ABSTRACT
The biblical account in Ezra-Nehemiah constitutes an essential stopover for an intellectual enterprise interested in reconstructing how identity has been shaped around the event of the exile, and particularly focusing on the subsequent returning groups. The focus of this contribution will be the peculiar portrait of one of the main protagonists of the return from exile according to the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, namely, Ezra. Previous scholarship has indeed tried to compare the story of the post-exilic period as narrated in Ezra-Nehemiah with other biblical paradigms. Some of Klaus Koch's suggestions certainly seem interesting on a general and thematic-structural level, but they need a firmer textual foundation. Particularly when he includes events of the conquest narrative in his discussion of Ezra as a participant of or leader of a 'second exodus': his main argument risks becoming too general. Another paradigm referred to in the interpretation of these texts is that of the conquest narrative.
