Ezra-Nehemiah - (T&t Clark's Study Guides to the Old Testament) by Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This guide to Ezra and Nehemiah showcases the latest developments and most up-to-date scholarship on these important texts. Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of the people in Yehud in the 6th and the 5th centuries BCE. This was a time of economic hardship. The people living in and around Jerusalem were scratching out a living in a land that had been devastated by war. It was also a time of soul searching. Having lost their political autonomy and national identity, the people in Yehud had to find new ways of understanding and shaping their identity.

Ezra and Nehemiah provide glimpses of these issues by way of an assortment of narratives, lists, letters, and other types of records. The readers encounter different voices and different opinions. Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer provides an overview of the various texts and the topics, concerns, and disputes that they reflect. The guide also zooms in on select key issues pertaining to the development of the text, its historical background(s), the quest for identity, and its afterlife in Jewish and Christian traditions.

Review Quotes

An accessible introduction to Ezra-Nehemiah ... Tiemeyer is never dogmatic in advancing her own solution to the questions raised, but helpfully indicates where problems lie and briefly sets out potential solutions that have been proposed in the scholarly literature, while her reading lists and bibliography provide sufficient resources to permit readers to begin to make their own judgements.
The Expository Times

This volume sheds light on what is often claimed to be a little known and enigmatic period in Judah/Yehud, the 6th and 7th centuries BCE. It shows how the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah weave together from various voices and sources, and in varying styles, a picture of the life, conditions and concerns of people living in a land recently devastated by the Babylonians and now under Persian governance, struggling to understand their own identity and what it meant to be a Jew. A useful final chapter reflects on the later reception of the books in Judaism and Christianity.
Adrian Curtis, University of Manchester, UK

Tiemeyer provides an exceptionally useful introduction to the major exegetical issues in Ezra-Nehemiah... T. deftly synthesizes premier monographs and articles in this field from the past forty years. Her book will serve as a fine starting point for undertaking a critical study of Ezra-Nehemiah.
Catholic Biblical Quarterly

About the Author

Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer is Senior Lecturer in Hebrew Bible at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. She has written widely on the prophetic literature, including two full-length monographs on aspects of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah.