The Book That God Wrote, Ezra

Holy crap, what's happening? Is it really the end of August? And with nary a post from yours truly? I'm going to have to fix that aren't I? How bout this, how bout I tell you what happened in the next book of the Bible? Does that sound good? Yeah, I thought so ... let's see ... hmm this book is called Ezra, nice and simple to spell, a lot like Ruth. Also it's only 10 pages long, woohoo ... which makes it like 3 times as long as Ruth but twice as short as 2 Chronicles. Man, am I making any sense here? Here let me just read this shit and get back to you.

Okay, so Ezra, what happens in Ezra? Not a whole lot really. Hell, not even ten pages worth of stuff happens in this book (Are we surprised?). So last time, if you can remember back that far, King Cyrus decrees that "Hey, all of the sudden all the Jews can go home for some reason." Well this is exactly how this book starts too, right down to the decree repeated for posterity. Seriously, it's like the author of Ezra copied the last four paragraphs of 2 Chronicles and used it as his intro. It wouldn't be that bad except the Bible doesn't skip pages between books, so 2 Chronicles ends on the same exact page that Ezra begins on, so it's more like one page, with the first half repeated. There you go kids, there's your plagiarism argument for your English teacher, "The Bible does it, so why can't I?" Though I would be careful with that one, you might just have the religious nut who says that it doesn't count since God himself wrote the whole Bible, good luck with that one kids. So where was I? Oh right, Cyrus says that the Jews can go home. So the Jews go home to Israel. End of story.

Okay fine, Cyrus also brags that God told him that he's to oversee the rebuilding of the temple. And he does, if by "oversee" he means sending the Jews home and letting them take care of everything while he does nothing. Man, if that's how it works, then I must be doing a lot of algebra homework each semester, like eighty students worth at least. So then the Jews spend the majority of this book building the temple. Why does it take them most of the book? Oh well you know how the Bible is about going into minute details about things right? Yeah, there's quite a bit of that, but also there's a bit of a hiccup. See, after Cyrus dies, there's some nosy assholes that neighbor Jerusalem, and they send a letter to the new King of Persia basically saying that the Jews are untrustworthy and rebellious, and that they shouldn't be allowed to finish their precious temple.

Please, Cyrus was just alive, what kind of new king would listen to a bunch of random brats? Especially when they're going against what God supposedly told Cyrus to do in the first place. Oh ... oh no.

Yeah they're boned, turns out they sent this letter to Xerxes and he agrees ... or wait, was it Artaxerxes? ... who the fuck was Artaxerxes?

Aw man that's not nearly as cool, jeez never mind. Actually, it's my bad, I need to read this shit closer I guess. Anyway, whoever he is agrees and so the Jews stop their building. But then, after Notxerxes dies, Darius comes to power, and he's all "Hell no you lazy Jews, get your asses back to work, let's build this temple." And then they finish building it.

Does anyone else feel like this whole thing is completely anticlimactic? I do, this whole time I was hoping for the triumphant return of the Israelites to the promised land. Like, as I said before, an Exodus Part 2, This Time It's Personal, starring Ezra in the role of Moses II. Instead we get the lame arduous journey back to their land, only because some Persian king says it's okay. Man, what kind of lame sauce bullshit is that? I want the Israelites that shed their captors by force, the ones that turned water into blood to get their damned way, not these weaklings. Also, where the hell is Ezra? This book is named after him right? Why isn't he leading the charge back into the promised land? Because he doesn't show up until after the temple is built, yes really.

You know, Ezra has to be one of the weirdest books of the Bible I've ever read. It's hard to say why, but it might have something to do with it being the most poorly written book of the Bible I've seen yet. Now okay, I get it, we're going from Hebrew to English here, I don't expect miracles, but yeah, some of this shit you can't blame on "lost in translation." For the most part I can't really put my finger on it, some of it certainly just feels lazy, but that could be because so much of Ezra is just letters back and forth between various parties. And I mean complete verbatim letters, even including parts like "cordial greetings" and "memorandum." Further, and this is so incredibly jarring, and crazy, but partway through, for some inexplicable reason, the book switches into first person, with Ezra as the narrator. Yeah no joke. And it's clearly in third person a few paragraphs before, "Ezra arrived in Jerusalem in the fifth month of the seventh year of the king (7:8)." But a chapter later, "I assembled them at the canal that flows toward Ahava, and we camped there three days (8:15)." And then, if you can believe it, it fucking switches back again, "So Ezra rose up and put the leading priests and Levites and all Israel under oath to do what had been suggested (10:5)."

There is no excuse for this kind of shit, none, not even with the translations. There hasn't been this sort of discrepancy before, and you know why? Because the previous authors knew how to fucking write. Pure and simple, the writer of Ezra was terrible ... or he was some kind of modern avant-garde beatnik type that was thousands of years before his time (which also means he was terrible). And no, it's not just a really long quote, when that happens there's a quote mark at the beginning of each paragraph and it's aligned differently. Yes I checked that, and stop taking sides with Ezra, it's wrong, and I'm right. And basically, our boy Ezra would've failed a 2nd grade English class ... er Hebrew class.

Bitch, I wouldn't fail shit.

And now that we're talking about Ezra, that handsome little bard, he seriously has the longest introduction I've read yet in the Bible. When most people show up on the scene the Bible will say who his father was, and sometimes his mother, but Ezra, oh man does Ezra take it one step farther.  Here's how Ezra is introduced:

After these things, during the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Shallum, the son of Zadok, the son of Ahitub, the son of Amariah, the son of Azariah, the son of Meraioth, the son of Zerahiah, the son of Uzzi, the son of Bukki, the son of Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the chief priest—this Ezra came up from Babylon. (7:1-6)

Yeah, what the fuck was that? You know, usually when the Bible wants to give a genealogy it will warn me with a "What follows is the genealogy of Ezra," and it will list all the names out all nice and neat, split it up into various factions and stuff. Nope, not here, the author of Ezra is too lazy for that shit, he'll just throw in the genealogy as his introduction, thanks.

So we've gone this far and I haven't even told you what Ezra does, does he actually do anything? Well sure, he sets up a Judge system just like back in the old days, y'know local assistant judges that report to regional associate judges that report to the full judges that report to Ezra who reports to effin God himself. Other than that, y'know judging I guess, Ezra just sits around being a xenophobe. See, a bunch of Jews in the area married themselves some foreign people. And apparently this is some huge ass deal to Ezra, so much so that he rips his clothes and rolls around on the ground moaning. Then apparently everyone else around him starts doing the same thing ... really, check out Chapter 9. When in Rome I guess.

Can you guess what his brilliant solution is? He sends everyone home. Every foreign spouse gets immediately and brutally divorced and sent back home in disgrace. Really? That's your solution Ezra? I mean I get where the problem is, Solomon took a lot of foreign wives and started worshiping their gods, which started the chain reaction that got them into this whole exile mess in the first place. But I don't see the marrying foreign women as the problem here, because let's be honest, if the Israelites only marry Israelites all the time forever and ever, do you know what's going to happen?

I apologize for the nightmares.

Right, it aint pretty. So again, the problem isn't marrying them, it's adopting their gods. Why not just force them to become Jewish? Give them an ultimatum, either convert to our customs and stay married and happy, or go the fuck back home. Or even better, just ignore their dumb customs, I've known plenty of married couples with different religious beliefs and they seem to be just fine. They just live their lives bitterly thinking that their spouse is doomed to rot in hell for all eternity, that thought helps when you're sleeping on the couch eh? Anyway, there are plenty of better ways of dealing with this problem than dickishly sending them all back home. Especially for the women, I imagine in most cultures back then, if you married out of your belief system and then were divorced in shame and sent back that you would be an outcast at best. Not to mention the fact that you're breaking up families, they even sent fucking children back, that just seems unacceptably cruel, even by the Bible's standards. Or maybe I'm just a softy heathen ... nah, I'm right, I'm always right remember?

So there you go, Ezra was a xenophobic asshole with no regard for how his sweeping policy changes would effect the people of Israel. Guess there's nothing new there. That's about all I learned from this book. Oh, and that the Israelites' return to the promised land was boring and political, not badass. Just like the Star Wars prequels. Zing! He's got jokes, I'll be here all week. Anyway, does anything else happen in Ezra? Nope, they just list all the families that get split up by Ezra's Law. What a cheery way to end such a pointless book. File under "Skip" on the books of the Bible list. Until next time dear readers.

P.S. You may notice that I've started using the word "Jew" as opposed to "Israelite" or "Hebrew," and that's because for reasons unbeknownst to me, the Bible has started doing the same thing.