Judaism, the first phase : the place of Ezra and Nehemiah in the origins of Judaism /
Joseph Blenkinsopp.
- Grand Rapids, Mich. : William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2009.
- xiv, 262 p. ; 23 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Introduction -- Origins -- Towards the origins of Judaism -- Judeans or Jews? -- A clash of Titans : Eduard Meyer vs. Julius Wellhausen -- From monocentrism to pluricentrism : a new situation -- Who are the children of Abraham? -- Ezra -- Putting Ezra-Nehemiah in perspective -- The Ezra story -- Ezra's mission (Ezra 7:1-8:34) -- Reading and interpreting the law (Neh. 7:72b-8:18) -- The intermarriage crisis (Ezra 9-10) -- The Ezra profile -- Ezra and the Golah -- Nehemiah -- The Nehemiah story -- The Nehemiah memoir in its contemporary setting -- The memoir compared with Egyptian -- Commemorative inscriptions -- Genre and literary character of the memoir -- The Nehemiah memoir in the context of the book (Nehemiah 1-13) -- The Nehemiah profile -- Ezra-Nehemiah : the roots of the ideology -- The diaspora situation -- Projections of a restored past in postdisaster prophecy -- The prehistory of the ideology in Ezra-Nehemiah -- Temple and divine presence -- Ezekiel's law of the temple (t๔rat habbayit) -- The status of foreigners -- Marriage policy and ritual ethnicity -- Temple priests and altar priests -- The privileges and duties of the secular ruler -- The land -- Ezra and Nehemiah : history and ideology -- Ezra and Nehemiah as ideological points of reference -- Closely related texts : Chronicles, First Esdras, Josephus -- In praise of Nehemiah : Ben Sira and II Maccabees -- Ezra between the Canonical Book and rabbinic attestations -- How lasting were the achievements of Ezra and Nehemiah? -- The sectarian element in early Judaism -- What is a sect and how can it be recognized as such? -- Aspects of sectarianism in Ezra-Nehemiah -- Between Ezra-Nehemiah and Daniel : antecedents and continuities -- Sectarian origins in the Babylonian diaspora -- Legal interpretations and practice in Ezra-Nehemiah and late Second Temple sects -- Provisional conclusion in four propositions.