2 Esdras

The first two chapters of 2 Esdras are found only in the Latin version of the book, and are called 5 Ezra by scholars.[10] 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 (possibly third century) to the work.

Chapters 3–14, or the great bulk of 2 Esdras, is a Jewish apocalypse, also sometimes known as 4 Ezra[10] or the Jewish Apocalypse of Ezra.[11] 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 (ዕዝራ ሱቱኤል). 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 first century CE following the destruction of the Second Temple.[11]

Among Greek Fathers of the Church, 4 Ezra is generally cited as Προφήτης Ἔσδρας Prophetes Esdras ("The Prophet Ezra") or Ἀποκάλυψις Ἔσδρα Apokalupsis Esdra ("Apocalypse of Ezra"). Most scholars agree that 4 Ezra was composed in Hebrew,[12] 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; 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.

A medieval stained-glass panel depicting the Archangel Uriel with Ezra

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".[13]

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 (12 large wings and eight smaller wings "over against them"). 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.

Ezra produces the 94 books (Codex Amiatinus, eighth century)

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 94 books: the 24 books of the Tanakh and 70 secret works:

Make public the 24 books that you wrote first, and let the worthy and the unworthy read them; but keep the 70 that were written last, in order to give them to the wise among your people." (2 Esdras 14:45–46 RSV; 4 Ezra 12:45–46)

The "seventy" might refer to the Septuagint, most of the apocrypha, or the lost books that are described in the Bible.

Almost all Latin editions of the text have a large lacuna[14] 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[15] and in 1895 M.R. James oversaw a critical edition from Bensly's notes[16] 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.[17] 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 (2 Esd. 10:25–27). 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.[3]^: 31

The following verses (10:28–59) 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 (2 Esd. 10:55–59).

The last two chapters, also called 6 Ezra by scholars,[10] 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 (perhaps late third century) 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.