Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Book of Ezra" in English language version.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)There are no compelling arguments for dating Ezra. The fact that the question cannot be decided from a historical perspective is due to the lack of any tangible historical details regarding Ezra, for whom no extrabiblical indications exist. Here, too, scholarship oscillates between the historical figure of a rich Aramean official and the literarily transfigured legend of Moses redivivus. As with Nehemiah, historical evaluation faces the difficulty of a highly artificial integration of notes about Ezra into a network of biblical reference texts, especially from the Torah. At the textual level, this presupposes the validity of the Torah, which is usually linked to Ezra 7. An evaluation depends on the source value of the Artaxerxes rescript in Ezra 7:12–26. In the maximalist view, Ezra's mission is considered historical because of the Aramaic language; in the minimalist view, even Ezra's existence is denied. Sebastian Grätz's analysis, for example, denies the Achaemenid period background of the document and assigns it to the Hellenistic period.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)