ervent
prayer in which he sets forth Jehovah's leadership of his people in the
past and the disasters which have come as a result of their sins. After
this public petition for Jehovah's forgiveness, the people through their
nobles, Levites, and priests subscribe in writing to the regulations
imposed by the lawbook that Ezra had brought. Its more important
regulations are also recapitulated. They are to refrain from foreign
marriages, to observe strictly the sabbath laws, and also the requirements
of the seventh year of release, to bring to the temple the annual tax of
one-tenth of a shekel and the other dues required for its support and for
the maintenance of the priests and Levites.

II. The Historical Value of the Ezra Tradition. Recognizing that the
Ezra tradition comes from the hand of the Chronicler, certain Old
Testament scholars are inclined to regard it as entirely unhistorical.
It can no longer be regarded as a strictly historical record. Like II
Chronicles 31, it is shot through with the ideas current during the Greek
period. With no desire to deceive, but with nothing of the modern
historical spirit, the Chronicler freely projects the institutions, ideas,
and traditions of his own day into these earlier periods. The result is
that he has given not an exact or reliable historical record, but his own
conception of the way in which the course of history should have unfolded.
The Ezra tradition also lacks the support not only of contemporary
testimony, but also of all the Jews who wrote during the next few
centuries. Ben Sira in his review of Israel's heroes speaks in highest
terms of Nehemiah, but knows nothing of Ezra's work. Even the
comparatively late Jewish tradition reflected in the opening chapters of
II Maccabees attributes to Nehemiah the re-establishment of the temple
Service and the collection of the sacred writings of his race. At many
points the Ezra tradition is also inconsistent with the straightforward
contemporary record contained in Nehemiah's memoirs. The real question
is whether or not there is a historical nucleus in the Ezra story, and
if so, what are the facts which it reflects.

III. The Facts Underlying the Ezra Tradition. The later records make it
clear that during the latter part of the Persian period the attitude of
the Jews in Palestine toward their neighbors became more and more
exclusive. Nehemiah appears to have given a great impetus to the movement
which ultimately resulted in th