Editing Book of Ezekiel (section)

=== Critical history ===
During the first half of the 20th century, scholars such as [[Charles Cutler Torrey|C. C. Torrey]] (1863–1956) and [[Morton Smith]] placed its authorship and later redaction variously in the 3rd century BC and in the 8th/7th.{{cn|date=December 2024}} The pendulum swung back in the [[post-war period]], with an increasing acceptance of the book's essential unity and historical placement in the Exile.{{cn|date=December 2024}} [[Walther Zimmerli]]'s two-volume commentary appeared in German in 1969 and in English in 1979 and 1983, and traces the process by which Ezekiel's oracles were delivered orally and transformed into a written text by the prophet and his followers through a process of ongoing re-writing and re-interpretation. He isolates the oracles and speeches behind the present text, and traces Ezekiel's interaction with a mass of mythological, legendary and literary material as he developed his insights into Yahweh's purposes during the period of destruction and exile.{{sfn|Sweeney|1998|pp=165–66}}