The Apocalyptic Imagination - Session Eight: IV Ezra

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 The Apocalyptic Imagination – Session Eight

After the Destruction of the Temple: IV Ezra

The textual history of IV Ezra is a complicated one.  The early modern English bibles such as the Geneva Bible, the Bishops’ Bible, and the King James version all included what we are calling IV Ezra as part of the Apocrypha under the title II Esdras.  The text we know as IV Ezra (or the “Apocalypse of Ezra” is contained in chapters 3-14 of II Esdras. The copy I have linked to for you to read includes chapters 1-16. Chapters 1, 15 & 16 are later Christian additions and did not form part of the original text.  They are useful to read to understand how Christians adapted a Jewish apocalypse for their own theological needs. There is a school of thought that suggests this is how the Book of Revelation was composed (an older Jewish apocalypse was Christianized).  For our purposes, we will be looking at IV chapters 3-14 as an example of a later Jewish apocalypse.

Date of Composition:

Although it is difficult to date from external evidence, the internal evidence points to a post-Jewish war (AD 66-70) date. In AD 70, the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple.  Chapter 3 opens with “In the thirtieth year after the destruction of our city, I Salathiel, who am also called Ezra, was in Babylon.”  The conceit of the text, therefore, is that the author is Ezra the scribe and priest, who reintroduced the Torah into the Jewish Temple after the end of the Babylonian captivity (587 BC).  Of course, the author of the present work is not Ezra and is writing under the pseudonym of Ezra.  Therefore, one is left to wonder if the destruction of the Temple that is actually being discussed is not the destruction of the First Temple in 587 BC, but rather the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70.  This seems to be confirmed in chapters 11 & 12 in the vision of a three-headed, twelve-winged eagle.  Without too much difficulty, we can interpret the eagle as the Roman empire, the wings being the number of emperors down to the time the text was written, and the three heads as three of the Flavian emperors.  If the text really is written “in the thirtieth year after the destruction of our city,” then the text may have been composed around AD 100.  The place of origin is likely Palestine.

Structure of Book:

Chapters 3-14 are divided into seven visions.  The first three visions contain dialogues or disputations, while the final four visions our more traditionally predictive.  Visions 1 & 2 make essentially the same point about sin and divine inequality, while vision 3 is longer and much more complicated.  The final four visions are quite varied in content and imagery including the “mourning mother”, a typical image of an incredible beast (the eagle), a vision of the Son of Man with an interesting twist of him “coming from the sea”, and finally Ezra’s commission.  The narrative thrust of the book is a move from Ezra’s skepticism to acceptance.

Ezra's vision of the Son of Man coming from the Sea


Key Theological Issues:

A number of key theological questions and themes are posed in the text.  Amongst them are:

·       If humanity is corrupt by nature, then how is it possible to attain righteousness.  Is Israel any better than Babylon? Where is God’s justice? Where is God’s mercy? Is there any hope?

·         Lamentation over the fate of humanity and concern for the fate of the unrighteous (only a small number shall be saved)

·         God’s ways are greater than human ways; God is unfathomable; God’s ways do not require justification

·         Glory of the Mosaic Law

·         Conversion (calming fear and building trust)

·         Individual merit as the basis of salvation (vs. much of the mainstream of early Jewish thought)

·         Ezra as “new Moses” (Restoration of Israel through Torah)

Questions for Reflection:

What seems unique about this particular apocalypse in comparison to the other apocalypses we have studied?

Which features of Koch’s features of apocalyptic literature are present (or absent) from IV Ezra?

Consider the differences of the theological world-view of IV Ezra with the Enoch texts, and the Christian apocalypses.

What is being “revealed” in this apocalypse?

What is the moral problem of the text?

Is there any fresh revelation for modern people of faith to be found in IV Ezra?

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