Mills, Edward J., III

English

North Georgia College & State University: Digital Commons

International Social Science Review
Volume 90 | Issue 2 Article 9
2015
Ezra & the Law in History & Tradition by Lisbeth
Fried
Edward J. Mills III
Tusculum College
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Recommended Citation
Mills, Edward J. III (2015) "Ezra & the Law in History & Tradition by Lisbeth Fried," International Social Science Review: Vol. 90: Iss. 2,
Article 9.
Available at: http://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/issr/vol90/iss2/9
Fried, Lisbeth S. Ezra and the Law in History and Tradition. Columbia: University of South 
Carolina Press, 2014. 248 pages. Hardcover, $59.95. 
 
Biblical scholar Lisbeth S. Fried’s Ezra and the Law in History and Tradition is only the latest 
volume in the series Studies on Personalities of the Old Testament edited by James L. Crenshaw, 
but it is the culmination of Fried’s career studying Ezra-Nehemiah. It is a sweeping study of the 
historical and biblical figures of Ezra and the traditions that spun out of the biblical picture of 
Ezra into later Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. Doing historiography by centering on 
great persons has to a large extent fallen from favor. However, some great figures, both historical 
and legendary, cast such long shadows that they deserve individual study. Ezra is one of these. 
Fried does a masterful job in doing so. She is an original thinker and plows new ground in the 
study of the historical Ezra as well as the legendary Ezra that developed in the biblical and post- 
biblical traditions. Not everyone will agree with some of her hypotheses about the historical 
Ezra, but she marshals strong evidence for some of her more controversial proposals. I believe 
that much of her theoretical work will stand the test of time. 
As to the historical Ezra–as distinct from the biblical picture of Ezra–Fried posits several 
novel ideas. The scholarly consensus is that Ezra brought the Torah to the returnees to the 
Persian province of Yehud and Jerusalem at the behest of the Persian king. Fried demurs. She 
marshals strong evidence that the entire concept of written law was absent in the Persian period 
and only arose during the Hellenistic period and was anachronistically written into the story of 
Ezra’s work in Yehud. She proposes, rather, that Ezra was an agent of the Persian king, his “ear” 
or episcopos and also charged with appointing judges as officials on behalf of the king. Fried 
also has a novel, yet plausible, interpretation of the forced divorces of the people of Yehud from 
the “people of the land.” She posits, with most of her scholarly peers, that Ezra-Nehemiah was 
written in the Hellenistic period. She compares similar Greek laws banning marriage with non-
citizens to those in Ezra-Nehemiah and proposes that the divorces had nothing to do with biblical 
commands not to marry outside Israel but had more to do with preventing marriage–and, hence, 
alliances–between local families and Persian officialdom. Such policies kept the machinery of 
empire from becoming bogged down in marriage alliances with local prominent colonial 
families. 
Moving on from Ezra-Nehemiah, Fried discusses the ongoing traditions about Ezra in 1st 
Esdras and then 4th, 5th, and 6th Ezra. There is a great deal of confusion in the naming and 
numberings of the various books entitled Ezra/Nehemiah/Esdras in the extant texts (the Hebrew 
Bible, the Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, and the other translations) and Fried includes a 
very helpful chart of the various books and their names in the various texts. 1rst, or Greek, 
Esdras, by most scholars’ opinions a later rewrite of parts of 2nd Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, 
is, as Fried describes it here and in other writings, “the law triumphant.” It is useful in checking 
the closely related texts of Ezra-Nehemiah and further develops the theology of Israel’s exile as a 
failure to observe Torah. Fried’s assessment of 1rst Esdras is insightful and fascinating. 
The figure of Ezra casts a long shadow in the life of Judaism and then Christianity. In the 
fifth chapter, Fried discusses 4th Ezra (2nd Esdras 3-14, also known as the Ezra Apocalypse). It is 
a first century C.E. Jewish apocalypse with Ezra as the receiver of the revelation. Christian 
additions to 4th Ezra, 2nd Esdras 1-2 and 15-16, named 5th and 6th Ezra, respectively, further the 
ongoing Ezra legend. Fried also gives an insightful discussion of 5th and 6th Ezra in two 
subsequent chapters. Beyond the first century’s 4th-6th Ezra, the Ezra tradition lives on in later 
Jewish, Christian, and Muslim tradition. In the Jewish tradition he became revered as a second 
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Mills: Ezra & the Law in History & Tradition
Published by Nighthawks Open Institutional Repository, 2015
Moses and in the Christian and Muslim traditions he is blamed for perverting the Torah in his 
rewriting of it in the Persian period. He lives on this way in the Talmud, the Church Fathers, and 
the Qur’an. Finally, and very fascinatingly, Fried, in appendix two, discusses the various 
translations of 4th Ezra in the context of an evolving debate about theodicy. 
Beyond being a good volume of scholarship on Ezra and the centuries-long Ezra 
tradition, Fried writes a very readable text. She has helpfully included indices of ancient sources, 
modern authors, and subjects. She also includes a helpful chronology of the Mesopotamian and 
Persian kings, Egyptian Pharaohs, and the Macedonian dynasty in the period under consideration 
in her first appendix. All of these additions make this a very usable work of scholarship.  
In conclusion, Ezra and the Law in History and Tradition is a tour de force in the 
scholarship on Ezra. Some will not agree with some of her views on the historical Ezra, but time 
will tell if her well-argued theories prove persuasive to the guild of biblical scholarship. The 
additional material on the long Ezra tradition is insightful and on spot historically. Ezra and the 
Law in History and Tradition is well worth reading if one is interested in the origins of Judaism 
and the ongoing traditions of the Abrahamic faiths. 
 
Edward J. Mills III 
Adjunct Professor of Hebrew and Christian Traditions 
Tusculum College 
Kingsport, Tennessee 
 
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Ezra & the Law in History & Tradition by Lisbeth Fried

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Ezra & the Law in History & Tradition by Lisbeth Fried

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