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So it turns out the reconstructing a community is a lot more work than reconstructing a temple. Stones are more flexible than people. Did we know this? While the first half of the Book of Nehemiah was taken up with describing the building project that reconstructed the perimeter of Jerusalem, the second half (8-13) explores…

Big picture: Another wave of exilees is retuning to Jerusalem. Under the guidance of Nehemiah, the governor, they work furiously to rebuild the city walls. And I do mean furiously. The Bible claims the walls were reconstructed in 52 days. (Nehemiah 6:13) That’s awfully impressive. Nowadays you can’t even secure a building permit in that…

This week we begin exploring Ezra-Nehemiah, which was a single document back in the day, but which we have divided into two because our attention spans are very, very short. Ezra was a scribe, priest, and acting mayor who led one of the groups of returnees back from Babylon to Jerusalem. The first half of…

If you just had the text of Ezra and Nehemiah to go on (and, FYI, they were probably written by the same person and intended as one book–another piece of Twible twivia I’ve amassed in doing this project), you’d think that all of the former Israelites who’d been taken captive into Babylon were overjoyed at…
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