In this study Lester Grabbe dispenses with the trend in Biblical scholarship towards new literary study and postmodernist critics, to advocate a close reading of the text itself. The main focus of this book, discussed in Part I gives a close reading of the final form of the text; the Hebrew Ezra, the Hebrew Nehemiah, 1 Esdras and other Ezra and Nehemiah traditions. Part I concludes with a discussion of intertextuality and the growth of various traditions. Part II explores the questions of historicity raised by a close reading of the texts themselves to argue that a close reading of the text has clear implications for any conclusions about historicity. This book presents an approach to Ezra-Nehemiah in the combination of the literary and the historical approach. Lester Grabbe challenges commonly held assumptions about Joshua and Zerubbabel, the initial resettlement of land after the exile, the figure of Ezra and the acitivities of Nehemiah. The challenge comes, not from radical theory but from paying careful attention to the text of the Bible itself.