According to the Bible, the Persian king sent Ezra to bring the Torah, the five books of the Laws of Moses, to the Jews. Modern scholars have claimed not only that Ezra brought the Torah to Jerusalem, but that he actually wrote it. In this study Lisbeth S. Fried separates historical fact from biblical legend, presenting the historical Ezra in the context of authentic Persian administrative practices and concludes that Ezra neither wrote nor edited the Tora.