Was Ezra a prophet?

[NathanH83]

As I understand it, the book of Ezra contains no prophecy. It’s just a book that details the history of the Jewish nation within the Persian empire. Ezra, being a Levite priest and scribe had the authority to write the scriptures. So the history he recorded of considered scripture.

They say that 1 Maccabees isn’t scripture because there were no prophets at that time. Ok, yes 1 Maccabees says there were no prophets at that time, but does it say there were no scribes? Does it say there were no priests? No. Mattathias was a Levite priest, and therefore his sons, including Judas Maccabee, were of the priestly lineage. Didn’t the Levite priests have the authority to become scribes, and record the history of the Jewish people, and for that history to be considered scripture?

What am I missing here?

 

[atpollard]

God was still speaking through prophets to Israel during the writing of Ezra, so prophetic wisdom could confirm it was “God-breathed” (as Jesus later did). Maccabees was written during the period that God was silent towards Israel ... having given them the “hand” with the last prophet and pronounced the curses of the Law on the nation, and before the arrival of John the Baptist to announce that God was about to speak to the nation and the world again.

That is what you missed.

You also missed that the OT is comprised of the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings, so not all of the OT was Prophecy. PSALMS is certainly not first and foremost a prophetic book written by a prophet, it is mostly worship songs written by a king.

 

[hedrick]

No. I just looked through the whole book of Ezra. It attributes the mandate to rebuild Jerusalem to the prophets Haggai and Zechariah. Ezra is described as a priest and scribe. He is carrying out the policy that they established. His other big mandate, forcing massive numbers of divorces, with no consideration of the individual situations or effects on people, is not shown as a result of a divine command at all, neither to the prophets nor to Ezra. The most charitable interpretation is that the book of Nehemiah implies that Ezra thought this was mandated by the Law, but that's not prophecy, it's obeying the Law.

 

[NathanH83]

God was still speaking through prophets to Israel during the writing of Ezra, so prophetic wisdom could confirm it was “God-breathed” (as Jesus later did). Maccabees was written during the period that God was silent towards Israel ... having given them the “hand” with the last prophet and pronounced the curses of the Law on the nation, and before the arrival of John the Baptist to announce that God was about to speak to the nation and the world again.

That is what you missed.

You also missed that the OT is comprised of the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings, so not all of the OT was Prophecy. PSALMS is certainly not first and foremost a prophetic book written by a prophet, it is mostly worship songs written by a king.

If it has to be prophecy in order to be the Word of God, then is there prophecy in the book of Ezra? If not, then how can it be the Word of God?

 

[atpollard]

If it has to be prophecy in order to be the Word of God

This is a false assumption, so any conclusion based on it will also be flawed.

All true Prophecy is the Word of God, but not all of the Words of God are prophecy.

 

[NathanH83]

This is a false assumption, so any conclusion based on it will also be flawed.

All true Prophecy is the Word of God, but not all of the Words of God are prophecy.

So was Ezra a prophet or not?

 

[hedrick]

No. He is identified as a priest and scribe, and never claimed to have a prophetic revelation

 

[NathanH83]

No. He is identified as a priest and scribe, and never claimed to have a prophetic revelation

Then how can Ezra be scripture?

We’re told that 1 Maccabees cannot be scripture because there were no prophets at that time, and it must be prophecy to be scripture.

By that logic, how can Ezra be scripture?

 

[hedrick]

Then how can Ezra be scripture?

We’re told that 1 Maccabees cannot be scripture because there were no prophets at that time, and it must be prophecy to be scripture.

By that logic, how can Ezra be scripture?

As far as I know there's no definition that says an author has to be a prophet. The OT has histories, e.g. Joshua and Kings. They're not prophetic. I've seen lots of discussions of the D-C books such as Maccabees. That it wasn't written by a prophet isn't one of the common arguments.

 

[NathanH83]

As far as I know there's no definition that says an author has to be a prophet. The OT has histories, e.g. Joshua and Kings. They're not prophetic. I've seen lots of discussions of the D-C books such as Maccabees. That it wasn't written by a prophet isn't one of the common arguments.

If it’s not a common argument, then why have I heard it repeated so often?

 

[atpollard]

If it’s not a common argument, then why have I heard it repeated so often?

There are three types of OT Scripture.

The first type is the least ambiguous and most agreed upon ... the Five books written by Moses are “Scripture”. I know of no person that argues that any book other than those 5 was written by Moses, so the first test of scripture does not apply to Maccabees.

The second type of “Scripture” is that written by a Prophet of God. The Books of Moses provide guidelines for judging a true prophet from a false prophet. Some Apocryphal Books claim to be written by Prophets, but fail the “Moses” test for being “Scripture”. (Some were not written by the prophet as they claim and others were written by ‘false prophets’ as defined in the Books of Moses). Maccabees states within itself it was not written by a prophet, so Maccabees cannot be accepted as Scripture as a new “Prophetic Book” (as the Book of Mormon claims to be).

The third type of Scripture are called “The Writings” and include the Songs written by King David (and some others), the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Histories written by Priests and Scribes (Ezra, Kings, Chronicles). The Writings that are accepted as “Scripture” were accepted as scripture and confirmed as Scripture back when there were still Prophets to affirm that these writings were indeed “Scripture”. Maccabees was written after the last True Prophet of the OT and before John the Baptist (the first Prophet of the NT). John the Baptist and Jesus Christ are the first people that could have confirmed that Maccabees was “Scripture”.

The debate centers around whether they ever quoted Maccabees as Scripture, or if certain statements of Jesus indicate that Scripture was opened with Genesis and closed with Chronicles (excluding Maccabees from consideration). Different denominations and individuals fall on different sides of that debate. “Tradition” favors including the Apocrypha and “Sola Scriptura” favors excluding it. So the divide falls along one’s personal opinion of the importance of Church Tradition.

That is why “Prophets” are one of the issues that get discussed concerning Maccabees. It is a history written when God was not speaking through His Prophets ... so the words cannot be “Prophetic” and the History had not been affirmed as Scripture by a Prophet at the time of its writing. So is it inspired, or is it not inspired? Is it like “Chronicles” or is it like the writings of Josephus?

 

[hedrick]

I agree with what atpollard said in general terms, from the point of view of traditional Protestants. (My own tradition has a very different approach.) However he alludes to a traditional Jewish distinction between prophets and writings. This traditional reckoning doesn't have a separate category for historical books. It has two types of prophetic books, "former prophets" and "later prophets." The former prophets include Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. The writings include Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles. (I'm ignoring books that aren't historical narrative.) From a modern Christian perspective I'm not convinced there's a good reason to treat the two groups of historical books differently.