4 Ezra

In The Origins of the Canon of the Hebrew Bible: An Analysis of Josephus and 4 Ezra, Juan Carlos Ossandón Widow examines the thorny question of when, how, and why the collection of twenty-four books that today is known as the Hebrew Bible was formed. He carefully studies the two earliest testimonies in this regard—Josephus' Against Apion and 4 Ezra—and proposes that, along with the tendency to idealize the past, which leads to consider that divine revelation to Israel has ceased, an important reason to specify a collection of Scriptures at the end of the first century CE consisted in the need to defend the received tradition to counter those that accepted more books.

Although Fourth Ezra and Second Baruch roughly date to the same era (late 1st to mid-2nd century) and respond to the same catastrophe (destruction of the Second Temple), use the same narrative device of pseudepigraphy and narrative foil (destruction of the First Temple), it has been noted that their theologies and theodicies are markedly different. In addition, the narrative point of view also differs, informed as it is by the chosen narrator personae. Baruch is actually located in Jerusalem and near the Temple Mount in the wake of its destruction, whereas Ezra – by his own account – is removed in time (30 years after the destruction) and space (located in Babylonia). He is thus looking back and looking in.

This paper asks to what degree these different perspectives influence their portrayal of the city of Jerusalem.

It has now been published in: Interpreting 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch. Jason Zurawski, ed. (proceedings volume of the 6th Enoch Seminar, held in Milan (Italy), 26-30 June 2011). London/New York: T&T Clark, 2014: 138-152

"One of the most curious aspects of the late first-century Jewish apocalypse 4 Ezra is its depiction of the scribe Ezra. Nothing in this text seems to cohere with the Ezra we know from earlier texts. The dating is odd. The setting is odd. Ezra himself is odd and almost unrecognizable. He even has another name! While scholars in the past have dabbled in trying to figure out these various curiosities, modern scholars seem to have given up on explaining these mysteries in order to focus on the “larger” issues within the text. But, if we can explain why the author chose to paint Ezra the scribe in such an odd light, we should be able to go a long way in explaining those important issues and the overall purpose of the text.

Here I argue that the author of 4 Ezra has crafted an “origin story,” the back-story or prequel to the story with which the reader is already familiar. 4 Ezra is a text which describes how Ezra became the Ezra we know—the scribe, the restorer of the temple, the bringer of the Torah. Only by understanding the text in this way are we able to make sense of this odd Ezra. While our name of the text may suggest otherwise, 4 Ezra must be seen as a prequel to the familiar, biblical if you must, story of Ezra. This, more than anything, can explain the dating, the setting, Ezra’s second name, and, ultimately, Ezra’s transformation in the text, from disbelief to belief, from doubter to adherent, from man to superhero."

Was Paul's view of evil based on Adam's fall or a mere reflex of Christology? Tyler A. Stewart argues that, in Galatians, Paul's thoughts about where evil comes from and why it continues are not based on Adam's fall as the background story, but rather the rebellion of angels. Edited PhD Dissertation published with Mohr Siebeck (WUNT 2).

Whereas in earlier periods angels played the roles of heavenly hosts and God’s messengers, from the Second Temple period they developed a new role, that of an angelus interpres. The precursor of this role can perhaps be traced to the visions of Ezekiel, but particularly to the visions of Zechariah. However, it was in the apocalyptic literature of the Second Temple period that these angeli interpretes began to take on their individual personality by adopting names and specific offices. Earliest evidence is found in the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36) dated to the mid- or late third century BCE. The Book of Daniel of the second century BCE , which is considered the only apocalyptic book in the Hebrew Bible, is also the only biblical book that names the two archangels, Michael and Gabriel. The two Jewish apocalypses, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, also feature an angelus interpres, Uriel and Remiel, respectively. Both apocalypses are regarded as pseudepigrapha written towards the end of the first century in response to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE. Although it is impossible to establish direct textual relationship between the two, they have been seen as sister works, sharing many common themes and features. Why, then, did the authors choose a different angel for the revelations received by their respective protagonists? Do the angels, despite their different names, play identical roles in the two apocalypses? How are the roles of Uriel and Remiel similar to or different from Gabriel, the angelus interpres in Daniel, on the one hand, and the unnamed angeli interpretes in the Apocalypse of John, on the other?

How is it that when people on earth encounter heavenly beings these consistently appear in human guise; yet, when, in turn, humans enter the celestial world these selfsame human visitors seem to take on qualities of angelic beings? Could it be that the properties of the very different environments profoundly affect the nature of both residents and visitors? To answer these questions this article looks at the various texts dealing with epiphanies and heavenly journeys and descents from the perspective of the spaces that form the settings of these narratives. The sample texts will shed light on the correlation between the nature of heavenly angelic/divine and earthly human beings, on the one hand, and the substances that both realms are thought to consist of, on the other. The analysis of the texts will enable us to indicate a structure through which to create a paradigm by which other narratives of human—divine encounters may be tested and understood. In addition, this paradigm will be able to better explain the mechanics of both boundary crossings and transgressions.

A brief overview of Adventism's relationship with the Apocrypha, spanning from the year 1842 until 1918. It updates the conclusions of the last previous study conducted by Ron Graybill and utilizes previously undiscovered documents and even writings by Ellen White to propose that Adventism's entanglement with the Apocryphal corpus is far reaching and vastly understudied in its importance for the study of Early Adventism and Ellen White.

"So often, when scholars compare the depiction of Adam’s transgression and its consequences as seen in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, they use the oft-quoted line from 2 Baruch, “Adam is therefore not the cause, save only of his own soul, but each of us has been the Adam of his own soul” (2 Bar 54:19), as a prooftext that Adam’s sin, while transformative, was not as integral to the author of 2 Baruch’s thinking as to the author of 4 Ezra, who instead can claim things via Ezra like, “O Adam, what have you done?  For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants” (4 Ez 7:118).
But, when we look further into the situation, we come across all of these references in 4 Ezra to the foreordained ages and the precreation of all of the eschatological materials.  In so many places, the author of 4 Ezra states unequivocally that these things—the age of the mortal world, the number of souls, the judgment, the world to come—all of them were planned or created prior to the creation of the mortal universe.  With this being the case, Adam’s sin could not have resulted in such a profound transformation of an original divine plan.  This is in contrast to 2 Baruch, where we read that only after Adam’s sin was the number of souls—and therefore the age of this mortal world—set.  For the author of 2 Baruch, Adam’s transgression led to nothing less than a fundamental paradigm shift in the universe, while in 4 Ezra, Adam becomes simply the first to fall victim to God’s original, intentional plan.
But then we come to 4 Ezra 7:10-14, which, on the surface, seems to suggest that God originally created this world for Israel and the righteous, but when Adam sinned, God suddenly changed his mind and instead made this world difficult and a new world as the destination for the righteous.  Yet, this concept so clearly clashes with the strong, repeated emphasis elsewhere in the text of an original, purposeful two-world dichotomy where the mortal world is a testing ground to determine who is worthy to enter the true inheritance, the immortal world to come.
A close reading of the passage under question, however, reveals a level of ambiguity in the Latin and Syriac that allows for a different reading, one which coincides with the author’s assertions throughout the rest of his treatise.  We see this ambiguity in three crucial points.  In my paper I argue, first, that when Uriel states in 7:11, “I made the world for their sake,” he is not referring to the mortal world, as in commonly assumed, but the immortal world to come.  Only if the world to come was the original inheritance of the righteous can we make sense of Uriel’s two examples immediately preceding this passage.
Next, I argue that the Latin phrase “iudicatum est quod factum est” in 7:11 does not mean “what had been made was judged” as if referring to the entire cosmos for all time, as most take it.  By looking at the phrase quod factum est elsewhere in 4 Ezra and its use outside the text, it is fairly clear that the phrase is translating a Greek “τὸ γεγονός” or equivalents, and refers not to a product or creature, not to something made, but to an event, something that has occurred: “What has happened/was done was judged,” referring to Adam’s actual transgression.
Finally, I argue that the Syriac “ܘܡܛܠ ܗܢܐ” which begins 7:12, “b/c of this,” need not refer to Adam’s transgression, but instead likely refers to the very fact that the world to come was the original destination for the righteous.  This is Uriel’s primary point in this passage and the very thing which Ezra is confused about.  Because the city is the heir’s true inheritance, the heir must pass through the dangerous, narrow path in order to reach it.  Likewise, because the world to come is Israel’s true inheritance, Israel must pass through the dangerous, narrow mortal world in order to reach it.
The reading I give of 4 Ezra 7:10-14 is grammatically and syntactically as acceptable as the traditional interpretation of the passage, but it has the advantage of both making sense of Uriel’s argument at this point in the text, and coinciding with the strong emphasis on an original two-world scheme espoused throughout the rest of the document, a scheme, which, not incidentally, is fully integrated into the author’s concept of the evil heart. 
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When in 1500 the Portuguese commander Pedro Álvares Cabral, headed for India, landed at an uncharted coast in the South-western Atlantic, he and his crew claimed the land for the Portuguese king, Manuel I, and named it after the Holy Cross consecrating all with a mass. Bid by Cabral, the ship’s scribe Pero Vaz de Caminha wrote a letter to the king announcing and describing their find and all their actions. The letter narrated the temperate weather, the abundance of trees and water, and also the possible existence of gold and silver. The soil was so rich that anything one tried to plant would most certainly flourish, he said. Caminha depicted the reddish-brown-skinned natives as innocent in their nudity, and wrote of their women showing their beautiful bodies as if they were unaware of the original sin. The resemblance to Edenic motifs and locus amoenus topoi is evident, as is the overlapping between Christian faith and the royal maritime enterprise. Decades later, the Land of Holy Cross, to the dismay of some men of letters and of the cloth, had its name changed to Brazil, partially after the brazilwood tree (‘Pau-Brasil’) which produced red dye and was the first significant Portuguese American commodity. Authors like João de Barros, in 1554, saw in the naming a refusal to pursue an evident divine election and denounced it as the victory of mercantile and sinful actions over Christian mission. As such, the alteration to the new name denied the important role that the Portuguese kingdom and its new possession ought to take in God's plan. A few years before the arrival of the Portuguese ship on the shores of future Brazil, Christopher Columbus found a land that he initially thought to be the Far East. The first and final destination of his endeavour supported by the Catholic kings of Spain, Columbus was trying to find a route to the East, as an alternative to that cut off by the fall of Constantinople, captured by the Ottomans. But when he realised that he was in an unheard of country of unknown peoples, he started to draw a prophetical plan based on pseudo-Joachimite writings in which the navigation and conquest of a New World would play a decisive part.

The essay introduces the concept of “proleptic existence” which denotes a psychological disposition determined by the anticipation (prolepsis) of the future. The first historical evidence for this type is found in the apocalyptic literature of the Greco-Roman period. As these texts clearly show, the proleptic expectation of a future transformation of the world results from a complete alienation from political reality. Consequently, proleptic existence becomes articulate in visionary accounts of a coming order, which predicts the reconciliation of individual consciousness and social order. The essay presents examples from ancient apocalypticism, early Christianity, medieval monasticism, and modern art in order to show how proleptic existence becomes a formative feature of Western society.

Much energy has been spent on discussions regarding the direction traveled by mystical practitioners (or readers!) in their quest to reach the heavenly palaces (hekhalot) and achieve a glimpse of the Divine Chariot (merkavah). The question is informed not in the least by the confusing language used in the Hekhalot texts themselves, describing a heavenly journey as a descent to the merkavah, and the reverse journey, as ascent. Likewise, the location of heaven is not altogether clear in the earlier Jewish and Christian apocalypses. Even in a number of biblical texts dealing with the heavenly realm in relation to earthly observers there seem to be cases of loss of the pivot. This paper proposes that the entire confusion is illusionary, the question a non-question, resulting from a traditional mis-placing of heaven “up there”.

The text of 4 Ezra has survived in many ancient languages. Among these, the Sahidic Coptic version is the most poorly attested. The focus here is to introduce a new Sahidic fragment of this Jewish pseudepigraphon, which is preserved in a bilingual Copto-Arabic manuscript from the Monastery of Apa Shenoute. This hitherto unknown fragment is datable to the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. The article provides an edition of the newly identified fragment, together with a paleographical description, an analysis of the text, and a survey of the relevant sources pertaining to the reception of 4 Ezra in Coptic and Copto-Arabic literature.

Th e present article contains an analysis of the text of the Ezra Apocalypse (4 Ezd 5:1-12; 6:11-28) concerning eschatological signs. The author investigates this problem in the wider context of the Ezra Apocalypse and biblical texts (Old and New Testament). This makes it possible to see better the main ideas of Jewish apocalyptic, which are also present in early Christianity. The analysis of the eschatological texts of the Ezra Apocalypse enables us to distinguish similarities and differences in the various groups of Judaism of the Second Temple period and its influence on eschatological ideas in the New Testament.

A prominent feature of both 1QHa 11:6–19 and the book of 4 Ezra is their use of imagery related to pregnancy, labor, and childbirth. In 1QHa 11:6–19, one of the most complex and allusive compositions in the Qumran Hodayot collection, birth imagery is used as one in a series of similes that illustrate the speaker’s situation of crisis. The motif of childbearing appears throughout the book of 4 Ezra, but plays an especially significant role in the central Episode Four (9.26–10.59), in which the new Jerusalem is born from the womb of the earth. Although 1QHa 11:6–19 and 4 Ezra are very different texts in terms of their genre, language, and dates of composition, their common use of birth imagery invites comparative study. Both compositions use the imagery of childbirth to describe a situation of crisis and transformation, and both draw on scriptural texts to construct this imagery. A comparison of the use of birth imagery in 1QHa 11:6–19 and 4 Ezra serves to highlight the creative and distinctive employment of this imagery in each text, especially with regard to three aspects: 1) the use and development of scriptural traditions (especially material from Isaiah and Jeremiah), 2) the perspective of the speaker or protagonist vis-à-vis the pregnant woman, and 3) the shifting referent of the pregnant woman. Given the importance of the childbearing motif in 1QHa 11:6–19 and 4 Ezra, a deeper understanding the significance of this motif provides insight into the larger messages and rhetorical goals of both of these texts.

Both apocalypses culminate on the day of the Pentecost. The starting point of the visions is the day of the reconsecration of the Temple after Exile, that is, in 2 Bar, 14.II (the day of the postponed Passover acc. to 2 Chr 30:15) and, in 4 Ez, 1.II (acc. to 1 Esd 5:55). Both calendars are the 364-day ones with the beginning of the year (1.I) on Wednesday (2 Bar) or Sunday (4 Ez; Sun 364-day calendar is also present in 2 Enoch and 3 Bar). The same calendrical/liturgical structure is shared, whereas in another (third) modification, by the Revelation of John and is reflected in the early Christian treatise of Barsabas of Jerusalem "On Christ and the Churches" (2nd or early 3rd cent.).

This article examines the notions of Torah and temple in the Book of Jubilees from the 2nd century BCE and in the post-70 CE apocalypses Fourth Ezra and Second Baruch. Each of these texts includes in its notion of Torah more than the Pentateuch, though details differ. Moreover, each of these texts has a differentiated view of the temple and applies some form of Urzeit-Endzeit correlation regarding the expected future temple.

In this critical exploration of the role of manuscripts in textual scholarship, Liv Ingeborg Lied studies the Syriac manuscript transmission of 2 Baruch. These manuscripts emerge as salient sources to the long life of 2 Baruch among Syriac speaking Christians, not merely witnesses to an early Jewish text. Inspired by the perspective of New Philology, Lied addresses manuscript materiality and paratextual features, the history of ownership, traces of active readers and liturgical use, and practices of excerption and re-identi cation. The author's main concerns are the methodological, epistemological and ethical challenges of exploring early Jewish writings that survive only in Christian transmission. Through engagement with the established academic narratives, she retells the story of 2 Baruch and makes a case for manuscript-and provenanceaware textual scholarship.

This is a chapter excerpted from my book TEXTUAL AND COMPARATIVE EXPLORATIONS IN 1 & 2 ENOCH (2014). Here I document that Enochic traits have been transferred to the Ezra figure in 4 Ezra, and that this forms the background of the Quranic Uzayr, who is an Enochic-complexioned Ezra.

Two types of exegetical habits shape interpretations of Lukan eschatology: enduring assumptions when approaching the text that, in contrast to his synoptic siblings, Luke has removed eschatological interest in response to the delayed parousia; and recent tendencies to focus on genre and thus to compare Luke/Acts to (predominantly) non-Jewish Graeco-Roman historiographies, where themes of an eschatological character do not feature. This study takes a fresh approach, demonstrating the need to consider Luke’s text within its broader literary context, providing a rigorous methodology for cross-genre comparisons of themes which transcend generic boundaries, and ultimately reasserting the importance of Luke’s understanding of the end of history as it reshapes experience in the present.

It is my primary intent in this two-part essay to secure the coherence of the entire visionary text of the book of Revelation (1:9—22:20). This coherence is demonstrated in the “steady hand” of John’s very intentional and creative use of literary devices found within Hebrew prophetic writings (e.g., Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah), the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Jewish and Christ-follower apocalyptic literature (e.g., 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, Martyrdom of Isaiah). I have previously argued that John’s adoption of, and adaptation of, three of these literary devices allows him to create a reiterative structure.  This consistent and cohesive structure communicates an intricately interconnected and unified narrative of his ecstatic visionary experience to his Christos-following ekklēsia associations in Roman Asia.
One of the three literary devices—the “space/time referent”—textually delimits John’s visionary journey from 1:9 to 22:20. The rest of Revelation uniquely (and anomalously) forms an epistolary inclusio (1:1-8; 22:21). The other two visionary literary devices found in Hebrew prophetic and Jewish and Christian apocalyptic texts are: (1) the clause meta tauta eidon (“after these things I saw”) and its variations; and (2) the clause kai eidon (kai idou) (“and I saw [and behold]”).
The Apocalypse has only one occurrence of a “space/time referent” (1:9, 10: “I, John . . . was on the island of Patmos . . . On the Lord’s Day . . .”). Given the fact that there is no other occurrence of a “space/time referent” in the book of Revelation, John implies thereby that he experienced his visionary episode at a single point in time, and not progressively over different times in his life.
In this two-part essay, I extend my previous work by providing the full extent of the research that undergirds my above conclusions with respect to Revelation’s textual and narratival coherence. I examine all occurrences of “space/time referents” within the HB, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Jewish and Christ-follower apocalyptic literature. One of my findings is that there are two forms of “space/time referents.” Hebrew prophetic writings favour one variant (the calendrical/imperial version) while Jewish apocalyptic literature favours the other (the generalized version). The book of Revelation appears to synthesize both approaches through its use of the (hybrid?) prepositional phrase “on the imperial/lordly day” (hē kyriakē hēmera). This reinforces the perception that John intentionally created a hybrid text that has intrinsic ties both to the prophetic and apocalyptic genres. Another finding is that John appears to be unique in having leveraged the two Greek literary devices for the purpose of creating a reiterative structure that is able to provide narratival coherence for the hearer/reader when seeking to correlate and integrate singular events that recur in multiple textual locations (e.g., “the great earthquake”). I call John’s distinctive narrative technique “textual blocking.”

This extended handout reflects the content of a presentation for a Theological Research Seminar sponsored by McMaster Divinity College on Jan 13, 2021. My presentation explores the following question within the context of Second Temple Jewish and early Christ-follower literature: “Might the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation, in its presentation as the dwelling place of God, represent not only a place for people but also a future (and a present) people who are place?” I also explore the practical implications of my theological findings relative to how Christ-followers today can more visibly "become" the New Jerusalem/Church/presence of God in their local communities.

This article discusses various Rabbinic positions regarding whether Ezra the Scribe—who was a Kohen—served as the High Priest in the Holy Temple after returning to Jerusalem from the Babylonian Exile. In doing so, the article explains the relationship between Ezra and Joshua ben Jehozedek and traces the history of the returnees from Babylonian Exile. Several proofs from Mishnaic and Midrashic sources are considered and some are rejected. Special attention is given to the stance of Maimonides on this issue. In attempting to reconcile these sources, the article proposes a difference between the terms “High Priest” and “Chief Priest”.