Reading Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah amid Early Jewish Literature

This article responds to the papers included in this volume of HeBAI. In general, the article argues that it is indeed timely and important to study Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah amid early Jewish literature. It furthermore agrees that the siloing of texts based on their later reception history should be challenged. Although the various later (biblical) canons played and continue to play important roles in their relevant communities of faith, and for both biblical theological thought and for academic studies of such thought, these later canons should not impact the way in which historians of early and late Second Temple period should reconstruct the history of their periods, including the ideological discourse and textual repertoires of the relevant communities. This contribution focuses on how each of the essays included in the volume, each in its own way, advances, exemplifies, and raises questions for further thought and for comparative studies of texts, books, and sets of books that cut across the existing silos.