Latin Apocalypse of Ezra

By Scriptural Research Institute

In the early centuries of the Christian era, several texts called the Apocalypse of Ezra were in circulation among Jews and Christians. The original is believed to have been written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Syriac, and is commonly known as the Judahite Apocalypse of Ezra. This version was translated into Greek sometime before 200 AD and circulated

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digital Ink Productions
• Release date: Apr 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781989852118

Book preview

Latin Apocalypse of Ezra

Apocalypses of Ezra, Volume 2

SCRIPTURAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Published by Digital Ink Productions, 2023

COPYRIGHT

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

Latin Apocalypse of Ezra

Digital edition. November 27, 2023

Copyright © 2023 Scriptural Research Institute.

ISBN: 978-1989852118

This Apocalypse of Ezra was likely written in Aramaic or Syriac. Greek, Thracian, and Latin translations were in circulation by 400 AD. This English translation was created by the Scriptural Research Institute in 2020 through 2023.

The image used for the cover is an artistic reinterpretation of ‘The Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus’ by Wilhelm von Kaulbach, painted circa 1846.

Note: The notes for this book include multiple ancient scripts. For your convenience, fonts correctly depicting these scripts are embedded in the ebook. If your reader does not support embedded fonts, you will need to install Unicode fonts that cover the ranges for Arabic, Cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Greek, Hebrew, Imperial Aramaic, Linear B, Old Persian, Phoenician, Syriac, and Ugaritic on your reader manually, or you may see blank areas, question marks, or squares where the scripts are used. The Noto fonts from Google cover most of the scripts used, however, will not depict Egyptian hieroglyphs, Neo-Assyrian cuneiform, Neo-Babylonian cuneiform, or Neshite (Hittite) cuneiform correctly due to current limitations in Unicode.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Forward

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Restoration: Chapter 1

Restoration: Chapter 2

Restoration: Chapter 3

Restoration: Chapter 4

Manuscripts

Available Digitally

Available in Print

FORWARD

In the early centuries of the Christian era, several texts called the Apocalypse of Ezra were in circulation among Jews and Christians. The original is believed to have been written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Syriac, and is commonly known as the Judahite Apocalypse of Ezra. This version was translated into Greek sometime before 200 AD and circulated widely within the early Christian churches. This book claimed that the prophet ‘Shealtiel, who was called Ezra’ wrote 904 books, and its popularity seems to have inspired several Christian era Apocalypses of Ezra, presumably beginning with the short Latin Apocalypse of Ezra which claimed to be the ‘second book of the prophet Ezra.’

The prophet Shealtiel was not Ezra the scribe, whom the books of Ezra are named after in the Septuagint and Masoretic text, but the son of former King Jehoiachin of Judah, who had been taken captive by the Babylonians in 597 BC. However, the author of the Latin Apocalypse of Ezra, explicitly states that the author was Ezra the scribe, and includes his genealogy. Ezra the scribe was a Levite and is recorded as operating in Jerusalem in the later Persian era, circa 351 BC. This suggests that the author of the ‘Second Apocalypse of Ezra’ did not understand much about the original Apocalypse of Ezra. In the Judahite apocalypse, he is called Ezra by the messenger Uriel, which translates as ‘helper’ or ‘assistant,’ and the term is treated as a title, not his name. Conversely, Ezra the scribe, who lived 250 years later, was named Ezra. During the intervening centuries, the title had become a name, demonstrating how widespread the text was in the Babylonian and Persian eras.

The Judahite Apocalypse of Ezra was adopted under a variety of names into the Bibles of most older churches before the Protestant Reformation. In the 4th century, it was called 3rd Ezra by Archbishop Ambrose (Aurelius Ambrosius) of Milan, who numbered it in sequence after the 1st and 2nd Ezras from the Septuagint. This name continues to be used in Slavic, Armenian, and Georgian Orthodox Bibles, however, Jerome (Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus) rejected the majority of books attributed to Ezra when he translated the original Latin Vulgate Bible. At the time, there were many Apocalypses of Ezra in circulation, most of which had been written recently, and as a result of this confusion, Jerome rejected everything other than the Septuagint’s 2nd Ezra, for which there was a Hebrew translation that could be used for comparison. This book was subsequently split into two books of Ezra and Nehemiah, based on the internal division of the text.

In 1592, Pope Clement VIII’s creation of a Catholic Bible added both 1st and 3rd Ezra into the Catholic Bible under the names 3rd and 4th Esdras. Esdras was the direct Latin transliteration of the Greek version of Ezra’s name: Ἔσδρας. During the Protestant Reformation, the books of 3rd and 4th Esdras were renamed 1st and 2nd Esdras, as they continue to be listed in Protestant Bibles that include them.

Unfortunately, the Latin translation of the Apocalypse of Ezra that Clement added to the Catholic Vulgate included the shorter Latin Apocalypse of Ezra, resulting in the Catholic and Protestant Bibles having longer, and self-contradicting versions of the apocalypse in comparison to Orthodox Bibles. The Latin translation of the Judahite Apocalypse of Ezra did circulate for centuries without the addition of the shorter Latin Apocalypse of Ezra, as evidenced by the Slavonic translation, which is believed to have been translated from Latin and not Greek.

The shorter Latin Apocalypse of Ezra has become fused with the Judahite Apocalypse of Ezra in most Catholic and Protestant translations, however, scholars divide the Catholic version of 4th Esdras (Protestant 2nd Esdras) into three sections, with only the core twelve chapters that correspond to the Orthodox and Ethiopian versions of the book labeled as 4th Ezra. The opening two chapters, which are only found in the Catholic version, are labeled as 5th Ezra, while the last 2 chapters found in the Catholic version, as well as fragments surviving in an ancient Greek translation, are labeled 6th Ezra. One of the Greek fragments, Oxyrhynchus Papyri 1010, is the oldest surviving fragment of the various Apocalypses of Ezra, dated to the 4th century AD, unfortunately, only two paragraphs survive. 5th Ezra and 6th Ezra appear to have originally been one document, which is commonly called the Latin Apocalypse of Ezra, although it was almost certainly not written in Latin.

There is no consensus of when the Latin Apocalypse of Ezra was written, however, it appears to be an early Christian era reworking of an Aramaic Apocalypse. The Apocalypse’s claim to being the second book of the prophet Ezra implies that the author was positioning it as the sequel to the Judahite Apocalypse of Ezra, and as such it does not repeat the same material as the Judahite Apocalypse, unlike some of the other apocalypses. 5th and 6th Ezra appear to have been in circulation together before being united with the Judahite apocalypse but do not appear to have originated as one text. 5th Ezra appears to be a Greco-Roman era introduction to the older 6th Ezra prophecy, which reattributes it to Ezra the scribe as the author does not appear to have understood that they were two different people who lived centuries apart.

In chapters 1 and 2 of the apocalypse, which is 5th Ezra, the author claims to be Ezra the scribe and gives his genealogy, which is found in the books of Ezra from the Masoretic text and Septuagint, however, then claims he had been held captive in Media during the time of Artaxerxes. While Ezra the scribe did live during the reign of a king named Artaxerxes, neither of the Ezras were recorded as being held captive in Media. The Shealtiel that was also called Ezra from the Judahite Apocalypse is usually considered the same Shealtiel who returned from Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem after the Persians conquered Babylon, while Ezra the scribe also reported living in the city of Babylon before returning to Jerusalem.

Chapter 3 and the beginning of chapter 4 of the apocalypse, the bulk of 6th Ezra, appear to be much older and describe a world that the author of the longer apocalypse did not seem to understand. The