Jason Zurawski

From Brill's Website:

The two Jewish works that are the subject of this volume, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, were written around the turn of the first century CE in the aftermath of the Roman destruction of the Second Temple. Both texts are apocalypses, and both occupy an important place in early Jewish literature and thought: they were composed right after the Second Temple period, as Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity began to emerge.

The twenty essays in this volume were first presented and discussed at the Sixth Enoch Seminar at the Villa Cagnola at Gazzada, near Milan, Italy, on June 26-30, 2011. Together they reflect the lively debate about 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch among the most distinguished specialists in the field.

The Contributors are: Gabriele Boccaccini; Daniel Boyarin; John J. Collins; Devorah Dimant; Lutz Doering; Lorenzo DiTommaso; Steven Fraade; Lester L. Grabbe; Matthias Henze; Karina M. Hoogan; Liv Ingeborg Lied; Hindy Najman; George W.E. Nickelsburg; Eugen Pentiuc; Pierluigi Piovanelli; Benjamin Reynolds; Loren Stuckenbruck; Balázs Tamási; Alexander Toepel; Adela Yarbro Collins

Table of contents
Part One: Introduction

1. Matthias Henze, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch: The Status Quaestionis


Part Two: 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch and pre-70 C.E. Jewish Literature

2. Devorah Dimant, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch in Light of Qumran Literature

3. Gabriele Boccaccini, The Evilness of Human Nature in 1 Enoch, Jubilees, Paul, and 4 Ezra: A Second Temple Jewish Debate


Part Three: Pseudepigraphy in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch

4. John J. Collins, Enoch and Ezra

5. Hindy Najman, Traditionary Processes and Textual Unity in 4 Ezra

6. Lorenzo DiTommaso, Who is the ‘I’ of 4 Ezra?


Part Four: A Close Reading of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch

7. Loren Stuckenbruck, Ezra's Vision of the Lady: Form and Function of a Turning Point

8. Lutz Doering, The Epistle of Baruch and its Role in 2 Baruch

9. Benjamin Reynolds, The Otherworldly Mediators in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch: A Comparison with Angelic Mediators in Ascent Apocalypses and in Daniel, Ezekiel, and Zechariah

10. Balás Tamási, Baruch as a Prophet in 2 Baruch


Part Five: The Social and Historical Context of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch

11. Lester Grabbe, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch in Social and Historical Perspective

12. Pierluigi Piovanelli, Why Ezra and not Enoch? Rewriting the Script of the First Exile with the Hope for a Prompt Restoration of Zion’s Fortunes

Part Six: 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, and Early Christianity

13. Adela Yarbro Collins, The Uses of Apocalyptic Eschatology

14. George Nickelsburg, A New Testament Reader’s Guide to 2 Baruch: Or A 2 Baruch Reader’s Guide to the New Testament

15. Alexander Toepel, On a Possible Baptismal Background of 4 Ezra 13:3-6

16. Eugen Pentiuc, The Nature of the Resurrected Bodies in 2 Baruch and the New Testament


Part Seven: 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, and post-70 C.E. Jewish Literature

17. Daniel Boyarin, Enoch, Ezra, and the Jewishness of “High Christology”

18. Steven Fraade, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch with the (Dis-) Advantage of Rabbinic Hindsight


Part Eight: The Nachleben of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch

19. Karina Hogan, The Preservation of 4 Ezra in the Vulgate: Thanks to Ambrose, not Jerome

20. Liv Ingeborg Lied, Nachleben and Textual Identity: Variants and Variance in the Reception History of 2 Baruch

"From Brill's website:

New Perspectives on 2 Enoch: No Longer Slavonic Only presents a collection of papers from the fifth conference of the Enoch Seminar. The conference re-examines 2 Enoch, an early Jewish apocalyptic text previously known to scholars only in its Slavonic translation, in light of recently identified Coptic fragments. This approach helps to advance the understanding of many key issues of this enigmatic and less explored Enochic text. One of the important methodological lessons of the current volume lies in the recognition that the Adamic and Melchizedek traditions, the mediatorial currents which play an important role in the apocalypse, are central for understanding the symbolic universe of the text. The volume also contains the recently identified Coptic fragments of 2 Enoch, introduced to scholars for the first time during the conference.

CONTENTS:
Preface
Andrei A. Orlov and Gabriele Boccaccini

PART ONE: 2 ENOCH
No Longer “Slavonic” Only: 2 Enoch Attested in Coptic from Nubia
Joost L. Hagen

TEXT AND DATING OF 2 ENOCH
The “Book of the Secrets of Enoch” (2 En): Between Jewish Origin and Christian Transmission. An Overview
Christfried Böttrich
The Provenance of 2 Enoch: A Philological Perspective. A Response to C. Böttrich’s Paper “The ‘Book of the Secrets of Enoch’ (2 En): Between Jewish Origin and Christian Transmission. An Overview”
Liudmila Navtanovich
2 Enoch: Manuscripts, Recensions, and Original Language
Grant Macaskill
The Sacerdotal Traditions of 2 Enoch and the Date of the Text
Andrei A. Orlov
Excavating 2 Enoch: The Question of Dating and the Sacerdotal Traditions
David W. Suter

CONTENT AND CONTEXT OF 2 ENOCH
2 Enoch and the New Perspective on Apocalyptic
Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis
The Watchers of Satanail: The Fallen Angels Traditions in 2 Enoch
Andrei A. Orlov
Patriarch, Prophet, Author, Angelic Rival: Exploring the Relationship of 1 Enoch to 2 Enoch in Light of the Figure of Enoch
Daniel Assefa and Kelley Coblentz Bautch
Calendrical Elements in 2 Enoch
Basil Lourié
2 Enoch and Halakhah
Lawrence H. Schiffman
Halakha, Calendars, and the Provenances of 2 Enoch
Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra

PART TWO: ADAM, ENOCH, AND MELCHIZEDEK: MEDIATORIAL FIGURES IN SECOND TEMPLE JUDAISM

ADAMIC TRADITIONS
Adam as a Mediatorial Figure in Second Temple Jewish Literature
John R. Levison
Better Watch Your Back, Adam: Another Adam and Eve Tradition in Second Temple Judaism
Lester L. Grabbe
Adamic Traditions in 2 Enoch and in the Books of Adam and Eve
Johannes Magliano-Tromp
Adamic Traditions in Early Christian and Rabbinic Literature
Alexander Toepel
Adamic Tradition in Slavonic Manuscripts (Vita Adae et Evae and Apocryphal Cycle about the Holy Tree)
Anissava Miltenova

MELCHIZEDEK TRADITIONS
Melchizedek Traditions in Second Temple Judaism
Eric F. Mason
Melchizedek at Qumran and in Judaism: A Response
Devorah Dimant
Enoch and Melchizedek: The Concern for Supra-Human Priestly Mediators in 2 Enoch
Charles A. Gieschen
Melchizedek in Some Early Christian Texts and 2 Enoch
Harold W. Attridge
“Much to Say and Hard to Explain”: Melchizedek in Early Christian Literature, Theology, and Controversy
Pierluigi Piovanelli
On Adam, Enoch, Melchizedek, and Eve
Daphna Arbel
Bibliography on 2 Enoch
Andrei A. Orlov"

Paideia is one of Philo's most consistent preoccupations. It was so thoroughly foun-dational for the Alexandrian that he built it into nearly every aspect of his philosophy and worldview. Paideia was the tool needed to acquire virtue and wisdom, eradicate the passions, become an ideal citizen of the world, and secure the immortal life of the soul. The following explores the role of the Mosaic law within Philo's overall theory of education, looking at what made the law such a unique pedagogical resource, how it functioned at various levels of education, what its relationship was to the other forms of education Philo deemed necessary—the curriculum of encyclical paideia and the study of philosophy—and, ultimately, what Philo's idealized vision of Jewish education can tell us about his deeper concerns for his fellow Alexandrian Jews and his understanding of Jewish identity in the Mediterranean diaspora.

""Philo’s allegorical reading of Genesis’ Hagar, Sarah, and Abraham narrative deals with the advantages, and possible disadvantages, of a Greek education. In his reading, Hagar represents encyclical paideia, or what we might call liberal arts, subjects pertaining to a specifically Greek education such as grammar, rhetoric, or music. For Philo, this education (i.e. Hagar) was an absolutely essential step for Abraham in the attainment of his true desire, virtue or wisdom (i.e. Sarah), the former preparing him for the latter. While for Philo, Greek paideia was an often necessary means to attaining wisdom, there were dangers involved, namely becoming too devoted to the maidservant to the detriment of the mistress. Sarah banished Hagar because once Abraham obtained wisdom, he no longer had need for the encyclical studies.
Paul’s reading of the narrative, on the surface, seems completely unrelated, and scholars, not surprisingly, have almost universally rejected any connection between the two. While I do not suggest that Paul was necessarily reading Philo, I do believe there is good reason for attempting to understand Paul’s exegesis in light of Philo’s. Two popular topics of conversation among Jews in the Diaspora were, one, Mosaic Law as a means to obtaining wisdom, and two, Greek paideia as a more cautious means to wisdom. Paul’s reading, then, becomes part of this conversation, yet with some fairly drastic innovation due precisely to his new understanding of wisdom, fully available now only as or through Christ. Paul conflates the two paths to wisdom, Mosaic Torah and Greek paideia, the Torah itself becoming Hagar, Philo’s encyclical studies. It has a definite purpose, but once the goal of wisdom is reached, it is no longer needed. Paul, therefore, warns the Galatians of the dangers of returning to the Mosaic Law, as pedagogue and paideia, once having attained true wisdom via Christ. This reading of the allegory shows a consistency in Paul’s argumentation in the letter which has been lost due to the more typical interpretations of the allegory.
""

Paideia is a fundamental concept in the Wisdom of Solomon; in its various manifestations, it appears to function as a unifying factor in a text for which early scholarship claimed multiple authorship and which all modern experts agree can be somehow divided into three parts based either on genre, foci, or perspective. Paideia, even more than the ever present Sophia, strings these sections together into a coherent whole and reveals an integral aspect of this Hellenistic author’s worldview. Paideia leads to an immortal life in the presence of the divine (6:17-19; 7:14). A rejection of paideia leads to the soul going astray (17:1), impiety, and ultimately the death of the soul (1:16-2:24). The author, in the third section of the text, makes divine paideia the tool in his pseudo-historical, universal drama. Those who learn from the deity’s paideia are the righteous; those who do not are doomed to ungodliness. This paideia is part of God’s testing of humanity, the divine agon, and can even include somatic death (3:1-6). It is all of these various nuances which I hope to explore in this paper, to see both how they function on their own, but also how they work together in the author’s overall program and how they compare to similar discussions taking place in the cultural milieu.

"One of the most curious aspects of the late first-century Jewish apocalypse 4 Ezra is its depiction of the scribe Ezra. Nothing in this text seems to cohere with the Ezra we know from earlier texts. The dating is odd. The setting is odd. Ezra himself is odd and almost unrecognizable. He even has another name! While scholars in the past have dabbled in trying to figure out these various curiosities, modern scholars seem to have given up on explaining these mysteries in order to focus on the “larger” issues within the text. But, if we can explain why the author chose to paint Ezra the scribe in such an odd light, we should be able to go a long way in explaining those important issues and the overall purpose of the text.

Here I argue that the author of 4 Ezra has crafted an “origin story,” the back-story or prequel to the story with which the reader is already familiar. 4 Ezra is a text which describes how Ezra became the Ezra we know—the scribe, the restorer of the temple, the bringer of the Torah. Only by understanding the text in this way are we able to make sense of this odd Ezra. While our name of the text may suggest otherwise, 4 Ezra must be seen as a prequel to the familiar, biblical if you must, story of Ezra. This, more than anything, can explain the dating, the setting, Ezra’s second name, and, ultimately, Ezra’s transformation in the text, from disbelief to belief, from doubter to adherent, from man to superhero."

"So often, when scholars compare the depiction of Adam’s transgression and its consequences as seen in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, they use the oft-quoted line from 2 Baruch, “Adam is therefore not the cause, save only of his own soul, but each of us has been the Adam of his own soul” (2 Bar 54:19), as a prooftext that Adam’s sin, while transformative, was not as integral to the author of 2 Baruch’s thinking as to the author of 4 Ezra, who instead can claim things via Ezra like, “O Adam, what have you done?  For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants” (4 Ez 7:118).
But, when we look further into the situation, we come across all of these references in 4 Ezra to the foreordained ages and the precreation of all of the eschatological materials.  In so many places, the author of 4 Ezra states unequivocally that these things—the age of the mortal world, the number of souls, the judgment, the world to come—all of them were planned or created prior to the creation of the mortal universe.  With this being the case, Adam’s sin could not have resulted in such a profound transformation of an original divine plan.  This is in contrast to 2 Baruch, where we read that only after Adam’s sin was the number of souls—and therefore the age of this mortal world—set.  For the author of 2 Baruch, Adam’s transgression led to nothing less than a fundamental paradigm shift in the universe, while in 4 Ezra, Adam becomes simply the first to fall victim to God’s original, intentional plan.
But then we come to 4 Ezra 7:10-14, which, on the surface, seems to suggest that God originally created this world for Israel and the righteous, but when Adam sinned, God suddenly changed his mind and instead made this world difficult and a new world as the destination for the righteous.  Yet, this concept so clearly clashes with the strong, repeated emphasis elsewhere in the text of an original, purposeful two-world dichotomy where the mortal world is a testing ground to determine who is worthy to enter the true inheritance, the immortal world to come.
A close reading of the passage under question, however, reveals a level of ambiguity in the Latin and Syriac that allows for a different reading, one which coincides with the author’s assertions throughout the rest of his treatise.  We see this ambiguity in three crucial points.  In my paper I argue, first, that when Uriel states in 7:11, “I made the world for their sake,” he is not referring to the mortal world, as in commonly assumed, but the immortal world to come.  Only if the world to come was the original inheritance of the righteous can we make sense of Uriel’s two examples immediately preceding this passage.
Next, I argue that the Latin phrase “iudicatum est quod factum est” in 7:11 does not mean “what had been made was judged” as if referring to the entire cosmos for all time, as most take it.  By looking at the phrase quod factum est elsewhere in 4 Ezra and its use outside the text, it is fairly clear that the phrase is translating a Greek “τὸ γεγονός” or equivalents, and refers not to a product or creature, not to something made, but to an event, something that has occurred: “What has happened/was done was judged,” referring to Adam’s actual transgression.
Finally, I argue that the Syriac “ܘܡܛܠ ܗܢܐ” which begins 7:12, “b/c of this,” need not refer to Adam’s transgression, but instead likely refers to the very fact that the world to come was the original destination for the righteous.  This is Uriel’s primary point in this passage and the very thing which Ezra is confused about.  Because the city is the heir’s true inheritance, the heir must pass through the dangerous, narrow path in order to reach it.  Likewise, because the world to come is Israel’s true inheritance, Israel must pass through the dangerous, narrow mortal world in order to reach it.
The reading I give of 4 Ezra 7:10-14 is grammatically and syntactically as acceptable as the traditional interpretation of the passage, but it has the advantage of both making sense of Uriel’s argument at this point in the text, and coinciding with the strong emphasis on an original two-world scheme espoused throughout the rest of the document, a scheme, which, not incidentally, is fully integrated into the author’s concept of the evil heart. 
"

“But through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it.” Thus reads the customary English translation, largely unchanged since the earliest English translations, of Wisdom of Solomon 2:24. As modern translators have apparently not questioned the devil’s place in this verse, so too have modern scholars and commentators taken for granted the devil in the diabolos. On the surface this seems reasonable enough. The Greek diabolos was used in the LXX as a translation of the Hebrew satan, the adversary or seducer of Job and Zechariah. Of course, in some Second Temple Jewish traditions and then in Christian literature this satan became Satan and the diabolos became the devil, an angel, evil and fallen, in some fashion opposed to the will of God. Diabolos had become such a commonplace term, especially in early Christian literature, to signify the devil, that the thought of it representing something other than this fallen angel has seemingly been disregarded. The problem with taking the diabolos for granted in Wisd is that translators or scholars then read into the text a notion absent, and even contrary to, the rest of the text’s ideology. The devil simply does not fit into this author’s worldview. So, how to explain the diabolos? I argue that this term and this verse with it have been mistranslated and misunderstood, beginning with the early Greek church fathers, precisely because theologians and scholars both had a preconceived notion that the diabolos could only be the devil. I propose an alternative reading of this verse which does not stretch the limits of the Greek term, but actually makes the verse as a whole accord better with proper Greek syntax. The diabolos of Wisd 2:24 is not an evil, fallen angel, nor is it even the Hebrew satan. The diabolos here refers specifically to the type of adversary of the text immediately preceding this passage, the persecutor of the righteous man. Through detailed philological and textual analyses, I will attempt to show how this translation of diabolos makes more sense, both in respect to the Greek and to the overall ideology of the author. The devil has no place in this author’s thought, and by reevaluating this passage with a more critical eye, we may better understand this author's unique world of thought and the overall purpose of his text.

"4 Ezra’s evil heart must be understood within the text’s concept of a two-world dichotomy. In fact, it seems that it is the key component in distinguishing this world from the world to come. Throughout the text, the author makes clear that God is in total control of the world, and the situation humanity finds itself in this world, while seemingly discordant, is actually part of the purpose for which God created the mortal cosmos. Prior to the creation of this world, God created the world to come, the final judgment, and all other eschatological components and fixed the final age of the temporary world. While Adam’s sin and the sinfulness of those after him directly affected their own personal fate, their sins did not bring about a fundamental change in God’s plans. The inheritance of the righteous was, from the beginning, the world to come.
This world, then, is in essence a test or an agon, a contest, and it is precisely in relation to this test where we see the purpose of the evil heart. The cor malignum is to the individual what this world is to all of humanity. The evil heart was designed as a test for humanity, a test which Adam and most after him failed.  According to the author, God fashioned this mortal, temporary world as purposefully difficult and dangerous because the true world is a prize reserved only for the very best. The purpose of the evil heart is to select the best. This is an extreme result from an author attempting to deal with the most tragic of situations. It may not be satisfying to the modern reader, but it is nevertheless an innovative solution the ever-heightening question of theodicy at the end of the first century.
"

“But through an adversary’s envy death enters the world, and those who belong to death’s party put humanity to the test.”  This translation of Wisdom of Solomon 2:24, based on the author’s work in a forthcoming article, may sound odd to those familiar with the standard translation: “But through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his company experience it” (NRSV).  This new reading of the verse—more congruent to the original Greek text, the context of the author’s argument, and the overall worldview set forth—opens up possibilities for understanding this enigmatic text’s ideology which the old interpretations of the verse only clouded.  The need to support the devil’s place in 2:24a forced scholars make the Greek of 2:24b say what is simply cannot say.  The focus in this passage is on neither the coming of the ultimate death of the soul into the world—a fact clearly stated in the previous chapter—nor the “experience” of this death by the wicked.  Instead, 2:24 is meant to highlight the testing of humanity by those who have destroyed their own souls through their own actions.  A strict body-soul dichotomy pushes the author to the point of including even bodily death within this test. The prize for all those who win the cosmic agon is the release of the soul from within the confines of the body and an immortal life with God.  The punishment for those who fail is the destruction of the soul itself, even while experiencing a corporeal existence.  This scenario is also paralleled in the historical section of the text, where God (or Wisdom) is seen as continually testing humanity, the difference being that the repercussions there are carried out within history while the consequences of the cosmic test are decidedly atemporal.  With the new understanding of 2:24, then, we see that this testing, the divine paideia, is an element central to this author’s thought and the key to grasping the fundamental issues of the text—theodicy, soteriology, and the very meanings of life and death.

The problem of theodicy and the perpetual meditation over righteous suffering have been responsible for some of the most profound theological innovations. Concepts such as heaven and hell, resurrection, and immortality stem directly from such reflection. In the Hellenistic diaspora, some Jews like Philo or the anonymous author of the Wisdom of Solomon, under the influence of Greek philosophy, rejected ideas such as hell, demons, or bodily resurrection. For these Alexandrian Jews, the righteous would go on after the death of the body to lead the true existence, the eternal life of the soul in the divine presence, not hindered by the corporeal shell. The wicked, however, would face an awful punishment. Rather than a fiery hell full of eternal punishment and torment, wickedness would lead to the death of the soul, even during one’s bodily life, forever separating one from the divine. So, the dead live and the living are in fact dead, one leaving behind the flesh to live, the other emptied of the soul to die. An ostensible paradox both in Greek philosophy and in the various forms of Jewish thought, this concept of the soul’s death during corporeal existence was conceived through a creative combination of the two, and it served as a unique response to the problem of righteous suffering and the apparent existence of unpunished evil.

Most scholars working with the pseudepigraphic Gospel of Judas have entered the text with preconceived notions about gnostic-leaning texts featuring Jesus and his disciples and the role Jesus plays in these types of texts.  Focused more on the figure of Judas, scholars have presupposed a gnostic Jesus, a Jesus who brings salvation through gnosis, and therefore a Christian gnostic provenance.  Unfortunately, this presupposition clouds the actual figure of Jesus as we find him in the text, and by not asking what his role is in the story, scholars have missed a central point of the text—Jesus has no salvific function whatsoever.  This author portrays an impotent Jesus who is unwilling and unable to broker any form of salvation.  All typical forms of Christian salvation, both orthodox and gnostic, are systematically rejected.  If early Christianity has, at its core, the common thread of a central role of Jesus in the salvation of humanity, and if this author envisioned a Jesus who serves no salvific function for the individual, are we still justified in calling this a Christian text?  While it is indeed important that we acknowledge the remarkable mosaic of early Christianity, we must admit that late antique Christianity was not so wide an umbrella as to allow an infinite diversity of its core ideological basis.  Through its depiction of Jesus I believe that the Gospel of Judas has moved beyond the fluctuating boundaries of Christianity, and by examining this issue and the flurry of questions it raises I believe that we may come to better understand the multifarious gnostic forms of thought (Christian, Jewish, and Pagan) in late antiquity and the relationship these beliefs had to the varied orthodoxies contemporary to them.