Briefly said, the various/diverse ancient stories present Ezra as directed by a Persian king to establish religious/national law and order in Judea. He is said to have re-introduced the locals and returnees to the Law of Moses. He and five others present this Law to the people with mixed and brutal results. That role as restorer of forgotten Laws and prophets inspired many traditions including detailing this process of 'restoring' the works of Moses and the prophets. It also shaped theology in surprising ways.
4 Ezra 4:19 …For the world lies in darkness, and its inhabitants are without light. 4:21 For your law has been burned, and so no one knows the things which have been done or will be done by you.
4:22 If then I have found favor with you, send the holy spirit into me, and I will write everything that has happened in the world from the beginning, the things that were written in your law, so that people may be able to find the path, and that those who want to live in the last days may do so.
The above, written sometime soon after 70CE, reflects an ancient tradition in which Ezra held an elevated place, equaled only by Moses. He is addressed in 4 Ezra as "The Scribe of the knowledge of the Most High". The text continues with Ezra raising to heaven in the typical 'Heavenly Ascent' genre' fashion, being given a cup to drink that supernaturally gives him ability to recall all the Torah and prophetic works over the course of 40 days.
His role as 'restorer' of the law and all the prophets' writings is found in Rabbinic tradition as well, for example:
Shir HaShirim Rabbah 2:12
"The Torah was forgotten, but Ezra restored it."
Other Rabbinic tradition identified changes made by Ezra with the intention of improving the text so as not to blaspheme or misunderstand. There is also another string of tradition that uses this role of Ezra to explain the Aramaic lettering. While naturally there are variations on that theme, the basic idea is that Ezra was a 'second Moses' and was actually called such. (This concept is often linked or replaced with the idea of the "Great Assembly" of 120 scribes led by Ezra).
Some modern scholarship suggests the tradition originated through observations of emendations and inconsistency in the collections of Pentateuchal works. Specifically, Ezra's harsh treatment of non-Israelite wives and how it stands in contrast to Moses himself, but who knows.
Regardless the origin, it can be said there was a widely held belief that the Torah was lost in the destruction of the first Temple and until Ezra the Torah and prophetic works were 'forgotten'.
Somewhat surprisingly the Christian writer Irenaeus, repeats a variation on that tradition:
Iraneaus, Against Heresies, 3.21.2 During the captivity of the people under Nebuchadnezzar the Scriptures had been destroyed by corruption… But when ... the Jews had returned to their own land in the times of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra the priest of the tribe of Levi was inspired to order in his mind all the words of the former prophets and to reestablish the Mosaic legislation for the people.
It is not surprising opponents of the Jews and Christians would seize upon that tradition. The 3rd century Porphyry of Tyre wrote in his Adversus Christianos, that all of Moses’ texts were reduced to ashes when the first temple was destroyed,
“and all those which were written under his name afterwards were composed inaccurately one thousand one hundred and eighty years after Moses’ death by Ezra and his followers.”
One of the foundational distinctions and divisions between the Jews and Samaritans was over the transmission issue of the holy texts themselves. Notice an ancient Samaritan Yom Kippur liturgy reads as such:
"...Cursed be Ezra and his words that he wrote in his shame.”
Muslim 10th/11th century Muslims writers repeat this tradition of Ezra as supernaturally recovering the Torah. Yet an enigmatic passage in the Quaran shaped a negative view of this story.
Q 9.30–31 reads:
The Jews say, “Ezra is the son of Allah”; and the Christians say, “The Messiah is the son of Allah.” That is their statement from their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved [before them]. May Allah destroy them; how are they deluded? They have taken their scholars and monks as lords besides Allah, and [also] the Messiah, the son of Mary. And they were not commanded except to worship one God; there is no deity except Him. Exalted is He above whatever they associate with Him.
The perceived compromise of strict monotheism on the part of some Jews who elevated Ezra to being 'son of God/Allah' much like the Christian elevation of the 'son of Mary' to being 'son of God' was deeply disturbing for the author of that passage. Clearly this author did not accept, or perhaps understand, the concept of second power theology popular in late second temple Judaism.
But why would anyone have understood Ezra in such a role? Yes, other earlier works described Enoch or Melchizedek as a Logos-type emanations/sons of God and Philo thought as much regarding Abraham et.al. Early so-called Gnostic Christians also understood the Almighty as having used avatars of himself throughout history, (e.g. Jesus, Simon Magus) so the idea of Ezra being regarded this way is not shocking.
The 10th century Muslim scholar Al-Thaʿlabī, (Legends of the Prophets) quotes from 3 much earlier scholars presenting Jews as arguing that this role as supernatural restorer of the writings justified his being understood as 'Son of God'.
“Ezra would not have been given this were he not the son of God!”
“God gave this to him only because he is His son.”
“God would not have sent down the Torah into the heart of one of us after it had departed from our hearts, except if he were His son."
Al-Thaʿlabī (History) also describes this process of deification as:
“Then he [Ezra] died. In the course of time, the Israelites considered Ezra to be the son of God. God again sent them a prophet, as He did in the past, to direct and teach them, and to command them to follow the Torah.”
The 11th century Ibn Ḥazm also noted this Ezra tradition and used it polemically. Describing Ezra not as a faithful agent of God but as a Heretic that deliberately corrupted the text.
Ultimately this ancient Ezra tradition became an embarrassment and fell from favor, seldom to be repeated.
file:///C:/Users/user/Downloads/the_forging_of_a)tradition_the_hebrew_Bible_ezra_the_scribe_and_the_corruption_of_jewish_monotheism_according_to_the_writings_of_al_tabari_al_tha_labi_and_ibn_hazm.pdf
https://uk.edu.vn/en/Ezra_in_Rabbinic_Literature
https://booksnthoughts.com/ezra-changed-the-torah-text/#_ftnref5
https://www.thetorah.com/article/did-ezra-reconstruct-the-torah-or-just-change-the-script