The Bible In A Year 
I Chronicles through Nehemiah – week 4 of 5
December 3-8, 2018
Readings for the Week
Theme of the week: We continue the story of the return from exile, including prophets of that time.
Monday – Ezra chapters 4, 5, 6 & 7, Psalms 135 & 126
Tuesday – Numbers chapter 19, Ezra chapters 8, 9 & 10, Psalm 134
Wednesday – The book of Haggai, Zechariah chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8
Thursday – Zechariah chapters 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 & 14
Friday – Nehemiah chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
Saturday – Nehemiah chapters 6, 7, 8 & 9, Leviticus chapter 23
The Bible In A Year
I Chronicles through Nehemiah – week 4 of 5
A Framework for Understanding
Ezra-Nehemiah
The books of Ezra and Nehemiah in our Bible are actually a single book in the Jewish scriptures. The book is an historical accounting of the restoration of the nation of Judah. It was written sometime after the 400BCE.
Ezra opens with an account of Cyrus’ decree allowing the exiles to return home, and goes on to tell about the early rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple. However, neither Ezra nor Nehemiah were among the exiles who first returned. In Ezra 7:1-6 we read that Ezra returned to Jerusalem during the reign of King Artaxerxes of Persia. The problem with this information is that it doesn’t state whether it was King Artaxerxes I or II. The story shifts to first-person telling in chapter 8.
Nehemiah begins with first-person style writing. However, the events in Nehemiah actually seem to have occurred before the period of time described in Ezra. The fact that the work of Ezra and Nehemiah does not actually seem to overlap, and that the book of Nehemiah makes no mention of Ezra leads some scholars to believe that Ezra lived during the reign of the second King Artaxerxes, and was in fact about 50 years after Nehemiah.
There is another group of scholars who believe that Ezra never lived at all. There are records outside of the Bible which document the existence of Nehemiah, but to date there is no mention of Ezra. These scholars believe that Ezra is an invention of the author of the books to create balance, mirroring the biblical account of Joshua and Zerrubbabel (one representing the law, the other the civil government).