06_Biblica_AN_Leuchter_269_279 15/07/14 12:22 Pagina 278 278 MARK LEUCHTER 278 V. Conclusion That Nehemiah 9 ultimately reaches us in a gola-oriented work such as Ezra-Nehemiah might indicate that it was added to that work at a time when partisan opposition between gola and homeland tensions had somewhat subsided. Wright’s model of the redactional development of Ezra-Nehemiah allows for this, as he identifies Nehemiah 8–10 as a rather late addition to the work and thus reflecting a time when priorities and points of discord had changed within the various groups vying for a place in late Persian Yehud (or in the early days of the Hellenistic period) 43. On the other hand, it may suggest the very opposite, namely, that it was introduced into Ezra-Nehemiah specifically to appropriate the prayer for the gola group. Some precedent for this is found in the redaction of the Song of Moses into the book of Deuteronomy that tacitly supported Josiah’s royal initiatives; ostensibly this bias is offset by the inclusion of the older, rival tradition of protest 44. The redaction of Nehemiah 9 into its current context may serve the same purpose, empowering the gola Levites and affirming their exclusive hegemony over authoritative petition and penitential prayer. Tiemeyer comes to a somewhat similar conclusion by asserting that the Judahite prayer is only secondarily placed in the mouth of the Levites in the larger narrative setting 45, but we may propose here a slight adjustment to Tiemeyer’s argument: that the prayer, conceived by one Levite group, has been assigned to another for polemical or propagandistic purposes. In any case, this suggests that well into the Persian period, perhaps down to the very end of that period (and into the Hellenistic era), the schism between different Levite groups persisted, with reconciliation brought about only over a very extended period of time. Such is the im- pression one gets from comparing the work of the Chronicler to most of what obtains in Ezra-Nehemiah; it is only in Chronicles that we encounter an attempt to bridge gaps, not only between broad communities but be- tween the Levites associated with them. The writing of disparate clans into the fabric of common history (1 Chronicles 1–9) anticipates the much larger project of weaving a wide spectrum of Levite lineages into the foun- dations of the common national cult 46. Perhaps the emergence of other 43 WRIGHT, “New Model”, 346. 44 LEUCHTER, “Why is the Song of Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy?”, 317. 45 TIEMEYER, “Abraham”, 63. 46 On the inclusive strategy of the Chronicler’s genealogies, see the exhaustive analysis by G.N. KNOPPERS, I Chronicles 1–9 (AB 12; New York 2003) passim; ID., “Intermarriage, Ethnic Diversity and Social Complexity in the Genealogy of Judah”, JBL 120 (2001) 15-30.