LECTURE 8: Ezra & the Pentateuch
It’s a stunning picture: Ezra the Scribe gathers the people, many of whom are newly returned to their homeland, to read the laws and stories of their shared past—but what exactly do they gather to hear? In this lecture, we consider the contents of the scroll that Ezra is reported to have read aloud. Was it the first edition of the Pentateuch (i.e., the first five books of the Hebrew Bible)? As well, we will consider who wrote it and why? What are the political forces that may have hastened the composition of Ezra’s scroll and the ongoing creative action that kept their words relevant to a changing world?
Key texts:
Examples of P Material:
Examples of non-P Material:
Examples of redaction:
Exod 1:1-14 (serves as a narrative bridge between a powerful and vindicated Joseph in Egypt that we left at the end of Genesis and the enslaved Israelites we meet at the beginning of Exodus)
Nehemiah 9 (an example of known P redactional chronology of the Pentateuch)
The book of Ruth is one example of a biblical book that appears in different places in different canons. In Christian canons, Ruth is included with Joshua and Judges; it is placed chronologically in the historical accounts of early Israel. In the Jewish canon, Ruth appears in the division known as Writings and, more specifically among the five festal scrolls (megillot); its placement there highlights Ruth’s liturgical function and its association with the Jewish holiday Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks. Here’s a comparison of which books of the Hebrew Bible are included within the Jewish canon and various Christian canons, including the order in which they occur and the different divisions to which they belong.
In this lecture, I mention how the Priestly creation account in Genesis 1 challenged the dominant Babylonian creation myth. For more on the Babylonian creation epic, known as the Enuma Elish, see here.
In this lecture, I mention how P (the Priestly Source) configures Abraham to look like the Judean exiles of the 6th century B.C.E. Certain biblical psalms, such as Psalm 78, 106, 135, and 136, when they recount the sweep of history from creation to the exodus, do not include the story of ancestors like Abraham and Isaac; they seem to have no knowledge of those figures and this origin story. They, instead, begin with the Exodus and emphasize the divine rescue from Egypt and God’s provision for the people as they traveled through the wilderness.