Ezra the Scribe

Ezra (/ˈɛzrə/; Hebrew: עזרא‬, Ezra; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (עזרא הסופר‬, Ezra ha-Sofer) and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe and a priest. In Greco-Latin Ezra is called Esdras (Greek: Ἔσδρας). According to the Hebrew Bible he was a descendant of Seraiah (Ezra 7:1) the last High Priest to serve in the First Temple (2 Kings 25:18), and a close relative of Joshua the first High Priest of the Second Temple (1 Chronicles 5:40-41 CJB and similar translations only; see also Ezra 3:2). He returned from Babylonian exile and reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem (Ezra 7–10 and Neh 8). According to 1 Esdras, a Greek translation of the Book of Ezra still in use in Eastern Orthodoxy, he was also a High Priest. Rabbinic tradition holds that he was only a common priest.