The book of Ezra.

The book of Ezra deals with the events at the end of the Babylonian captivity. In the Hebrew

Bible, there is only one book of Ezra. In the Greek Bible of the Seventy (Septuagint), there are

two more, so-called deutero-canonical, books of Ezra, for a total of three. (In some English ver-

sions of the Bible the Book of Nehemiah is called 2nd Ezra, so there are four books of Ezra .

trans). The main topic of the book of Ezra is the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captiv-

ity.  The  first  return  followed  the Decree  of Cyrus in 536 and was lead by Zerubbabel and the

high priest Jeshua. It was then that the rebuilding of the Temple began. The second return was

led by Ezra during the reign of Artaxerxes Longiman.

  Ezra  was  a  grandson  of  the  high  priest  Seraiah  who  was  killed by Nebuchadnezzar.  Ezra

was close to the Persian court and was among the educators of Artaxerxes Longiman. In the 7th

year of his reign (457 B.C.), Artaxerxes issued a decree by which Ezra and any other Jews were

allowed to return from Babylon to Jerusalem and to start rebuilding the city and providing reli-

gious education to the Jewish people.

  After ruling the people for 14 years, Ezra delegated all authority to Nehemiah and focused

on teaching the people about God.s Law and collecting the books of the Holy Scripture into one

book. He founded The Great Synagogue . a group which, under the guidance of the last proph-

ets Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, helped Ezra to review and correct the Holy Scripture and to

collect it into one book, thus completing the canon of the Old Testament. The books written af-

ter Ezra were not included in the list of Sacred books, for which reason they are called deutero-

canonical, even though they are highly respected and can be found in many translations of the

Bible. Most of the books, composed after Ezra, were written in Greek which was commonly used

at the time.