This is the fourth and final volume in the series The Biblical Collection (האסופה המקראית), by the late Menahem Haran. In keeping with this series' subject, the book's main objective is to recount the textual history of the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah. This story's ending is perhaps easiest to tell: rabbinic enumerations of the Hebrew canon treat these two books as one, while Origen and other church fathers, whose influence is felt even in current Jewish editions, consider the books to be separate (29–30). For both sides of this divergence, the Book(s) of the Twelve Prophets (תרי עשר) present a useful analogue, where each prophetic book has an entirely separate character even as all twelve books occur in a single framework. The pair Ezra-Nehemiah share a similar, if more overt, Chronistic framework, even though they—like, for example, Hosea and Amos—began as two separate books. Haran explains that this dichotomy between a unified whole and its separate parts accurately reflects compositional history. Each book was originally separate, as can be seen from the otherwise unnecessary repetition of the same list of returnees with Zerubbabel, once in Ezra 2 and again in Nehemiah 7 (61–62; 176–177). The identical transition verses that follow these lists (Ezra 2:70–3:1; Nehemiah 7:73–8:1), along with other literary and linguistic features, point to the hand of the same Chronistic compiler, who is responsible for each, originally separate, book (9–10; 62–63; 177). The perception of unity between the two books emerges as a direct consequence of the books' shared editor-compiler.

For Haran, the term “compiler” is critical for understanding the compositional history that precedes the canonical form of the book (for clarity, and to distinguish this term from “author,” he even interrupts his exemplary, rich Hebrew prose with English [32–33]). This compiler wrote very little on his own, nor did he produce a work by accepting, rejecting, or splicing sources at will (see 125–126). Rather, he worked with received written materials, precious surviving fragments of diverse genres, to produce two historical accounts that would preserve them. One, the book of Nehemiah, consciously focuses on its eponymous subject's life and times and even includes material from his hand (7, 197). The other, the book of Ezra, begins historical narration exactly where the book of Chronicles leaves off and “turns on what occurred after Cyrus's declaration: rebuilding the Temple and Israel's life on the Land” (190).

In two ways, Haran's description of the process conforms with his approach to the formation of other biblical texts. First and foremost is Haran's understanding of the canonization process as primarily one of compiling surviving fragments of traditional writings, rather than composition (see 32). This position runs as a theme throughout Haran's four volumes, and explains the series' very title, “The Biblical Collection.” Second, Haran's understanding of the book of Ezra as a direct continuation of the book of Chronicles invokes technical technological factors, specifically the limitations of scroll size. For Haran, these ancient limitations necessitated the separation of originally complete biblical compositions, such as the Torah and the Deuteronomistic History, into smaller scrolls (see his article in Tarbiz 53 [1984]: 329–352). Consistent with this approach, Haran argues that only the technical constraint of maximum scroll length forced the separation of the book of Ezra from the book of Chronicles, which then gave each book its own history (33–40). The verses at the very end of 2 Chronicles (37:22–23)—which cut off mid-sentence, seem extraneous to the text, and are identical to the verses at the beginning of the book of Ezra (1:1–3)—are catchlines to “guide the reader, when he wishes to continue reading, in finding the correct scroll,” that is the book of Ezra (38).

As part of an account of the formation of the biblical canon, Haran's textual history of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah will find a welcome home in biblicists' libraries. It will be no less valuable to any student of Jewish history, particularly of the Second Temple period. The biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah set the agenda for the earliest parts of this history, and any account must contend with the narratives these books preserve. To do so properly requires appreciating how these sources came into being. Indeed, the very processes that Haran's books describe occur during this period, so that the biblical texts themselves are as much the stuff of history as the events they narrate.

For Haran, the publication of the Torah within the Jewish community illustrates this intersection between the story the biblical texts actually narrate and the implicit story the texts contain. In two narrative blocs, the “Ezra memoir” (Ezra 7–10) and the covenant narrative (Nehemiah 8–10), Ezra the Scribe brings about the Torah's apparently newfound centrality to the community of returnees in Jerusalem. At the same time, in three passages within these blocs, Haran detects implicit evidence for the influence of Priestly literature (130–170): Ezra's search for Levites to accompany his pilgrimage (Ezra 8:15–19); the guilt offering by the priests who had taken foreign wives (Ezra 10:19); and the dwelling in booths to observe the Sukkot festival (Nehemiah 8:14–17). For Haran, these three passages demonstrate that, by the time of the composition of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Torah was a complete canonical entity, including not just Deuteronomic texts, but Priestly ones, too. Since there is no earlier similar evidence in the Bible, Haran follows the explicit narratives' lead, and attributes the publication of the complete Torah to Ezra himself (170–175).

Haran's approach to the story of the Torah's publication illustrates his broader methodological commitment to “the historical basis at the text's foundation” (121), in other words, to retrieving Jewish history from the Hebrew (and Aramaic) Bible. Consequently, Haran unabashedly adopts the “philological-historical” method and reads the books of Ezra and Nehemiah diachronically. He explicitly opposes “literary” methods, scholars that adopt them, and their resulting synchronic readings (121–127). For Haran, these readings ignore significant inconsistencies and reflect their authors' despair of resolving them. Haran, in contrast, remains confident in the powers of philology to serve history. This book, like his entire oeuvre, proves that he has good reason for his confidence. At every turn, he grounds his arguments in readings that can only have come from nuts-and-bolts work with the concordance.

While not quite a line-by-line commentary, the book certainly provides a valuable guide to the text. Most importantly, Haran treats not just the books' “greatest hits,” passages to which readers naturally gravitate, but also calls readers' attention to the relatively dull lists of names and to the comparisons between them (236–248). Thus, anyone studying the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, for whatever purpose, should find this volume valuable. Haran's study attests to the vitality of skillful reading, whether one's goal is an account of Jewish history or, perhaps more modestly, appreciation of Ezra and Nehemiah as biblical books.