- Torah and Jewish Thought
- General Questions
Question
Recently I heard from Muslims that Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 contradict each other and that the Tanakh is corrupt and Judaism is nonsense. I have doubts about my faith because the numbers are different and the numbers don’t add up to what they are supposed to add up to. Is their anyway that this can be resolved.
Answer
The question is famous, as is the answer, for anyone who's really interested.
The difference in number is less than 1,500, and is based upon Ezra 2, 64, which refers to "all the people who came [together] as one". That larger number includes those who were already in Israel when Zrubavel came, so they didn't actually come together with everyone else.