* The name Apame Is Oriental, though not found till the Macedonian perio<I. No such person occurs among the wives of Darius 1. The first of the Dame was the wife of Scleucus NIkator, Alexander's general, and daughter of Artahazus ^trabo). Doe* this last name give the explanation of the iiaine fiartacus or *P«3iC«»*k ?
securing to the .lews ' tlie favour of a Ptolemaic oi other heathen power' (Ewald).
Time and Place of Compo.sition.— The ex- treme limits between which the book must ba placed are given on the one hand by the date of the composition of the Heb. books of Ezr and Neh, which is fixed as late as B.C. 300(Ryle, Cam. Bible, Introd. xxvi), on the other by the date of Josephus, A.D. 100. Within these rather wide limits it is dillicult to define the time more accur- ately with any certainty. As Fritzsche remarks, the writer h.us kept his own personality in the background and nowhere left any traces of his own time (Einleitung, p. 9). Still there remain a few indications to be mentioned. The similarity to Aristeas, as we have seen, shows nothing more than that the Zerubbabel story is of the same character and probably the same time as that book (circa B.C. 150).
1. But Ewald notes further (Abhand. iiber d. Sibyll. Bitch, p. 36) that this story was known and referred to by the wTiter of the oldest of tlie Sibylline booKs. Now, this book (iii. of the Sibylline Oracles) is definitely fixed to the reign of Ptolemy Philometor (B.C. 1S1-I46). In it is an allusion to Persian kings helping forsvard the rebuilding of the temple in consequence of a dream : iii. 293—4, AiStJs yap Swffd Beds (yyvxoy iyyor 6v€ipov, Kal rdre Sij yabs TrdXiy ^fffrereu, ths jrdpos ^y vep. This, in Ewald's opinion, is suggested by Es 3-4. But in Es 4"-" there is no mention of a dream, but only a vow, which influenced Darius. Still, as the dream is not alluded to elsewhere, it is not improbable that the Sibyllist had some older form of this story before him, from which our Esdras also borrowed.
2. The book has, further, some parallels with the LXX version of Dn and Est. The opening of Es 3 seems to be imitated from the opening of Est 1*'* : the phrases ^irol-qaey dox'^y, dird ttjs *lydLKrjs p-ixP^ AlBioirlas, and ' the hundred and seventy satrapies,' are common to both. Cf. al.so Es 3' oi rpeii pLeyicrrayei ttjs Ilfpffloos with Est 1" LXX, Dn 6'^. (Tlie Heb. of Est as also Ezr 7' name seven Persian councillors.)
The agreements between Es and Dn LXX are remarkable. Of these the most striking is a clause which they have in common in the account of the treasures which Nebuchadnezzar recovered from Jerus. (Es 2®=Dn 1'^ LXX, Kal dwriptiffaTo ai'rd ^k Ttf (I5a\iip airov). In this place, since d-jrcpditaOat is an Esdras word, occurring three times in this connexion in Es and nowhere else in Dn, and since elSuiXioy renders the Heb. of Ezr (vriS.j n-j) but not of Dn (i'n*jx ijiiN n'3, Tlieod. fls rbv oXkop Briaavpov Oeov auroC), it would seem that the obliga- tion is on the side of the Dn translator.
But, in view of the other parallels between the books, another explanation is more probable, that the translntions are the work of one and the name hand. In one place the same Aramaic phrase, ' And his house sliall be made a dunghill,' is mis- translated or paraphrased in the same way (K» 6" Kal tA v-ndpxovra avrov tlvai ^affiKiKi, Dn 2* Kal dyaXijfpO i)crtTai vfiutv rd i/Trdpxoyra els rd fiafftXtKdy). It may lie noted that both books are written in an idiomatic Gr. stylo foreign to most books of the LXX; both are very free translations; both liave interpolations of a similar character (the three pages in Es, tlie three children in Dn) ; the original Heb. of both books has Aramaic sections interspersed in it. If this theory be true, the parallel between the two Gr. books of Es and the two versions of Dn is very close.*
•The theory has already been 8iiggcst«d by Dr. Ow>*nn (Diet Chritt. Bion., f.r. Theodo'tlon, p. 977) ; cf. Dn 2" i^.'Jij.iCEslH* \^,iiim) : i^,A»THu, {pa 2>', Es S") : Dn S>, Es 8^ •; wftyty
^«i*a't«. (Dn 33, Es ^^ lAJ only); use of imm c. inf. ia« t»
762 ESDRAS, FIEST BOOK OF
ESDRAS, FIRST BOOK OF
3. Graetz {Gesch. der Juden, 1863, p. 445) points to the use of Ototoi in 3'*, and says that the Roman consulate is knowTi to the writer. This would indicate a time later than the first interference of the Komans in the East, i.e. later than B.C. 200.
4. On the other hand, the term KwXrj Xvpia which so frequently occurs is used in the sense which it bore during the Gr. period, meaning all S. Syria except Phoenicia. Before the coming of the Romans to Palestine (e. B.C. 63, the date of Pompey's taking of Jerus.) this name had acquired a new significance, being restricted to the country E. of the Jordan (G. A. Smith, Hist. Geug. p. 538). The way in which this phrase is used appears, therefore, to afford certain proof that the book is at least as old as the first half of the last century before the Christian era.