The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are essentially a historiographic composition that recounts the story of the returnees from the Babylonian exile (586 BCE) to Judah during the Persian Period (Ezra 1:1,5; 3:11). Scholars have debated whether Ezra-Nehemiah were initially composed as one book or as two books that were later merged. VanderKam, Kraemer, Grabbe, and Becking claim that Ezra and Nehemiah are two separate compositions based on the introductory verse in the book Nehemiah (Neh 1:1),