| Title: | The Strength of Women and Truth: The Tale of the Three Bodyguards and Ezra's Prayer in First Esdras |
| Author(s): | Timothy J. Sandoval |
| Affiliation: | |
| Year: 2007 | Volume: 58 | Issue: 2 | 211-227 pp. |
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| Keywords: | Post-biblical literature, 1 Esdras, Tale of the Three Bodyguards, Zerubbabel, Ezra, Hellenism, restoration, women, intermarriage |
| 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. |
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