Community Leadership, Diaspora, and Ezra-Nehemiah

This article examines the last contributions that Gary Knoppers made to the study of Ezra-Nehemiah. In his last book, which was published posthumously, he examined the ‘conspicious’ disappearance of Zerubbabel from Ezra-Nehemiah (and from other prophetic literatures) as well as the surprising down-playing of the places Mizpah and Ramat Rahel that were – according to the archaeological record – important places during the post-exilic period. In his assessment, he shows a more prominent ideological-critical line of scholarship that had not been so overt in his very well-known work on Chronicles. This article engages in further debate with Knoppers regarding these contributions to the study of Ezra-Nehemiah. https://doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2021/v34n3a13