A Conversation on Tamara Cohn Eskenazi's Ezra: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Yale Bible 14A

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5508/jhs29698

Keywords:

Ezra-Nehemiah, Biblical Studies, Ezra, Persian Period

Abstract

This special collection contains revised essays from a 2023 SBL panel on Tamara Cohn Eskenazi’s Anchor Bible commentary on Ezra. Contributors assess her portrayal of Ezra’s political artistry and formation of “peoplehood,” engage major debates in Ezra–Nehemiah scholarship, and reflect on the role and limits of the commentator in reconstructing history and interpreting the text amid contemporary resonances.

References

Becking, Bob. Ezra-Nehemiah. HCOT. Bristol, CT: Peeters, 2018.

Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Ezra-Nehemiah: A Commentary. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988.

Carroll, Robert P. “So What Do We Know about the Temple? The Temple in the Prophets.” Pages 34–51 in Second Temple Studies, 2: Temple and Community in the Persian Period. Edited by Tamara C. Eskenazi and Kent H. Richards. JSOTSup 175. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994.

Cohen, David. “Introduction.” Pages 1–26 in The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Law. Edited by David Cohen and Michael Gagarin. Cambridge Companions to the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Cohen, Shaye J. D. The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

Deans, Jacob. “Epigraphic Evidence and Biblical polemic: a New Perspective on Ideological Conflict and Class Composition in Benjamin.” Paper given at the SBL Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX, 2023.

Edelman, Diana. “Did Saulide-Davidic Rivalry Resurface in Early Persian Yehud?” Pages 70–92 in The Land That I Will Show You: Essays on the History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East in Honor of J. Maxwell Miller. Edited by J. Andrew Dearman and M. Patrick Graham. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.

Edelman, Diana. “Gibeon and the Gibeonites Revisited.” Pages 153–168 in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period. Edited by Oded Lipschits and Joseph Blenkinsopp. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003.

Eskenazi, Tamara Cohn. Ezra. AB. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2023.

Eskenazi, Tamara Cohn. In an Age of Prose: A Literary Approach to Ezra-Nehemiah. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1988.

Faust, Avraham. Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Period: The Archaeology of Desolation. ABS 18. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012.

Finkelstein, Israel. “Archaeology and the List of Returnees in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah.” PEQ 140.1 (2008): 7–15.

Finkelstein, Israel. “Ḥȯrvat Qiṭmīt and the Southern Trade in the Late Iron Age II.” ZDPV 108.2 (1992): 156–70.

Fulton, Deirdre N. Ezra-Nehemiah. WBC. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, in preparation.

Fulton, Deirdre N. Reconsidering Nehemiah’s Judah: The Case of MT and LXX Nehemia 11–12. FAT 2/80. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015.

Fulton, Deirdre N. and Gary N. Knoppers. “Lower Criticism and Higher Criticism: The Case of 1 Esdras.” Pages 11–30 in Was First Esdras First? Investigations into the Priority of First Esdras. Edited by Lisbeth S. Fried. SBLAIL 7. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011.

Fried, Lisbeth S. Ezra: A Commentary. A Critical Commentary. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2015.

Fried, Lisbeth S. Nehemiah: A Commentary. Critical Commentaries. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2021.

Fried, Lisbeth S. The Priest and the Great King: Temple-Palace Relations in the Persian Empire. BJSUCSD 10. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004.

Fried, Lisbeth S. “The Seventh Year of Artaxerxes,” HBAI (forthcoming).

Fried, Lisbeth S. Was 1 Esdras First?: An Investigation into the Priority and Nature of 1 Esdras. SBLAIL 7. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011.

Fried, Lisbeth S., and Edward J. Mills III, “Ezra as Scribe.” Pages 139–153 in Inscribe it in a Book: Scribalism in the Hebrew Bible. Edited by Johannes Unsok Ro and Benjamin D. Giffone. FAT 2/139. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023.

Grabbe, Lester L. Ezra-Nehemiah. OTR. London: Routledge, 1998.

Harrington, Hannah. The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. NICOT. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022.

Hölscher, Gustav. Die Bücher Esra und Nehemia. HAT 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1923.

Japhet, Sara. Commentary on Ezra-Nehemiah. Mikra Leyisrael. Tel Aviv: Am Oved Press, 2019.

Knoppers, Gary N. Judah and Samaria in Postmonarchic Times: Essays on Their Histories and Literatures. FAT 129. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019.

Knoppers, Gary N., and B. M. Levinson. The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding its Promulgation and Acceptance. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007.

Lee-Sack, Yitzhak. “Polemical propaganda of the Golah community against the Gibeonites: Historical background of Joshua 9 and 2 Samuel 21 in the early Persian Period.” JSOT 44 (2019): 115–132.

Lipschits, Oded. “Benjamin in Retrospective: Stages in the Creation of the Territory of the Benjamin Tribe (7th–5th Centuries BCE).” Pages 161–99 in Saul, Benjamin, and the Emergence of Monarchy in Israel. Edited by Joachim J. Krause, Omer Sergi, and Kristin Weingart. SBLAIL 40. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2020.

Lipschits, Oded. “The History of the Benjamin Region under Babylonian Rule.” Tel Aviv 26 (1999): 155–190.

Lipschits, Oded, Omer Sergi, and Ido Koch. “Royal Judahite Jar Handles: Reconsidering the Chronology of the lmlk Stamp Impressions.” Tel Aviv 37 (2010): 3–32.

Lipschits, Oded, and David S. Vanderhooft. The Judah Stamp Impressions: A Corpus of Inscribed Impressions from the Persian and Hellenistic Periods in Judah. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011.

Lipschits, Oded, and David Vanderhooft. “Yehud Stamp Impressions in the Fourth Century B.C.E.: A Time of Administrative Consolidation?” Pages 75–94 in Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E.. Edited by Oded Lipschits, Gary Knoppers, and Rainer Albertz. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007.

Lipschits, Oded, and David S. Vanderhooft. “Yehud Stamp Impressions from Ramat-Raḥel: An Updated Tabulation.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 384 (2020): 191–209.

Müller, Reinhard, and Juha Pakkala. Editorial Techniques in the Hebrew Bible: Toward a Refined Literary Criticism. RBS 97. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2022.

Müller, Reinhard, and Juha Pakkala, eds. Insights into Editing in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East: What Does Documented Evidence Tell Us About the Transmission of Authoritative Texts? CBET 84. Leuven: Peeters, 2017.

Myers, Jacob M. Ezra-Nehemiah. AB 14. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965.

Nam, Roger S. Ezra-Nehemiah. OTL. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, forthcoming.

Newman, Judith H. Praying by the Book: The Scripturalization of Prayer in Second Temple Judaism. EJL 14. Atlanta: SBL Press, 1999.

Pakkala, Juha. Ezra the Scribe: The Development of Ezra 7–10 and Nehemiah 8. BZAW 347. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004.

Raaflaub, Kurt A. “The Transformation of Athens in the Fifth Century.” Pages 15–41 in Democracy, Empire, and the Arts in Fifth-Century Athens. Edited by Deborah Boedeker and Kurt A. Raaflaub. Center for Hellenistic Studies Colloquia 2. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Routledge, Bruce. Moab in the Iron Age: Hegemony, Polity, Archaeology. Archaeology, Culture, and Society. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.

Steiner, Margreet. “Moab During the Iron Age II Period.” Pages 770–781 in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant. Edited by Margreet Steiner and Ann E. Killebrew. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Torrey, Charles C. The Composition and Historical Value of Ezra-Nehemiah. BZAW 2. Giessen: Ricker, 1896.

Torrey, Charles C. Ezra Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1910.

Williamson, H. G. M. “The Aramaic Documents in Ezra Revisited.” JTS NS 59 (2008): 41–62.

Williamson, H. G. M. “The Composition of Ezra i–vi.” JTS NS 34 (1983): 1–30.

Williamson, H. G. M. Ezra, Nehemiah. WBC 16. Waco, TX.: Word, 1985.

Wright, Jacob L. Rebuilding Identity: The Nehemiah Memoir and Its Earliest Readers. BZAW 348. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005.

Yoo, Philip Y. Ezra and the Second Wilderness. Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Yoo, Philip. “Mind the Gap: From Torah to Torah in Ezra-Nehemiah.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the SBL, San Diego, CA, 23 November 2019.

JHS Volume 25 Article 4 Cover

Downloads

Published

2026-02-19

How to Cite

Buster, A., Jones, E. A., Nash, L., Fried, L. S., Nam, R. S., Fulton, D. N., … Eskenazi, T. C. (2026). A Conversation on Tamara Cohn Eskenazi’s Ezra: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Yale Bible 14A. The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 25, 1–35. https://doi.org/10.5508/jhs29698

Issue

Vol. 25 (2025): Volume 25

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Aubrey Buster, E. Allen Jones, Libbie Nash, Lisbeth S. Fried, Roger S. Nam, Deirdre N. Fulton, H. G. M. Williamson, Tamara Cohn Eskenazi

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.