2 Esdras
2 Esdras, also called 4 Esdras, Latin Esdras, or Latin Ezra, is an apocalyptic book in some English versions of the Bible. Tradition ascribes it to Ezra, a scribe and priest of the fifth century BC, whom the book identifies with the sixth-century figure Shealtiel.
2 Esdras forms a part of the canon of Scripture in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, though it is reckoned among the apocrypha by Roman Catholics and Protestants. Within Eastern Orthodoxy it forms a part of the canon although its usage varies by different traditions. 2 Esdras was translated by Jerome as part of the Vulgate, though he placed it in an appendix.
Naming conventions
As with 1 Esdras, some confusion exists about the numbering of this book. The Vulgate of Jerome includes only a single book of Ezra, but in the Clementine Vulgate, 1, 2, 3 and 4 Esdras are separate books. Protestant writers, after the Geneva Bible, called 1 and 2 Esdras of the Vulgate Ezra and Nehemiah, respectively, and called 3 and 4 Esdras of the Vulgate 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras, respectively. These then became the common names for these books in English Bibles.Medieval Latin manuscripts denoted it 4 Esdras, which to this day is the name used for chapters 3–14 in modern critical editions, which are typically in Latin, the language of its most complete exemplars.
It appears in the Appendix to the Old Testament in the Slavonic Bible, where it is called 3 Esdras, and the Georgian Orthodox Bible numbers it 3 Ezra. This text is sometimes also known as Apocalypse of Ezra — chapters 3–14 known as the Jewish Apocalypse of Ezra or 4 Ezra; in modern critical editions, chapters 1–2 are named as 5 Ezra, and chapters 15–16 as 6 Ezra.
Bogaert speculates that the "fourth book of Ezra" referred to by Jerome most likely corresponds to modern 5 Ezra and 6 Ezra combined, and notes a number of Latin manuscripts where these chapters are together in an appendix.
Contents
5 Ezra
The first two chapters of 2 Esdras are found only in the Latin version of the book, and are called 5 Ezra by scholars. They are considered by most scholars to be Christian in origin; they assert God's rejection of the Jews and describe a vision of the Son of God. These are generally considered to be late additions to the work.4 Ezra
Chapters 3–14, or the great bulk of 2 Esdras, is a Jewish apocalypse, also sometimes known as 4 Ezra or the Jewish Apocalypse of Ezra. The latter name should not be confused with a later work called the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra.The Ethiopian Church considers 4 Ezra to be canonical, written during the Babylonian captivity, and calls it Izra Sutuel. It was also often cited by the Fathers of the Church. In the Eastern Armenian tradition, it is called 3 Ezra. It was written in the late following the destruction of the Second Temple.
Among Greek Fathers of the Church, 4 Ezra is generally cited as Προφήτης Ἔσδρας Prophetes Esdras or Ἀποκάλυψις Ἔσδρα Apokalupsis Esdra. Most scholars agree that 4 Ezra was composed in Hebrew, which was translated into Greek, and then to Latin, Armenian, Ethiopian, and Georgian, but the Hebrew and Greek editions have been lost.
Slightly differing Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Georgian, and Armenian translations have survived in their entirety; the Greek version can be reconstructed, though without absolute certainty, from these different translations, while the Hebrew text remains more elusive. The modern Slavonic version is translated from the Latin.
4 Ezra consists of seven visions of Ezra the scribe. The first vision takes place as Ezra is still in Babylon. He asks God how Israel can be kept in misery if God is just. The archangel Uriel is sent to answer the question, responding that God's ways cannot be understood by the human mind. Soon, however, the end would come, and God's justice would be made manifest. Similarly, in the second vision, Ezra asks why Israel was delivered up to the Babylonians, and is again told that man cannot understand this and that the end is near. In the third vision, Ezra asks why Israel does not possess the world. Uriel responds that the current state is a period of transition. Here follows a description of the fate of evil-doers and the righteous. Ezra asks whether the righteous may intercede for the unrighteous on Judgment Day, but is told that "Judgment Day is final".
The next three visions are more symbolic in nature. The fourth is of a woman mourning for her only son. She is transformed into a city when she hears of the desolation of Zion. Uriel says that the woman is a symbol of Zion. The fifth vision concerns an eagle with three heads and 20 wings. The eagle is rebuked by a lion and then burned. The explanation of this vision is that the eagle refers to the fourth kingdom of the vision of Daniel, with the wings and heads as rulers. The final scene is the triumph of the Messiah over the empire. The sixth vision is of a man, representing the Messiah, who breathes fire on a crowd that is attacking him. This man then turns to another peaceful multitude, which accepts him.
Finally, a vision of the restoration of scripture is related. God appears to Ezra in a bush and commands him to restore the Law. Ezra gathers five scribes and begins to dictate. After 40 days, he has produced 204 books, including 70 works to be published last. 2 Esdras 14:44–48 KJV:
44 In forty days they wrote two hundred and four books.
45 And it came to pass, when the forty days were filled, that the Highest spake, saying, The first that thou hast written publish openly, that the worthy and unworthy may read it:
46 But keep the seventy last, that thou mayest deliver them only to such as be wise among the people:
47 For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the stream of knowledge.
48 And I did so.
The "seventy" might refer to the Septuagint, most of the apocrypha, or the lost books that are described in the Bible. But it is more probable that the number is just symbolic.
Almost all Latin editions of the text have a large lacuna of 70 verses between 7:35 and 7:36 that is missing because they trace their common origin to one early manuscript, Codex Sangermanensis I, from which an entire page had been cut out very early in its history. In 1875 Robert Lubbock Bensly published the lost verses and in 1895 M.R. James oversaw a critical edition from Bensly's notes restoring the lost verses from the complete text found in the Codex Colbertinus; this edition is used in the Stuttgart edition of the Vulgate. The restored verses are numbered 7:35 to 7:105, with the former verses 7:36–7:70 renumbered to 7:106–7:140. For more information, see the article Codex Sangermanensis I.
Second Esdras turns around a radical spiritual conversion of Ezra in a vision, where he stops to comfort a sobbing woman who turns instantly into a great city. On this pivotal event, one scholar writes that Ezra:
is badly frightened, he loses consciousness and calls for his angelic guide. The experience described is unique, not just in 4 Ezra, but in the whole Jewish apocalyptic literature. Its intensity complements the pressure of unrelieved stress evident in the first part of the vision, and it resembles the major orientation of personality usually connected with religious conversion.
The following verses reveal that Ezra had a vision of the heavenly Jerusalem, the true city of Zion, which the angel of the Lord invites him to explore. As the angel tells Ezra at the end of Chapter 10 in the Authorised Version:
And therefore fear not,
let not thine heart be affrighted,
but go thy way in,
and see the beauty and greatness of the building,
as much as thine eyes be able to see;
and then shalt thou hear as much as thine ears may comprehend.
For thou art blessed above many other
and art called with the Highest and so are but few.
But tomorrow at night thou shalt remain here and so shall the Highest show thee visions of the high things which the Most High will do unto them that dwell upon earth in the last days.
So I slept that night and another like as he commanded me.
6 Ezra
The last two chapters, also called 6 Ezra by scholars, and found in the Latin, but not in the Eastern texts, predict wars and rebuke sinners. Many assume that they probably date from a much later period and may be Christian in origin; though not certain, they possibly were added at the same time as the first two chapters of the Latin version. They likely are Jewish in origin, however; 15:57–59 have been found in Greek, which most scholars agree was translated from a Hebrew original.Author and criticism
The main body of the book appears to be written for consolation in a period of great distress. The author seeks answers, similar to Job's quest for understanding the meaning of suffering, but the author does not like or desire only the answer that was given to Job.Critics question whether even the main body of the book, not counting the chapters that exist only in the Latin version and in Greek fragments, has a single author. Kalisch, De Faye, and Charles hold that no fewer than five people worked on the text. However, Gunkel points to the unity in character and holds that the book is written by a single author; the author of 2 Esdras has also been suggested to have written the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch. In any case, the two texts may date from about the same time, and one almost certainly depends on the other.
Critics have widely debated the origin of the book. Hidden under two layers of translation, determining whether the author was Roman, Alexandrian, or Judean is impossible.
The scholarly interpretation of the eagle being the Roman Empire and the destruction of the temple would indicate that the probable date of composition lies toward the end of the first century, perhaps 90–96, though some suggest a date as late as 218.