Moore Perspective: Alleged Discrepancies in Ezra-Nehemiah (Part 2 of 2)

Wednesday 25 January 2023

Alleged Discrepancies in Ezra-Nehemiah (Part 2 of 2)

Historical Anomaly: Elderly Priests and Levites

Among the priests and Levites who accompanied Zerubbabel in the first year of Cyrus, documented in Ezra chap. 2 and Nehemiah chaps. 7 and 12, a number of the names are repeated in the list of those who placed their seal on a document drafted nearly ninety-five years later in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes (Neh. 10:1-27). If each name refers to the same person, this would make the signatories at least 120 years old or older, not impossible but realistically unlikely.

Even though the accounts in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 concern the bə·nê (“sons” or “people”) of those listed, common usage of patronyms and papponyms (boys named after their fathers, grandfathers, and other male ancestors) and other culturally popular monikers readily account for the same names appearing in subsequent generations.¹

Historical Anomaly: Artaxerxes’ Contribution to the Temple

It is stated in Ezra 6:14 (in the Aramaic section of 4:8–6:18) that the temple was completed by divine decree and according to the order of “Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia.” The initial order came from Cyrus around 539 BC (Ezra 1:1-4; 6:3-12), was then reissued by Darius about nineteen years later in his second year (Ezra 4:24; 6:1, 8-13), and the building project was finished around 516 BC, his sixth year (Ezra 6:15). But why would Ezra include Artaxerxes, whose decree in his seventh year (Ezra 7:7-27) was nearly six decades after the temple had been completed?

Artaxerxes I Longimanus did in fact contribute to the continued restoration and beautification of the temple,² and Ezra affirms the contemporary king’s support of Jewish interests in line with other prominent rulers. Ezra simply summarizes the entire history of the temple to his present day.

--Kevin L. Moore

Endnotes:

¹ See A. Philip Brown II, “Chronological Anomalies in Ezra,” Bibliotheca Sacra 162 (Jan.-March 2005): 68-84.

² If Ezra had given the impression that the temple was completely finished in the distant past, opponents could have challenged what Artaxerxes did for the temple’s ongoing restoration – silver, gold, utensils, offerings, and whatever else was needed to “beautify” (ESV), “glorify” (CSB), “adorn” (NASB 1995), or “bring honor to” (NIV) the temple (Ezra 7:27).