Ezra – Priest and Scholar
Ezra introduces himself in Chapter 7. He is descended from Aaron, the High Priest and
brother of Moses. He was well versed in the Law of Moses. He recognised that the hand
of the Lord God was upon him. In modern public administration terms he was the head of
the department of Jewish affairs in the Persian empire and played an important role in the
government of Artaxerxes. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah show that he was
instrumental in getting the settlers back on track with worship and following the Law
after decades of stagnation and decline.
Much of Ezra’s agenda for reform is described in Jewish history rather than in scripture.
The major development was setting up the Great Assembly (or Great Synagogue). It is
possible that it was modelled on the 70 elders delegated by Moses to take decisions that
formerly he had taken himself (Numbers 11). Although details are unclear it probably had
about 120 members including some 30 prophets. The decisions taken by the Assembly
included instituting the Feast of Purim and deciding on the cannon of Jewish scripture,
that is deciding which books were inspired and considered authoritative as scripture.
Originally Jewish scripture was made up from the five books of the Law – Genesis to
Deuteronomy. Solomon added the books of history and the writings, including Psalms
and Proverbs. Ezra is credited with writing Chronicles and collecting books of the
prophets. The Assembly approved the books, which now included Ezra and Nehemiah
and they became known as the Palestinian Canon (Greek: kanon = measuring rod). There
was a difficulty approving the books of Ezekiel, Daniel and Esther because they were not
written in Palestine.
The Old Testament (Christian Bible) includes the Hebrew Palestinian Canon and in some
cases the Apocrypha. In the third century BC the Law was translated in Alexandria from
Hebrew into Greek. It was thought that 72 people took part in the translation and it was
called The Septuagint (seventy). This is abbreviated to LXX. Subsequently the whole of
the Palestinian canon was included in the Septuagint and later further writings were
added. The additional writings are known as the Apocrypha. They include additions to
books in the Palestinian canon, eg Ezra, Daniel and Esther and completely new books eg
Baruch and Judith. The arguments against full inclusion of the Apocrypha as inspired
scripture is that it is not quoted by Jesus and the last inspired prophecy closes by saying
that no other messenger is to be expected until the second Elijah (Malachi 4.5).
The 27 book New Testament canon was accepted by the end of the fourth century AD.
Over the years the ‘synagogue’ style of governance was carried down to local level and
by the time of the Gospels a synagogue could be set up where there were 10 Jewish men.
The Great Synagogue became the Sanhedrin of the 1st century which was responsible for
the internal government of the country.
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