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For the conflicting numbering of this book, see Esdras.  1 Esdras (Greek Έσδράς Αˊ), Greek Ezra, is an ancient Greek version of the Biblical book of Ezra in use among ancient Jewry, the early church, and many modern Christians with varying degrees of canonicity and a high historical usefulness. In all, 1 Esdras includes 99 more verses than Masoretic Ezra. These lie almost entirely in one section and serve a literary purpose; one other, short passage is in a different position. Modern texts continue with the last two short chapters of the preceding Biblical work, 2 Chronicles. Thus like Ezra, it is used as evidence for a once larger Chronicles-Ezra that has since been split canonically. The historical importance of the version of Ezra is that ancients such as the Jewish Josephus and the Christian Church Fathers quoted 1 Esdras extensively as "Scripture"[citation needed]. Moreover, it was grouped with the canon of the Old Testament; for example, it is found in Origen's Hexapla. A part of the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, it is regarded as canonical in the churches of the East, but regarded with a less lofty view among Jews, and the churches of the West.[1]
[edit] ContentsFurther information: Book of Ezra First Esdras contains the whole of Ezra with additions equivalent in size to four chapters of Ezra. Moreover, just as Ezra begins with the last two verses of 2 Chronicles, 1 Esdras begins with the last two chapters; and it concludes with a section closely resembling part of Nehemiah. The core of 1 Esdras is arranged in a beautiful literary chiasm around the celebration in Jerusalem at the exiles’ return. This arrangement is possible only with the material not found in Ezra. Since this material is essential to the purpose and structure of the book, it suggests that the two books in fact originally formed two books, rather than a single Ezra-Nehemiah. Moreover, with the passages exclusive to 1 Esdras, the chronology makes much better sense and the narrative is less confusing.
[edit] Author and criticism
The purpose of the book seems to be the presentation of the dispute among the courtiers, to which details from the other books are added to complete the story. Since there are various discrepancies in the account, most scholars hold that the work was written by more than one author. However, some scholars believe that this work may have been the original, or at least the more authoritative; the variances that are contained in this work are so striking that more research is being conducted. Furthermore, there is disagreement as to what the original language of the work was, Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew.[3] Because of similarities to the vocabulary in the Book of Daniel, it is presumed by some that the authors came from Lower Egypt and some or all may have even had a hand in the translation of Daniel. Assuming this theory is correct, many scholars consider the possibility that one "chronicler" wrote this book. Josephus makes use of the book and some scholars believe that the composition is likely to have taken place in the first century BC or the first century AD. Many Protestant and Catholic scholars assign no historical value to the "original" sections of the book. The citations of the other books of the Bible, however, provide a pre-Septuagint translation of those texts, which increases its value to scholars. In the current Greek texts, the book breaks off in the middle of a sentence; that particular verse thus had to be reconstructed from an early Latin translation. However, it is generally presumed that the original work extended to the Feast of Tabernacles, as described in Nehemiah 8:13-18. An additional difficulty with the text is the apparent ignorance of its author regarding the historical sequence of events. Artaxerxes is mentioned before Darius, who is mentioned before Cyrus. (Such jumbling of the order of events, however, is also suspected by some authors to exist in the canonical Ezra and Nehemiah.) This error or double naming is corrected by Josephus in The Antiquities of the Jews Book 11 chapter 2 where we find that the name of the above mentioned Artaxerxes is called Cambyses. [edit] Use in the Christian canonThe book was widely quoted by early Christian authors and it found a place in Origen's Hexapla. It was not included in early canons of the Western Church, and Clement VIII relegated it to an appendix following the New Testament in the Vulgate "lest [it] perish entirely" [1]. However, the use of the book continued in the Eastern Church, and it remains a part of the Eastern Orthodox canon. [edit] NomenclatureMain article: Esdras The book normally called 1 Esdras is numbered differently among various versions of the Bible. In most editions of the Septuagint, the book is titled in Greek: Έσδράς Αˊ and is placed before the single book of Ezra-Nehemiah, which is titled in Greek: Έσδράς Βˊ. [edit] Summary
[edit] References
[edit] See also[edit] External links
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