There are a number of Old Testament pseudepigrapha associated with the name of Ezra: 4 (5-6) Ezra, Greek/Latin Apocalypse of Ezra, Apocalypse of Sedrach(?), Vision of Ezra, Questions of Ezra, Revelation of Ezra. Yet no pseudepigrapha survive which are attributed to his contemporary Nehemiah. Not one.
Why?
What do you think? Comments enabled.
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Interesting, indeed! My first reaction would be two reasons: (1) The book starts with Ezra, as it is one book in the Hebrew tradition - thus, he is the main character of Ezra-Nehemiah as we call it today in the West. (2) Ezra's main activity is related to the temple and the Law which is then mirrored in reception history. But that no work attributed to Nehemiah is interesting, indeed!
ReplyDeleteWith Best Regards (and thank you for updating the blog frequently, I have received much impulses for my work!)
Topias Tanskanen
Åbo Akademi University
Thanks for your kind words, Topias. Those are significant points. Nehemiah is associated mainly with the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem. He does appear in the MT manuscripts with Ezra at the reading of the Torah in Nehemiah 8. But that seems to be a later addition, possibly much later. Perhaps the rebuilding of the wall just wasn't interesting enough to merit an apocryphon.
DeleteNehemiah, unlike Ezra, is viewed more as a secular or administrative leader than a prophetic or priestly figure, so, writers are less incentivized to adopt him as a pseudonymous author in religious literature.
ReplyDeleteYes, good point. The only apocryphal references I can find to Nehemiah are in 2 Maccabees 1-2. Chapter one tells a legend about his finding the temple fire preserved in a volatile liquid form in a cistern. No source is given, although 2:1 has a parallel legend from otherwise-unknown apocryphal "records" that Jeremiah ordered the exiles to take some of this fire with them.
DeleteIn chapter 2:13 we are told that these records and the "memoirs of Nehemiah" reported that Nehemiah founded a library and collected various biblical-sounding books and some non-biblical supposed royal letters in it. That fits his administrative leader role. There's nothing about any of this in the Book of Nehemiah. Who knows if the records or the supposed other memoirs of Nehemiah ever existed apart from in 2 Maccabees? But that's as close as I can come to a Nehemiah pseudepigraphon.
It seems likely that Book 11 of Josephus' Antiquities attests a version of 1 Esdras (or at least that is how we would anachronistically classify this material) that differs from the extant one as well as 2 Esdras/Ezra-Nehemiah (I finished translating and annotating this volume a few months ago for an upcoming new series, so the differences are still painfully distinct in my memory). The differences are many, both minor and significant, encompassing order/organization, small details, and whole blocks of content. It is difficult at times to isolate Josephus' idiosyncratic alterations from evidence for a distinct source he was using, but I have no doubt that the differences cannot all be put down to Josephus himself; he was definitely following a source which we do not possess (many others have advocated this before). Like the prefatory Nehemiah letter of 2 Macc, then, Josephus is further evidence that Ezra and Nehemiah traditions circulated in antiquity in many more forms--some of them independent--than are extant or directly attested today. There may not have ever been a "Nehemiah apocalypse" among them though. I chalk it up to Ezra's close connections to the priesthood and the cult, which institutions in the mold of Isaiah, Ezekiel and others, came to have associations with visions and revelations for many obvious reasons. There is no basis for that with respect to Nehemiah, since he would not have had access to the inner sanctums of the temple, nor either did he (evidently) have strong prophetic associations distinct from the temple cult as with some of the classical prophets; the story of the hidden and perpetual fire seems to me to be an example of an attempt to tie him into the world of the cult more closely by and/or for the benefit of those who either did not know of Ezra or who were hostile toward Ezra as a result of their genealogical status (i.e., non-priestly or contested) or some other priestly-cultic matter of dispute. But I just don't see any obvious basis in the underlying traditions about Nehemiah for tradents to make him a direct recipient of revelatory knowledge such as we find with Ezra.
DeleteYes, makes sense.
Delete2 Esdras in its original form was identified as authored by Salathiel, not Ezra. This fact indicates that originally Ezra too did not have any significant apocrypha attributed to him either originally. As the canon is of later date, the reality is the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are the "pseudepigrapha" books you are looking for. 1 Esdras is just a variant of the book of Ezra. Eza and Nehemiah probably did feature in other apocrypha texts as guest characters. One could also suggest 5 and 6 Ezra, since it wasnt originally part of 2 Esdras, could be considered an apocrypha book of ezra.
ReplyDeleteYes, the implied authorship of 4 Ezra is something of a problem. Also for 4-5 Ezra, which may or may not have been attributed to Ezra if they first circulated independently. But in their Ezra forms they did inspire other books, notably the Greek/Latin Apocalypse of Ezra. On Nehemiah featuring in another apocryphal text, see my comment above.
DeleteRegarding the mention of Nehemiah in 2 Maccabees, i find a potential discrepancy with the timeline. If i understand correctly, Nehemiah came to Jerusalem after the temple and altar was already built. But Ezras list of returning exiles has a Nehemiah return. 2 maccabees may actually be recording something about the other less famous Nehemiah mentioned in Ezra.
DeleteMaybe. But these stories often don't have a precise concern with chronology. I doubt the story is about a lesser-known Nehemiah. But who knows?
DeleteIf one assumes, as the Talmud does in Sanhedrin 38a, that Nehemiah is the same as Zerubbabel, then there exists pseudo-epigraphy under his name—such as the Book of Zerubbabel, where the messiah is called “Nehemiah son of Hushiel”. Zerubbabel is also described in the apocryphal books of Ezra. Anyway, Nehemiah is considered a "worldly" or political leader, while Ezra is seen as a spiritual leader. In that sense, Ezra is regarded as a “Second Moses.” Nehemiah, accordingly, is considered—if not a “Second Joshua”, then a “Second David.”
ReplyDeleteThe reason I mention Joshua is that, according to Elchanan Reiner, Joshua is the foundational hero of the Galilean myth, and the Book of Zerubbabel was composed in the atmosphere of that very myth. There, Nehemiah functions in the role of Messiah son of Joseph (or, to be precise, the dead military commander—the dead worldly messiah), the military commander serving the Messiah son of David, Menahem son of Amiel, who in turn plays a role akin to that of Ezra.
It is interesting to note that since Zerubbabel is not mentioned again after the dedication of the Temple, some speculate (just as Israel Knohl) that he was either sent back to Babylon or simply executed due to rumors that he was planning a revolt against the Persian kings. In this way, once again, Zerubbabel takes on the archetype of the "dead messiah", that is, the deceased political/wordly leader, whose place is taken by the living spiritual leader. Accordingly, because Ezra was the living figure, and a spiritual hero, more pseudepigraphal books were written under his name and attributed to him.
Wow. A messiah Nehemiah. Cool.
DeleteEzra was the greatest teacher of Torah since Moses, whereas Nehemiah merely rebuilt the walls. But, perhaps more importantly, the Ezra pseudepigrapha form a tradition of writings, like those of Enoch and Daniel. Once established as a suitable pseudonym, more pseudepigrapha attributed to that figure followed. Baruch is another example.
ReplyDeleteWhich other key figures in the Hebrew Bible never acquired pseudepigrapha? Samuel, all of the heroes of the book of Judges, most of the minor prophets (except Habakkuk and Zephaniah).It doesn’t therefore seem surprising that Nehemiah is one of them.
Yes, good point. David too, for psalms. And Solomon for proverbs and magic. But very few other kings. Manasseh, because the Bible mentioned his prayer. And maybe Hezekiah's book of remedies, but it's not clear that existed as anything more than a title.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that being a positively-portrayed character in the Pentateuch seems to be enough to justify authoring a pseudepigraphon: Adam, Seth, Noah, Eber, Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Levi, the Twelve Patriarchs, even Eldad and Modad.
Yes, and you could add Amram and Jannes and Jambres,
Deleteas well as, obviously, Enoch and Moses, but surprisingly not Aaron. The reason may be just thst the Pentateuch was the most read narrative part of the Hebrew Scriptures, by both Jews and Christians.
We are missing some apocrypha texts if the dead sea scrolls are any indication. A clear priestly series of testaments once existed. Just like testaments of the twelve patriarchs, after the testament of levi, we have testament of kohath, and testament of amram. There was thus almost certainly a final testament of aaron for that series. Just because we dont have fragments of it doesnt mean it didnt exist
Delete