College Press NIV Commentary: Ezra & Nehemiah

Ezra and Nehemiah are considered some of the “historical” books of the Bible, for in them we get a glimpse of life in Israel after the exile in Babylon. Dr. Schoville identifies these as the Ezra Memoirs and the Nehemiah Memoirs. It is his belief that the first-person material in these books was probably written around 400 B.C., while an editor compiled these memoirs with other sources around 300 B.C., after the conquest of Alexander the Great.