Editing Book of Nehemiah (section)

== Textual history ==
{{Books of Ketuvim}}
{{further|Ezra–Nehemiah}}
[[File:Book of Nehemiah, Roman (Sixtine) Septuagint (1587).jpg|thumb|[[Septuagint]] version of Nehemiah]]
The single Hebrew book [[Ezra–Nehemiah]], with title "Ezra", was translated into Greek around the middle of the 2nd century BC.<ref>Graham, M.P, and McKenzie, Steven L., ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=owwhpmIVgSAC&pg=PA202 The Hebrew Bible Today: An Introduction to Critical Issues]'' (Westminster John Knox Press, 1998) p. 202</ref>  Slightly later a second, and very different Greek translation was made, in the form of [[1 Esdras]], from which the deeds of Nehemiah are entirely absent, those sections either being omitted or re-attributed to Ezra instead; and initially early Christians reckoned this later translation as their biblical 'Book of Ezra', as had the 1st century Jewish writer [[Josephus]]. From the third century the Christian [[Old Testament]] in Greek supplemented the text of 1 Esdras with the older translation of Ezra–Nehemiah, naming the two books Esdras A and Esdras B respectively; and this usage is noted by the 3rd century Christian scholar [[Origen]], who remarked that the Hebrew 'book of Ezra' might then be considered a 'double' book. [[Jerome]], writing in the early 5th century, noted that this duplication had since been adopted by Greek and Latin Christians. Jerome himself rejected the duplication in his Vulgate translation of the Bible into Latin from the Hebrew; and consequently all early Vulgate manuscripts present Ezra–Nehemiah as a single book,<ref>{{Cite journal |volume=110|pages=5–26|last=Bogaert|first=Pierre-Maurice|title=Les livres d'Esdras et leur numérotation dans l'histoire du canon de la Bible latin|journal=Revue Bénédictine|date=2000|issue=1–2|doi=10.1484/J.RB.5.100750}}</ref> as too does the 8th century commentary of [[Bede]], and the 9th century bibles of [[Alcuin]] and [[Theodulf of Orleans]]. However, sporadically from the 9th century onwards, Latin bibles are found that separate the Ezra and Nehemiah sections of Ezra–Nehemiah as two distinct books, then called the first and second books of Ezra; and this becomes standard in the [[Paris Bible]]s of the 13th century. It was not until 1516/17, in the first printed [[Mikraot Gedolot|Rabbinic Bible]] of [[Daniel Bomberg]] that the separation was introduced generally in Hebrew Bibles.<ref>{{Citation |last1=Gallagher|first1=Edmon L.|author-link1=Edmon L. Gallagher|last2=Meade |first2=John D. |title=The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity |pages=269 |publisher=OUP|year=2017}}</ref>

In later medieval Christian commentary, this book is referred to as the 'second book of Ezra', and never as the 'Book of Nehemiah"; equally citations from this book are always introduced as "Ezra says ...", and never as 'Nehemiah says ...".{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}