Bible Challenge: Ezra

At one point the books of Ezra and Nehemiah and several others were all one book.

It is generally accepted that the same author (or at least the same final editor) prepared both Chronicles and Ezra & Nehemiah.

The first few verses of Ezra are the same as the last few verses of Second Chronicles.

The book of Ezra picks up with the returning exiles from Babylon.  They were concerned with the physical rebuilding of the city and the temple, but also with rebuilding the society and the religion and excluding the foreign elements that had crept in over two generations in exile.  There were also a group of exile that wanted to rebuild the religion & society while retaining some of the things that they had picked up in Babylon.  The struggle between those two groups was still echoing at the time of Jesus.

There were four stages of the return from exile.
1. First return around 540 BC - the leader of this started rebuilding the temple but his opposition from those who had been left behind and had to stop
2. A second return about 20 years later who also encountered opposition but completed the rebuilding of the temple.
3. A group about 20 years after the second return (including Ezra) that worked to translate the law of Moses into a new code of laws for Israel
4. A group about 20 years after that (led by Nehemiah) who came to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.