The message of the book of Nehemiah reconsidered: a postcolonial assessment of the portrait and work of Nehemiah

The realisation of two main approaches to the person and work of Nehemiah, which I have named the Heroic View of Nehemiah (HVN) and the Critical View of Nehemiah (CVN), has prompted the research culminating in this thesis. Both views consider history (exile and its consequences), prophecy (the promise of restoration) and the Torah (the condition for the restoration). The HVN scholars see the man Nehemiah as YHWH’s servant, successfully working for the postexilic restoration, and thus credited for the successful rebuilding of the wall and the socio-economic and religious reforms, and so consider him an example of leadership to emulate in Bible-based faith communities. However, the CVN scholars see a misunderstanding and misapplication of the Torah and prophecy in the book. They blame Nehemiah as a failed reformer and, thus, an example not to emulate. In such a context, this thesis aims to understand what story the book of Nehemiah tells by assessing, from a postcolonial perspective, Nehemiah’s portrait and work (the wall project, the socio-economic reforms, the expulsion of foreigners and the religious reforms). The thesis suggests that the book is not about Nehemiah, the rebuilding or the reforms, as generally held by both HVN and CVN scholarship, but about the people’s misery and reproach and attempts at resolution (through the wall project and the reforms) under Nehemiah. If so, the portrait and work of Nehemiah entails both successes and failures, all of which are linked to Nehemiah’s hybridity – as he is portrayed as embodying both religious and imperial political powers and thus serving both YHWH and the Persian Empire. As the empire’s appointed representative, Nehemiah had the authority to conduct the reforms he envisioned for Yehud. On the other hand, however, this position would not allow Nehemiah’s reforms to free the Judeans from imperial systems of exploitation of the powerless. Therefore, Nehemiah’s efforts left the Judeans in continuous multiform misery and reproach, which might have instigated the people’s relapse from keeping the covenant in Neh 13.