came back after seventy years to their own land, then in the time of Artaxerxes, the King of the Persians, inspired Esdras, the priest of the tribe of Levi, to set forth all the words of the prophets who had gone before, and to restore to the people the legislation given through Moses."[1]
Jerome writes: "Certainly the present day is to be deemed of that time in which the history itself was put together: whether you choose to call Moses the author of the Pentateuch, or Ezra the restorer of the same work, I make no objection."[2] Basilius, Chrysostom, Athanasius, Leo Byzantinus, and others of the Christian Fathers give similar testimony.
It is evident that, for the production of the Bible, only one inspiration was requisite—the inspiration of Ezra. Clearly it matters not a jot whether Moses was inspired or not. Whatever Moses' writings had been like, they had got destroyed, so it was of no moment whether they had been inspired ten times over. If Ezra produced the lost twenty-two books, he must have suffered from a far more severe attack of inspiration than Moses had had, who produced only five books, against Ezra's twenty-two. In fact, the amount of inspiration which had been sufficient for the whole staff that had produced the lost Bible must have been let loose upon Ezra. Suffering in his person from inspiration sufficient for the entire staff of the Bible, the wonder is that, from the over-dose, Ezra did not burst, his pieces flying from Dan even unto Beersheba.
I am not extravagant in this solicitude lest Ezra should have burst. One theory at least of inspiration held by theologians would not be quite incompatible with the inspired one bursting, and thereby leaving his study in a state more easily conceived than described. For, after the manner of the Pythian prophetess, the spirit that possessed those inspired was believed to "swell and blow up their bodies, especially their breasts and bellies, like a bladder or bottle."[3] Another theory of the
