Das Edikt Des Artaxerxes: Eine Untersuchung Zum Religionspolitischen Und Historischen Umfeld Von Esra 7,12-26
2005; Society of Biblical Literature; Volume: 124; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1934-3876
Autores Tópico(s)Ancient Near East History
ResumoDas Edikt des Artaxerxes: Eine Untersuchung zum religionspolitischen und historischen Umfeld von Esra 7,12-26, by Sebastian Gratz. BZAW 337. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2004. Pp. ix + 343. euro98.00, $127.00 (hardcover). ISBN 3110179679. The past decade has witnessed a dramatic rise in interest in the texts and contexts of the Persian period. Accompanied by a general tendency to assign a later date to many biblical texts, as well as the development of interpretative paradigms within biblical studies which place a larger emphasis on the finished text rather than its sources, this interest has helped generate an ever-increasing view that the Hebrew Bible in general is a Persian-period book, the compilation and codification of which is congruent with the imperial interests and policies of the Achaemenid rulers who governed western Asia in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E.. Gratz's book, a slightly revised version of his dissertation at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Bonn, calls for a reevaluation of this view and a reexamination of the sources cited in support of this thesis. In particular, Gratz identifies a twofold aim to his study: (1) specific analysis of Artaxerxes' edict authorizing Ezra to teach and enforce the law of God and the law of the king in the province of Yehud (Ezra 7:12-26) and its validity with regard to historical reconstructions, and (2) a larger assessment of nonbiblical texts from the Achaemenid period in view of Peter Frei's thesis of imperial authorization (p. 1). Gratz is methodologically consistent. He begins his study by repeating Antonius H. J. Gunneweg's warning that a confusion of historical and literary questions, which is not infrequent in Ezra-Nehemiah studies, should be avoided in favor of a strictly literary analysis (p. 3). Although Gratz addresses both literary and historical questions, he is careful to stay within the limitations of what a text-focused approach can answer. This approach may be more suited to offering corrective critique than positive propositions, but as such it is highly successful and certainly needed. Having stated his methodological premises, Gratz describes his understanding of the relationships among the different textual traditions pertaining to Ezra-Nehemiah as well as 2 Esdras (here 3 Esra, as the text is commonly called in German scholarship). This section offers few surprises. He affirms the more recent dominant opinion that 2 Esdras is not a fragment of an earlier, larger (Chronistic) text, and that 2 Esdras and Ezra-Nehemiah are literary works in their own right which make independent use of other sources. Regarding the textual traditions within the canonical book of Ezra-Nehemiah, Gratz sees the Ezra story (Ezra 7-10; Neh 7:71b; 8:1-12) as presupposing and responding to the Zerubbabel story of Ezra 1-6 (pp. 35-43), while the Nehemiah memoir (Neh 1-6; 12-13) constitutes an originally independent literary tradition (pp. 44-61). Each of these three textual units, however, offers a different solution to the question of membership in the ethnos of Israel, of which the Ezra story with its focus on law is perhaps the most the rigorous (p. 286). This thesis is intriguing and could have benefited from some additional analysis, but it is not central to the larger goals of this study. In ch. 4, Gratz tests this conclusion that the letter of Artaxerxes is more reflective of Greek and Hellenistic practices than of Persian policy against an examination of inscription based evidence of Achaemenid imperial policy toward conquered peoples. He questions the applicability of the Cyrus cylinder to this discussion, since it is modeled after the royal ideology of Neo-Babylonian texts, and was primarily designed to legitimate Cyrus's rule to the priesthood of Marduk in Esagila rather than to present a novel administrative direction. …
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