…and beyond
2 Esdras
Seven anguished visions asking why the wicked prosper, and why God chose a people who suffer.
An apocalypse, and the strangest book in this collection. Its core is a series of seven visions given to Ezra after the fall of Jerusalem, in which he argues with the angel Uriel about the justice of God with a persistence closer to Job than to anything else in the Jewish scriptures: if God loved his people, why are they destroyed, and why were so many made if so few will be saved. The answers are not comforting and the book does not pretend otherwise. Christian chapters were added at both ends. It was never in the Greek Septuagint, survives mainly in Latin, and is not canonical for Catholics or for most Orthodox; the Latin appendix and the Protestant Apocrypha are where it is usually found.
If you remember one thing
Seven visions wrestling with the same question Job asked, now on a national scale, from a writer who has just watched the temple burn a second time.
Who, when, and why
- Written
- A composite apocalypse, its core written after AD 70.
- First readers
- Jews grieving the destruction of the second temple.
- Why it was written
- To ask why God allows a wicked empire to crush a people who bear his name.
How it is shaped
- 1 to 2Christian additions
- 3 to 14Seven visions, and the argument with Uriel
- 15 to 16Further Christian additions
What it keeps coming back to
A verse to carry
“Your understanding has utterly failed regarding this world, and do you think you can comprehend the way of the Most High?”
2 Esdras 4:2
Passages that trouble readers
2 Esdras 7:45-61
That few will be saved and many lost, stated more bleakly than anywhere in the canonical scriptures, and the angel refuses to soften it.
Canon and transmission
Never in the Greek Septuagint, surviving mainly in Latin, not canonical for Catholics or most Orthodox, and usually found in the Latin appendix or the Protestant Apocrypha.
Named here rather than skipped. Where Christians read a passage differently, we say so instead of choosing for you.
Who receives this book
In the Slavonic Bible and the Latin appendix, and printed in the King James Apocrypha; not in the Catholic or Greek Orthodox canons.
No one from this book has a write-up yet. The hall is still filling.
A quiz for 2 Esdras is on the workbench. In the meantime, the games for the judges, the kings, and the prophets are open.