Discipleship
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 50, No. 2 - Spring 2008
Managing Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
By Matthew Levering. Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2007. 256 pages. Hardcover, $29.99.
Before investing in Levering’s work on Ezra and Nehemiah, one should carefully read the preface and introduction to ascertain the author’s approach. To be fair, Levering admits that he is not attempting to write a traditional commentary (21). However, a subtitle clarifying the focus of this text would be helpful. Even Levering’s own stated goal falls short of the direction of this commentary. The author states that his goal “is to illumine how these two books fit into the unity of the Bible” (19). More specifically, as the author later stipulates, the book is an attempt to trace the theme of “eschatological restoration” within the books of Ezra and Nehemiah as only understood by reading them through the lenses of later biblical works (35). As such, the book does not attempt to exegete the texts of Ezra and Nehemiah, but focuses on aspects within them that point to- ward prophecy and fulfillment. This accentuates the greatest limitation of the work as the author often forces the eschatological fulfillment into the text, thus weakening its significance on its historical context.
The book is structured around the chapter divisions of the two books. The effort of the author to demonstrate how Ezra and Nehemiah fit within the context of the rest of Scripture and specifically the New Testament is laudable, though the connections, at times, appear forced. The style of the book is somewhat confusing. The author is prone to lengthy asides (cf. 161–12) and frequently interacts with Bede in the chapter using parenthetical references, but also includes footnotes of the other authors cited. The bibliography is rather selective, with many excellent recent sources absent and showing a decided proclivity towards a select few sources, with only sparse interaction with the others. The references to Bede are so frequent it is often difficult to determine where Bede stops and where Levering begins again.
The struggle for the reader begins with Levering’s noncommittal stance on the historicity of the books themselves. This is demonstrated by the author’s attempt to establish the significance of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah by advocating Ezra’s role in the composition of the Old Testament canon. He suggests, with Friedman, that it was Ezra who “‘took on the enormous, intricate, and ironic task of combing these alternative versions of the same stories into one work’” (30), but only benignly concludes that “his prophetic authority enables him to produce a canonical text of the Torah that adequately, despite its errors, expresses the original divinely revealed Torah” (29–30).
The weakest section of the book is the conclusion to the book of Nehemiah, which is decidedly misnamed. The entire chapter is more of a polemic for the Roman Catholic Church with little to do with the text of Nehemiah. Instead, Levering uses that chapter to advocate that one is not a believer if he or she is not a part of the church (211–13).
When the author interacted with the text, a few helpful insights emerge. However, those occasions are infrequent and are often followed by nonsequiturconclusions (cf. 152). In the end, the author’s unanswered rhetorical question summarizes the entire work. He asks, “Did Ezra and Nehemiah, in their efforts to reconstitute Israel cultically and politically, take a wrong turn or at least a dead end?” (30) Perhaps that should also be asked of the author.
