.10), and his advocacy of a strong, militarized Judah that threatened the alliances of the aristocratic priests —these are just a few of the things that would have undoubtedly provoked the consternation of 1 Esdras’ pro-priestly authors.

Wright 2011, 150

Indeed, 1 Esdras seems, above all else, concerned with temple-service and priesthood. To return to the story of the three guards (of course missing from the canonical book): the insertion of this story allows for a buildup towards Zerubbabel’s temple-related quest: rebuilding of YHWH’s house, returning of the temple-vessels and rededication of the altar. If we follow Wright’s thinking, it seems probable that 1 Esdras relies on an already existing tradition where Ezra and Nehemiah were a two-for-one deal! The question, then, is how far this reshaping extends and what other traces of editorial intervention we might detect in the text. I propose we focus our next blogpost on one of these editorial interventions: the correspondence with king Artaxerxes to block construction of the temple and city.

Mysterium Esdrae II: The Curious Case of Nehemiah

This is the second in a series of guest posts by Fenna Capelle (Part I; Part III). Fenna studies Hebrew and Aramaic Studies (research) (MA) at Leiden University.

As we concluded at the end of our last blog, the relationship between Ezra-Nehemiah and 1 Esdras, its dark, mysterious, apocryphal look-alike, invites closer examination. It is amusing to notice, even now as I read, research and write for this blog, how much I tend to favour the canonical texts that I grew up with: naturally, apocryphal texts must be secondary to canonical ones, which are ever unaltered and original. There is, however, an overall agreement that the editor(s)/author(s) of both Ezra-Nehemiah (written in Hebrew and interlined with some chapters in Aramaic) and 1 Esdras (composed in Greek) worked from a shared Semitic vorlage, i.e., a hypothetical/reconstructed source text that underlies a later manuscript and that editors or authors work from. The question remains, however, whether the Semitic text underlying 1 Esdras was exactly the same as Ezra-Nehemiah in its present form (Talshir and Talshir 1995; Talshir 1999, 269-270). It would be good, at the outset, to address an obvious question: what are some differences we observe between the two texts and how might we explain these variations?

Nehemiah, a Judean exile and cup-bearer to king Artaxerxes, is granted the king’s permission to return home and help rebuild the city of Jerusalem (Neh. 1:1-2:5), some 13 years after Ezra’s return from exile (see Pakkala 2008, 205-206):

Firstly, it is odd that the character of Nehemiah makes no appearance at all in the book of 1 Esdras, which seems to focus solely on the character of Ezra. As with solving any good mystery, one conjures up possible scenarios: either the author/editor of 1 Esdras has consciously omitted the character of Nehemiah, or 1 Esdras is simply an older, sans-Nehemiah version of the narrative. In this case, another scribe must, at some later stage, have added the Nehemiah material, leading to the form of the text in Ezra-Nehemiah (as Dieter Böhler argues in his 2003 article). I must concede, contrary to this, that most of the extra material (‘pluses’) is found in the book of 1 Esdras, not that of Ezra-Nehemiah – think, for example, of the story of the three guards. Zipporah Talshir, in a monograph dedicated to above matter, argues that 1 Esdras is a section deliberately cut out from the Ezra-Nehemiah sequence to form a framework for the story of the guards, that this lengthy addition is the text’s raison d’être (Talshir 1999). My point is that one would, in most cases, expect a more expansive, elaborate text to be later than a text that is less so — unless, of course, there is a good reason for deletion, as I, and others with me, think might be the case with Nehemiah (see Wright 2011, 145-163; paywalled).

The two texts, however, appear to differ somewhat in their view on these rebuilding efforts. 1 Esdras describes how Zerubbabel and co. “returned to Jerusalem and the rest of Judea, each to his own town” (1 Esd. 5:8 — N.B. all English translations of 1 Esdras taken from A New English Translation of the Septuagint). A few chapters later, when Ezra has returned and confronted the Israelite nation with their missteps, a large crowd gathers around him, weeping and repenting:

While Ezra was praying and making his confession, weeping and lying on the ground before the temple, there gathered around him a very great crowd of men and women and youths from Jerusalem, for there was great weeping among the multitude.

1 Esd. 8:88

1 Esdras makes it seem as if the city of Jerusalem is already repopulated by the time Ezra returns to reinstate YHWH’s law (Böhler 2003, 5). The parallel passage in the canonical book of Ezra, however, describes matters a bit differently:

Then all the people of Judah and Benjamin assembled at Jerusalem within the three days; it was the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the month. All the people sat in the open square before the house of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain.

Ezr. 10:9 (all Biblical quotations taken from the New Revised Standard Version)

People gather from all over the place to hear Ezra speak. Jerusalem appears unpopulated as of yet, the rebuilding of which will eventually be Nehemiah’s task (Böhler 2003, 5).
Some years ago, Jacob Wright, professor of Hebrew at Candler School of Theology, published an article responding to this exact matter (Wright 2011, 145-163). He argues, in my opinion rather convincingly, that 1 Esdras has consciously eliminated Nehemiah from the historical record of the restoration. Given the array of exilic Biblical prophecies foretelling the rebuilding of Jerusalem (see, for example, Jer. 30:18; 31:38-40; Isa. 44:26-28; 49:14-20), it seems suspicious that the writer of 1 Esdras would fail to make the rebuilding explicit (apart from the few cases in which we may infer a rebuilt Jerusalem, as we have seen above). The reason for omission, Wright argues, may lie in the character of Nehemiah himself:

His explicit polemics against the priesthood (Neh.13), his presentation of a gubernatorial jurisdiction that extended to the temple (Neh.10), and his advocacy of a strong, militarized Judah that threatened the alliances of the aristocratic priests —these are just a few of the things that would have undoubtedly provoked the consternation of 1 Esdras’ pro-priestly authors.

Wright 2011, 150

Indeed, 1 Esdras seems, above all else, concerned with temple-service and priesthood. To return to the story of the three guards (of course missing from the canonical book): the insertion of this story allows for a buildup towards Zerubbabel’s temple-related quest: rebuilding of YHWH’s house, returning of the temple-vessels and rededication of the altar. If we follow Wright’s thinking, it seems probable that 1 Esdras relies on an already existing tradition where Ezra and Nehemiah were a two-for-one deal! The question, then, is how far this reshaping extends and what other traces of editorial intervention we might detect in the text. I propose we focus our next blogpost on one of these editorial interventions: the correspondence with king Artaxerxes to block construction of the temple and city.

Mysterium Esdrae II: The Curious Case of Nehemiah

This is the second in a series of guest posts by Fenna Capelle (Part I; Part III; Part IV). Fenna studies Hebrew and Aramaic Studies (research) (MA) at Leiden University.

As we concluded at the end of our last blog, the relationship between Ezra-Nehemiah and 1 Esdras, its dark, mysterious, apocryphal look-alike, invites closer examination. It is amusing to notice, even now as I read, research and write for this blog, how much I tend to favour the canonical texts that I grew up with: naturally, apocryphal texts must be secondary to canonical ones, which are ever unaltered and original. There is, however, an overall agreement that the editor(s)/author(s) of both Ezra-Nehemiah (written in Hebrew and interlined with some chapters in Aramaic) and 1 Esdras (composed in Greek) worked from a shared Semitic vorlage, i.e., a hypothetical/reconstructed source text that underlies a later manuscript and that editors or authors work from. The question remains, however, whether the Semitic text underlying 1 Esdras was exactly the same as Ezra-Nehemiah in its present form (Talshir and Talshir 1995; Talshir 1999, 269-270). It would be good, at the outset, to address an obvious question: what are some differences we observe between the two texts and how might we explain these variations?

Nehemiah, a Judean exile and cup-bearer to king Artaxerxes, is granted the king’s permission to return home and help rebuild the city of Jerusalem (Neh. 1:1-2:5), some 13 years after Ezra’s return from exile (see Pakkala 2008, 205-206):

Firstly, it is odd that the character of Nehemiah makes no appearance at all in the book of 1 Esdras, which seems to focus solely on the character of Ezra. As with solving any good mystery, one conjures up possible scenarios: either the author/editor of 1 Esdras has consciously omitted the character of Nehemiah, or 1 Esdras is simply an older, sans-Nehemiah version of the narrative. In this case, another scribe must, at some later stage, have added the Nehemiah material, leading to the form of the text in Ezra-Nehemiah (as Dieter Böhler argues in his 2003 article). I must concede, contrary to this, that most of the extra material (‘pluses’) is found in the book of 1 Esdras, not that of Ezra-Nehemiah – think, for example, of the story of the three guards. Zipporah Talshir, in a monograph dedicated to above matter, argues that 1 Esdras is a section deliberately cut out from the Ezra-Nehemiah sequence to form a framework for the story of the guards, that this lengthy addition is the text’s raison d’être (Talshir 1999). My point is that one would, in most cases, expect a more expansive, elaborate text to be later than a text that is less so — unless, of course, there is a good reason for deletion, as I, and others with me, think might be the case with Nehemiah (see Wright 2011, 145-163; paywalled).

The two texts, however, appear to differ somewhat in their view on these rebuilding efforts. 1 Esdras describes how Zerubbabel and co. “returned to Jerusalem and the rest of Judea, each to his own town” (1 Esd. 5:8 — N.B. all English translations of 1 Esdras taken from A New English Translation of the Septuagint). A few chapters later, when Ezra has returned and confronted the Israelite nation with their missteps, a large crowd gathers around him, weeping and repenting:

While Ezra was praying and making his confession, weeping and lying on the ground before the temple, there gathered around him a very great crowd of men and women and youths from Jerusalem, for there was great weeping among the multitude.

1 Esd. 8:88

1 Esdras makes it seem as if the city of Jerusalem is already repopulated by the time Ezra returns to reinstate YHWH’s law (Böhler 2003, 5). The parallel passage in the canonical book of Ezra, however, describes matters a bit differently:

Then all the people of Judah and Benjamin assembled at Jerusalem within the three days; it was the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the month. All the people sat in the open square before the house of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain.

Ezr. 10:9 (all Biblical quotations taken from the New Revised Standard Version)

People gather from all over the place to hear Ezra speak. Jerusalem appears unpopulated as of yet, the rebuilding of which will eventually be Nehemiah’s task (Böhler 2003, 5).
Some years ago, Jacob Wright, professor of Hebrew at Candler School of Theology, published an article responding to this exact matter (Wright 2011, 145-163). He argues, in my opinion rather convincingly, that 1 Esdras has consciously eliminated Nehemiah from the historical record of the restoration. Given the array of exilic Biblical prophecies foretelling the rebuilding of Jerusalem (see, for example, Jer. 30:18; 31:38-40; Isa. 44:26-28; 49:14-20), it seems suspicious that the writer of 1 Esdras would fail to make the rebuilding explicit (apart from the few cases in which we may infer a rebuilt Jerusalem, as we have seen above). The reason for omission, Wright argues, may lie in the character of Nehemiah himself:

His explicit polemics against the priesthood (Neh.13), his presentation of a gubernatorial jurisdiction that extended to the temple (Neh.10), and his advocacy of a strong, militarized Judah that threatened the alliances of the aristocratic priests —these are just a few of the things that would have undoubtedly provoked the consternation of 1 Esdras’ pro-priestly authors.

Wright 2011, 150

Indeed, 1 Esdras seems, above all else, concerned with temple-service and priesthood. To return to the story of the three guards (of course missing from the canonical book): the insertion of this story allows for a buildup towards Zerubbabel’s temple-related quest: rebuilding of YHWH’s house, returning of the temple-vessels and rededication of the altar. If we follow Wright’s thinking, it seems probable that 1 Esdras relies on an already existing tradition where Ezra and Nehemiah were a two-for-one deal! The question, then, is how far this reshaping extends and what other traces of editorial intervention we might detect in the text. I propose we focus our next blogpost on one of these editorial interventions: the correspondence with king Artaxerxes to block construction of the temple and city.

Mysterium Esdrae I: The Other Ezra

This is the first in a series of guest posts by Fenna Capelle (Part II; Part III; Part IV). Fenna studies Hebrew and Aramaic Studies (research) (MA) at Leiden University.

It is safe to say that the Biblical Apocrypha do not constitute the daily reading of a young person raised in a Dutch Reformed church, as I was. All the greater was my delight upon realising the insights this corpus of texts might offer us; valuable insights into the ways ancient communities engaged with scripture and interpreted the events of the world around them. The Biblical Apocrypha operate outside an established canon of scripture, whose relation to said canon can at times be elusive, as we shall see in the case of 1 Esdras. 1 Esdras is an apocryphal text that we find included amongst the texts of the Septuagint, an early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Whereas the Hebrew Bible has preserved just one version of the story of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Septuagint contains two: Esdras A (1 Esd.) and Esdras B (2 Esd.). The latter is a quite literal translation of the Hebrew and Aramaic book of Ezra-Nehemiah, yet, as we shall see at length throughout this series, Esdras A, or 1 Esdras, is not.

The book of 1 Esdras opens at the events described in the last chapters of 2 Chronicles: King Josiah leads a festive Passover ceremony at the temple (1 Esd. 1:1-22; 2 Chron. 35: 1-19). Josiah’s reign, however, is cut short, as an ill-advised war against Pharaoh Necho of Egypt proves fatal for him (1 Esd. 1:23-29; 2 Chron. 35: 1-19). Josiah is succeeded by a string of weak and impious kings, whose missteps result in exile. A good amount of time passes between the first and second chapter of 1 Esdras; by the time of 1 Esdras 2, the Babylonian empire has fallen into the hands of the Persians, following King Cyrus’ conquest of Babylon in 539 BC. This same Cyrus the Great issues a decree that allows the Judean exiles to return home and take with them the temple vessels that King Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the first temple (Ezr. 1:1-11; 1 Esd. 2:1-15. About the temple vessels, see also Dan. 5:2,23). Thus, the first wave of exiles returns in the days of Cyrus, led by a Judean official named Sheshbazzar.

Upon their return, they are met by varying communities of people that had continued to populate the land of Judah throughout the period of exile (for historical insight into the situation in Judah throughout the exilic period, I recommend Lester Grabbe’s article ‘The Reality of the Return’; paywalled). These remnant communities, however, do not look favourably upon the returnees’ desire to restore Jerusalem and the temple. As such, a letter is sent to the Persian king, who is now not Cyrus but Artaxerxes I (more about the chronology of Persian kings will follow in a later blogpost). The letter argues that if the returnees’ construction plans are realised, the Persian Empire may lose the province of Judah. Persuaded, the king agrees to halt rebuilding efforts in Jerusalem. (1 Esd. 2:16-30; Ezr. 4:7-24). The construction work will not be resumed until the reign of Darius I, prompted by a fortunate turn of events at a party.

1 Esdras 3:1-5:6 tells of a grand banquet organised by king Darius, during which three of the king’s bodyguards propose a contest: each is to answer the question, “What is the strongest thing known to man?”. Darius, excited at the idea of a competition, summons many nobles before whom the guards are to offer speeches on this matter. The first bodyguard makes a case for wine; the second, diplomatically so, states that a king is strongest of all; the third says ‘women’. Darius, especially pleased with the third answer (or rather, not willing to displease his concubine, Apame), declares the third guard victorious. This guard happens to be none other than Zerubbabel (cf. 1 Chronicles 3), the grandson of king Jehoiachin, and the governor of Judah (see the book of Haggai). As a reward for his speech, the king grants Zerubbabel one wish. Thus, Zerubbabel entreats Darius to honour his vow to rebuild the temple, a request to which the king agrees. The ban on the construction is lifted, and a second wave of returnees arrives in Judah, led by Zerubbabel. Upon their return, the altar is rededicated, daily sacrifice resumed and the foundations for the temple are laid (1 Esd. 5:47-73; Ezr. 3:1-4:5).

These restorations, in true Biblical fashion, are celebrated with much fanfare, trumpets, dances and shouting. The noise of the jubilant masses, however, attracts the opponents of the temple, who again manage to halt construction. In response to the opposition, the prophets Haggai and Zechariah rally support to continue building. The support comes in the form of two Judean officials who advice king Darius to initiate a search in the imperial archives for king Cyrus’s initial edict (the document granting permission to rebuild the temple). The edict is found and Darius commands construction to be resumed to fulfill Cyrus’s decree. The last section of 1 Esdras centres around the figure of Ezra, who comes to Judah with a third wave of returnees (1 Esd. 8:1-9:55). Upon arriving, Ezra is horrified to learn that many Judeans had given themselves in marriage to non-Israelite women. Ezra returns, Torah in hand, to exhort the people, encouraging them to annul these mixed marriages. Thus, under Ezra’s purview, the nation turns again to God and Torah.

In this series of blogposts I will aim to address multiple things: in the first blog following this introduction I would like to discuss some tensions that arise when we compare the canonical and apocryphal texts. The observant reader may already have noticed that, although the book of 1 Esdras is generally in keeping with the Hebrew, or what we call the Masoretic Text (MT), we can spot some serious divergence (see figure 2 below and also Grabbe 2021; paywalled). These differences will help us approach questions of intertextual relationship: to what did both texts owe their current shape? Does Ezra-Nehemiah rely on 1 Esdras, or vice versa? Do both maybe stem from a common “ancestor text” that both texts interpret in different ways and add things to? If things are added or omitted, what might be a good reason for a writer to do so?

In the third part of this series, I will make a brief case-study of the letter to King Artaxerxes. In a genuine effort not to confuse the reader too much, I will discuss some of the confusion that exists around the correspondence with Artaxerxes, which features in both the MT and 1 Esdras (Ezr. 4:7-24; 1 Esd. 2:16-30). The fourth and final blogpost will continue with the same bit of correspondence, arguing that the repositioning of this letter in the book of 1 Esdras is rather a sensible thing to do from a narrative perspective, and fits an overall tendency that we detect in the book. Finally, having weighed the information, I would like to propose that the author(s)/editor(s) of 1 Esdras might have worked with a version of the story that is really quite similar to Ezra-Nehemiah – we will see how there is clearly an editorial and revisionary hand at work in 1 Esdras. In other words, I’ll put forth an argument in favour of, to steal a fancy phrase from Lisbeth Fried “the priority of Ezra-Nehemiah” (Fried 2011).

Mysterium Esdrae I: The Other Ezra

This is the first in a series of guest posts by Fenna Capelle (Part II; Part III). Fenna studies Hebrew and Aramaic Studies (research) (MA) at Leiden University.

It is safe to say that the Biblical Apocrypha do not constitute the daily reading of a young person raised in a Dutch Reformed church, as I was. All the greater was my delight upon realising the insights this corpus of texts might offer us; valuable insights into the ways ancient communities engaged with scripture and interpreted the events of the world around them. The Biblical Apocrypha operate outside an established canon of scripture, whose relation to said canon can at times be elusive, as we shall see in the case of 1 Esdras. 1 Esdras is an apocryphal text that we find included amongst the texts of the Septuagint, an early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Whereas the Hebrew Bible has preserved just one version of the story of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Septuagint contains two: Esdras A (1 Esd.) and Esdras B (2 Esd.). The latter is a quite literal translation of the Hebrew and Aramaic book of Ezra-Nehemiah, yet, as we shall see at length throughout this series, Esdras A, or 1 Esdras, is not.

The book of 1 Esdras opens at the events described in the last chapters of 2 Chronicles: King Josiah leads a festive Passover ceremony at the temple (1 Esd. 1:1-22; 2 Chron. 35: 1-19). Josiah’s reign, however, is cut short, as an ill-advised war against Pharaoh Necho of Egypt proves fatal for him (1 Esd. 1:23-29; 2 Chron. 35: 1-19). Josiah is succeeded by a string of weak and impious kings, whose missteps result in exile. A good amount of time passes between the first and second chapter of 1 Esdras; by the time of 1 Esdras 2, the Babylonian empire has fallen into the hands of the Persians, following King Cyrus’ conquest of Babylon in 539 BC. This same Cyrus the Great issues a decree that allows the Judean exiles to return home and take with them the temple vessels that King Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the first temple (Ezr. 1:1-11; 1 Esd. 2:1-15. About the temple vessels, see also Dan. 5:2,23). Thus, the first wave of exiles returns in the days of Cyrus, led by a Judean official named Sheshbazzar.

Upon their return, they are met by varying communities of people that had continued to populate the land of Judah throughout the period of exile (for historical insight into the situation in Judah throughout the exilic period, I recommend Lester Grabbe’s article ‘The Reality of the Return’; paywalled). These remnant communities, however, do not look favourably upon the returnees’ desire to restore Jerusalem and the temple. As such, a letter is sent to the Persian king, who is now not Cyrus but Artaxerxes I (more about the chronology of Persian kings will follow in a later blogpost). The letter argues that if the returnees’ construction plans are realised, the Persian Empire may lose the province of Judah. Persuaded, the king agrees to halt rebuilding efforts in Jerusalem. (1 Esd. 2:16-30; Ezr. 4:7-24). The construction work will not be resumed until the reign of Darius I, prompted by a fortunate turn of events at a party.

1 Esdras 3:1-5:6 tells of a grand banquet organised by king Darius, during which three of the king’s bodyguards propose a contest: each is to answer the question, “What is the strongest thing known to man?”. Darius, excited at the idea of a competition, summons many nobles before whom the guards are to offer speeches on this matter. The first bodyguard makes a case for wine; the second, diplomatically so, states that a king is strongest of all; the third says ‘women’. Darius, especially pleased with the third answer (or rather, not willing to displease his concubine, Apame), declares the third guard victorious. This guard happens to be none other than Zerubbabel (cf. 1 Chronicles 3), the grandson of king Jehoiachin, and the governor of Judah (see the book of Haggai). As a reward for his speech, the king grants Zerubbabel one wish. Thus, Zerubbabel entreats Darius to honour his vow to rebuild the temple, a request to which the king agrees. The ban on the construction is lifted, and a second wave of returnees arrives in Judah, led by Zerubbabel. Upon their return, the altar is rededicated, daily sacrifice resumed and the foundations for the temple are laid (1 Esd. 5:47-73; Ezr. 3:1-4:5).

These restorations, in true Biblical fashion, are celebrated with much fanfare, trumpets, dances and shouting. The noise of the jubilant masses, however, attracts the opponents of the temple, who again manage to halt construction. In response to the opposition, the prophets Haggai and Zechariah rally support to continue building. The support comes in the form of two Judean officials who advice king Darius to initiate a search in the imperial archives for king Cyrus’s initial edict (the document granting permission to rebuild the temple). The edict is found and Darius commands construction to be resumed to fulfill Cyrus’s decree. The last section of 1 Esdras centres around the figure of Ezra, who comes to Judah with a third wave of returnees (1 Esd. 8:1-9:55). Upon arriving, Ezra is horrified to learn that many Judeans had given themselves in marriage to non-Israelite women. Ezra returns, Torah in hand, to exhort the people, encouraging them to annul these mixed marriages. Thus, under Ezra’s purview, the nation turns again to God and Torah.

In this series of blogposts I will aim to address multiple things: in the first blog following this introduction I would like to discuss some tensions that arise when we compare the canonical and apocryphal texts. The observant reader may already have noticed that, although the book of 1 Esdras is generally in keeping with the Hebrew, or what we call the Masoretic Text (MT), we can spot some serious divergence (see figure 2 below and also Grabbe 2021; paywalled). These differences will help us approach questions of intertextual relationship: to what did both texts owe their current shape? Does Ezra-Nehemiah rely on 1 Esdras, or vice versa? Do both maybe stem from a common “ancestor text” that both texts interpret in different ways and add things to? If things are added or omitted, what might be a good reason for a writer to do so?

In the third part of this series, I will make a brief case-study of the letter to King Artaxerxes. In a genuine effort not to confuse the reader too much, I will discuss some of the confusion that exists around the correspondence with Artaxerxes, which features in both the MT and 1 Esdras (Ezr. 4:7-24; 1 Esd. 2:16-30). The fourth and final blogpost will continue with the same bit of correspondence, arguing that the repositioning of this letter in the book of 1 Esdras is rather a sensible thing to do from a narrative perspective, and fits an overall tendency that we detect in the book. Finally, having weighed the information, I would like to propose that the author(s)/editor(s) of 1 Esdras might have worked with a version of the story that is really quite similar to Ezra-Nehemiah – we will see how there is clearly an editorial and revisionary hand at work in 1 Esdras. In other words, I’ll put forth an argument in favour of, to steal a fancy phrase from Lisbeth Fried “the priority of Ezra-Nehemiah” (Fried 2011).

Mysterium Esdrae I: The Other Ezra

This is the first in a series of guest posts by Fenna Capelle (Part II; Part III; Part IV). Fenna studies Hebrew and Aramaic Studies (research) (MA) at Leiden University.

It is safe to say that the Biblical Apocrypha do not constitute the daily reading of a young person raised in a Dutch Reformed church, as I was. All the greater was my delight upon realising the insights this corpus of texts might offer us; valuable insights into the ways ancient communities engaged with scripture and interpreted the events of the world around them. The Biblical Apocrypha operate outside an established canon of scripture, whose relation to said canon can at times be elusive, as we shall see in the case of 1 Esdras. 1 Esdras is an apocryphal text that we find included amongst the texts of the Septuagint, an early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Whereas the Hebrew Bible has preserved just one version of the story of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Septuagint contains two: Esdras A (1 Esd.) and Esdras B (2 Esd.). The latter is a quite literal translation of the Hebrew and Aramaic book of Ezra-Nehemiah, yet, as we shall see at length throughout this series, Esdras A, or 1 Esdras, is not.

The book of 1 Esdras opens at the events described in the last chapters of 2 Chronicles: King Josiah leads a festive Passover ceremony at the temple (1 Esd. 1:1-22; 2 Chron. 35: 1-19). Josiah’s reign, however, is cut short, as an ill-advised war against Pharaoh Necho of Egypt proves fatal for him (1 Esd. 1:23-29; 2 Chron. 35: 1-19). Josiah is succeeded by a string of weak and impious kings, whose missteps result in exile. A good amount of time passes between the first and second chapter of 1 Esdras; by the time of 1 Esdras 2, the Babylonian empire has fallen into the hands of the Persians, following King Cyrus’ conquest of Babylon in 539 BC. This same Cyrus the Great issues a decree that allows the Judean exiles to return home and take with them the temple vessels that King Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the first temple (Ezr. 1:1-11; 1 Esd. 2:1-15. About the temple vessels, see also Dan. 5:2,23). Thus, the first wave of exiles returns in the days of Cyrus, led by a Judean official named Sheshbazzar.

Upon their return, they are met by varying communities of people that had continued to populate the land of Judah throughout the period of exile (for historical insight into the situation in Judah throughout the exilic period, I recommend Lester Grabbe’s article ‘The Reality of the Return’; paywalled). These remnant communities, however, do not look favourably upon the returnees’ desire to restore Jerusalem and the temple. As such, a letter is sent to the Persian king, who is now not Cyrus but Artaxerxes I (more about the chronology of Persian kings will follow in a later blogpost). The letter argues that if the returnees’ construction plans are realised, the Persian Empire may lose the province of Judah. Persuaded, the king agrees to halt rebuilding efforts in Jerusalem. (1 Esd. 2:16-30; Ezr. 4:7-24). The construction work will not be resumed until the reign of Darius I, prompted by a fortunate turn of events at a party.

1 Esdras 3:1-5:6 tells of a grand banquet organised by king Darius, during which three of the king’s bodyguards propose a contest: each is to answer the question, “What is the strongest thing known to man?”. Darius, excited at the idea of a competition, summons many nobles before whom the guards are to offer speeches on this matter. The first bodyguard makes a case for wine; the second, diplomatically so, states that a king is strongest of all; the third says ‘women’. Darius, especially pleased with the third answer (or rather, not willing to displease his concubine, Apame), declares the third guard victorious. This guard happens to be none other than Zerubbabel (cf. 1 Chronicles 3), the grandson of king Jehoiachin, and the governor of Judah (see the book of Haggai). As a reward for his speech, the king grants Zerubbabel one wish. Thus, Zerubbabel entreats Darius to honour his vow to rebuild the temple, a request to which the king agrees. The ban on the construction is lifted, and a second wave of returnees arrives in Judah, led by Zerubbabel. Upon their return, the altar is rededicated, daily sacrifice resumed and the foundations for the temple are laid (1 Esd. 5:47-73; Ezr. 3:1-4:5).

These restorations, in true Biblical fashion, are celebrated with much fanfare, trumpets, dances and shouting. The noise of the jubilant masses, however, attracts the opponents of the temple, who again manage to halt construction. In response to the opposition, the prophets Haggai and Zechariah rally support to continue building. The support comes in the form of two Judean officials who advice king Darius to initiate a search in the imperial archives for king Cyrus’s initial edict (the document granting permission to rebuild the temple). The edict is found and Darius commands construction to be resumed to fulfill Cyrus’s decree. The last section of 1 Esdras centres around the figure of Ezra, who comes to Judah with a third wave of returnees (1 Esd. 8:1-9:55). Upon arriving, Ezra is horrified to learn that many Judeans had given themselves in marriage to non-Israelite women. Ezra returns, Torah in hand, to exhort the people, encouraging them to annul these mixed marriages. Thus, under Ezra’s purview, the nation turns again to God and Torah.

In this series of blogposts I will aim to address multiple things: in the first blog following this introduction I would like to discuss some tensions that arise when we compare the canonical and apocryphal texts. The observant reader may already have noticed that, although the book of 1 Esdras is generally in keeping with the Hebrew, or what we call the Masoretic Text (MT), we can spot some serious divergence (see figure 2 below and also Grabbe 2021; paywalled). These differences will help us approach questions of intertextual relationship: to what did both texts owe their current shape? Does Ezra-Nehemiah rely on 1 Esdras, or vice versa? Do both maybe stem from a common “ancestor text” that both texts interpret in different ways and add things to? If things are added or omitted, what might be a good reason for a writer to do so?

In the third part of this series, I will make a brief case-study of the letter to King Artaxerxes. In a genuine effort not to confuse the reader too much, I will discuss some of the confusion that exists around the correspondence with Artaxerxes, which features in both the MT and 1 Esdras (Ezr. 4:7-24; 1 Esd. 2:16-30). The fourth and final blogpost will continue with the same bit of correspondence, arguing that the repositioning of this letter in the book of 1 Esdras is rather a sensible thing to do from a narrative perspective, and fits an overall tendency that we detect in the book. Finally, having weighed the information, I would like to propose that the author(s)/editor(s) of 1 Esdras might have worked with a version of the story that is really quite similar to Ezra-Nehemiah – we will see how there is clearly an editorial and revisionary hand at work in 1 Esdras. In other words, I’ll put forth an argument in favour of, to steal a fancy phrase from Lisbeth Fried “the priority of Ezra-Nehemiah” (Fried 2011).

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New paper on ordinals

This blog post is now a paper, which came out unexpectedly soon: ‘Ordinal Numerals as a Criterion for Subclassification: The Case of Semitic’.

Abstract: This article explores how ordinal numerals (like first, second and third) can help classify languages, focusing on the Semitic language family. Ordinals are often formed according to productive derivational processes, but as a separate word class, they may retain archaic morphology that is otherwise lost from the language. Together with the high propensity of ‘first’ and, less frequently, ‘second’ to be formed through suppletion, this makes them highly valuable for diachronic linguistic analysis. The article identifies four main patterns of ordinal formation across different Semitic languages. Together with innovations in the lowest two ordinals, these can be correlated with more and less accepted subgroupings within Semitic as a whole. Concretely, they offer support for the widely accepted West Semitic, Northwest Semitic and Abyssinian (Ethio-Semitic) clades as well as the recently proposed Aramaeo-Canaanite clade and provide new evidence for the further subclassification of Abyssinian that matches other recent proposals. However, no evidence was found to support the debated Central Semitic or South Semitic groupings. Given the accurate identification of accepted subgroupings and high level of detail, this approach holds promise for the classification of other language families, especially where other linguistic data are scarce.

Enjoy!

#Akkadian #Amharic #AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthArabian #news #ProtoSemitic #Ugaritic

CALL and DOT

Two conferences in the last three weeks: my first Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics (as a speaker), in Leiden as always, and a day and a half of the 35st Deutscher Orientalistentag, in Erlangen.

Both were a lot of fun. I saw many different talks at CALL, too many to summarize, and mostly too off-topic as well. I was there to ask why we think Cushitic forms a single family within Afroasiatic (see also these blog posts). Despite the purposefully provocative title of my talk, I was not assaulted by any angry mobs of Cushiticists.1 The main question seems to be whether we really should disregard the lexicon when looking at subclassification (and then the next question should be whether the lexicon does show that Cushitic is a clade). It was also really cool to see several talks by young researchers whom I taught as first-years and who have now all finished their MAs and partially started PhD projects: shout-outs to Nina van der Vlugt, Melle Groen, and Jeroen van Ravenhorst. Post your slides online, guys!

At the DOT, I co-chaired a panel on Semitic (in practice: mostly Hebrew) reading traditions together with Harald Samuel. While some of our presenters sadly had to cancel, we still had a great line-up, with exciting findings in every talk:

Chanan Ariel (Tel-Aviv University) proposed a highly original new explanation for the Biblical Hebrew phenomenon of dehiq, where consonants following certain unstressed vowels are geminated. According to Ariel, this is an orthoepic feature and applies to vocalic suffixes that alternate with zero, as well as some cases where the geminated consonant had to be kept apart from a following guttural. Works really well IMHO.

Aaron Hornkohl (University of Cambridge) provided a thorough discussion of the ketiv-qere phenomenon, presenting an up-to-date linguistic view of its origins and purpose in hopes of spreading more awareness of this to less linguistically inclined Hebrew Bible scholars. One thing that stood out to me is that words that are present in the consonantal text but left unpronounced in the reading tradition (ketiv wela qere) are sometimes translated in targums and other ancient versions.

Jonathan Howard (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) presented his ongoing PhD research on the “Palestinian” vocalization system of Hebrew and Aramaic and pointed out that so far, there’s really no good evidence that it’s from Palestine. He’s hoping to find some, but it might be more impactful if he doesn’t.

Johan Lundberg (University of Oxford) walked us through the increasing complexity in Syriac punctuation signs, including the development of something that is roughly equivalent to an exclamation mark! Cool fact: in at least one of the few Syriac manuscripts of the entire Bible, the scribe has simply maintained the punctuation of each source text, resulting in several different systems coexisting in the same final work.

Emmanuel Mastey (Tel-Aviv University) presented a nice statistical inquiry into h-final spellings of 2m.sg. perfect verbs in Biblical Hebrew. Besides the very frequent case of נָתַתָּה ‘you gave’, Mastey finds that this spelling is especially common with verbs that have t as their third radical and, less so, with third-weak verbs. He suggests a phonological explanation for both classes; I wonder whether with the III-t roots, it may rather be motivated by the usefulness of distinguishing e.g. שתה ‘you placed’ from שת ‘he placed’.

Isabella Maurizio (University of Lorraine according to the programme, but I think that may be outdated? Sorbonne soon from what she told me) presented her recently completed research on the Second Column of Origen’s Hexapla, the oldest fully vocalized source (in Greek script!) for Biblical Hebrew. Big shock to me: Maurizio dates the Secunda to the 2nd c. BCE-1st c. CE, not the 3rd c. CE!

Marijn van Putten (Leiden University) appeared virtually to frighten the Hebraists with the tricky history of the Qur’anic reading traditions, with examples like one where a certain reader’s Arabic is notably more archaic than that of his teacher’s teacher. Since we barely know anything about who transmitted the Hebrew reading traditions, how much of this stuff are we missing due to a lack of data?

Harald Samuel (University of Tübingen) continued the sceptical line by noting some features of Tiberian Hebrew that appear to be really late (quoting me[!] from an informal conversation in which I said that a certain change must have taken place “about two hours before Ben-Asher went to work that morning”). How do we reconcile this with the alleged presence of extremely early, First Temple period features in the reading tradition as well?

Christian Stadel (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) presented on some clearly late and some unquestionably early features of the Samaritan reading tradition and talked about how it relates to the consonantal text of the Samaritan Pentateuch more generally. It reminded me a bit of a presentation I gave on a similar topic several years ago. I only have one semester of Samaritan Hebrew, though—taught by Christian Stadel!—while Stadel is a real expert on the Samaritan languages. So it was reassuring to hear him argue for similar conclusions as well as present a whole lot more interesting data.

Last of all (due to alphabetization, but it worked out alright), I got to present on the project on the construction of the Biblical Aramaic reading tradition that I’ve been doing at Leuven since 2019. I’m not sure the argument I presented is fully sound, so it was great to be able to discuss it with some colleagues afterwards.

The Semitics section continued this morning. In her section keynote, Na’ama Pat-El (University of Texas Austin) presented her SemitiLEX project (recorded talk by another project member, haven’t watched it yet), looking at cognate Semitic lexemes not just in terms of roots, but also looking at morpho-lexical features like gender and pluralization. Unexpected result: building phylogenetic trees based on these data shows Akkadian, Ugaritic, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic clustering as four or five separate branches, instead of Northwest Semitic clustering together and then being closer to Arabic than to Akkadian.

Maria Rauscher (Université Félix Houphouet-Boigny) presented her ongoing work on a dictionary of Arabic verbal nouns, focusing on the difficult case of k-r-h ‘to dislike’. As we had some extra discussion time for both Pat-El’s and Rauscher’s talks, there was time enough for the audience to draw up battle lines and get into the details of linguistic theory (such as: are morphemes even a thing?).

Stefanie Rudolf (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science) presented on two Qur’anic phrases that she suggests are unrecognized borrowings from Ethiosemitic. “The Lord of the East and the West” is attested in an Ethiopian Early Sabaic inscription, while Rudolf proposes the Arabic root f-t-w ‘to judge’ may be borrowed from Ethiosemitic f-t-ḥ. While she acknowledges the phonological difficulty of the last case, maybe we should reckon with the possibility of an unknown (South?) Ethiosemitic language that lost the pharyngeals acting as an intermediary: in the beginning of her talk, she pointed out that early Islamic sources refer to an Abyssinian with a name that is not Ge’ez but pre-Amharic (I think Ababut?), which I found very cool.

Jan Retsö (University of Gothenburg) pulled off the trick of reading out a text with no slides or handout while being perfectly easy to follow and entertaining. After an overview of the scholarship on Semitic–Ancient Egyptian cognates and loanwords, Retsö responded to Alexander Borg’s recent claim that there are lots of specifically Arabic loanwords in Egyptian. Retsö thinks there’s something there but urges for methodological precision.

Mohammad I. Ababneh (University of Halle) presented on some difficulties in Safaitic paleography, including merged letters and ligatures and other weird letter shapes. Nice to see some discussion of former Leiden colleague Chiara Della Puppa’s dissertation!

Finally, Vera Tsukanova (Philipps-Universität Marburg) took a look at the phonological adaptation of Persian loanwords into Arabic from a Semiticist and diachronic perspective. Historical differences in aspiration go a long way in accounting for prima facie unexpected sounds in borrowings.

And now, the conference is kind of on hold for various business meetings, which I took as my cue to leave. In conclusion, I would like to note that I am posting this from a high-speed train, which feels very futuristic. While some discussions in the field stay the same for what seems like forever—Paul Kahle’s lecture at the first DOT in 1922 was referenced multiple times—I take this as a sign that like Deutsche Bahn passengers, no matter the inevitable delays, detours, and frustrations, overall, we are getting somewhere.

1. Only by a toddler, possibly for unrelated reasons. ↩︎

#Akkadian #Amharic #Arabic #Aramaic #Beja #Bible #Cushitic #EastCushitic #Egyptian #Hebrew #linguistics #Samaritans #Syriac #Ugaritic

Earlier this year, I had two fun conversations with the team of the then newly-founded Kedem YouTube channel, which popularizes scholarship on the Ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible. The first video was published yesterday. We talk about the concept of a language family, what languages constitute the Semitic language family, where Semitic comes from geographically and linguistically, how we can reconstruct earlier ancestors of the attested languages, and a few things this kind of reconstruction tells us about Proto-Semitic.

Stay posted for my second video with this channel, to be released sometime next year, on the different modern and—especially—ancient pronunciations of Biblical Hebrew.

https://bnuyaminim.wordpress.com/2023/12/30/video-intro-to-the-semitic-language-family/

#Afroasiatic #Akkadian #Amharic #AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #Beja #Berber #Chadic #Cushitic #Egyptian #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #Moabite #ModernSouthArabian #news #Omotic #Phoenician #ProtoSemitic #Tigrinya #Ugaritic