The Strength of Women and Truth: The Tale of the Three Bodyguards and Ezra's Prayer in First Esdras

Full title
The Strength of Women and Truth: The Tale of the Three Bodyguards and Ezra's Prayer in First Esdras
Updated By
Research notes

24/01/2012|AS|Reader Checked|13/08/2013 NB

Reference type
Author(s)
Sandoval, Timothy J.
Year
2007
Journal / Book Title || Series Title
Journal of Jewish Studies
Volume
58
Issue / Series Volume
2
Pages
211-227
Alternative title
JJS
Label
26/11/2007
Abstract

Most commentators believe the Tale of the Three Bodyguards in 1 Esdras 3 - 4 serves, simply and primarily, to enhance the status of Zerubbabel, the early leader of the returned exiles. A consideration of a number of thematic and rhetorical links between the Tale of the Three Bodyguards (1 Esdras 3:1 - 4:41[63]) and Ezra's prayer-sermon recounted later in the book (1 Esdras 8:65 - 87; Eng.=8:74 - 90), however, demonstrates that the story also functions to undergird the response of Ezra and his associates to the intermarriage crisis recounted in 1 Esdras 8:65 - 87 (Eng.=8:68 - 90). The rhetoric of especially Zerubbabel's speeches on women and Truth (1 Esdras 4:13 - 41) effectively anticipates and mitigates the reader's possible moral objections to the expulsion of the foreign women. This suggests that a major reason 1 Esdras was composed was to weigh in on Jewish in the Hellenistic period regarding intermarriage with Gentiles.

Primary Texts: Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
Composition / Author
Passage
3^4
Composition / Author
Passage
8