/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

By 2 Esdras' own account, it shouldn't be canon, funnily. There's an interesting story in it where Ezra is given a kind of potion that allows him to miraculously recite all of the scriptures that had been lost in the Exile. And he recites 94 books in total. But he is told to keep 70 hidden (apocrypha) and only allow 24 to be made public for both the "worthy and the unworthy" (basically the Jewish Old Testament, which is 22 books now since it combines a couple of these). Another interesting point is the older KJV version says it's 204 books in total, and 70 to be revealed to both the worthy and unworthy. Either way, this idea of a separate set of books goes way back.

>"And on the next day a voice called me, saying, "Ezra, open your mouth and drink what I give you to drink."

>

>So I opened my mouth, and a full cup was offered to me; it was full of something like water, but its color was like fire. I took it and drank; and when I had drunk it, my heart poured forth understanding, and wisdom increased in my breast, for my spirit retained its memory, and my mouth was opened and was no longer closed. Moreover, the Most High gave understanding to the five men, and by turns they wrote what was dictated, using characters that they did not know. They sat forty days; they wrote during the daytime, and ate their bread at night. But as for me, I spoke in the daytime and was not silent at night. So during the forty days, ninety-four books were written. And when the forty days were ended, the Most High spoke to me, saying, "Make public the twenty-four books that you wrote first, and let the worthy and the unworthy read them; but keep the seventy that were written last, in order to give them to the wise among your people. For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the river of knowledge." And I did so.

-2 Esdras 14:38-48

2 Esdras is in the appendix of the Russian canon, but is not considered to be inspired.

Why is it not canonical? Because:

- It is written by a Jew, re-contextualizing the fall of the Second Temple as an apocalyptic prophecy of Ezra. It just has a clumsy introduction written by Christians and an outro that might be written either by a Christian or another Jew.

- Theologically it is whack. It says the Messiah will reign for 300 years, die, then, after 7 days, the resurrection and last judgment happen. It also says that God does not care about those who will be condemned. In fact, throughout the text, Ezra keeps asking "but wait, dude, those guys are people, you know? Why are you considering them like they're absolutely worthless merely because they fell prey to sin?" and God, through Uriel, keeps telling him "stop worrying about them, they are truly worthless, you need to rejoice that you will most definitely be saved instead". Finally, the text's cosmology is that God made two worlds from the beginning - the former world in which we live in today, full of trials, and the latter world, which is perfect and will be revealed at the Last Judgment. God essentially put us all in the former world to weed out the saved from the condemned, and at the last judgment the condemned (who, I will note, were always predestined to be condemned to begin with) will be thrown in the trash and the saved will inherit the latter world.

To recap: we have a temporary Messianic kingdom, a God who does not love all that He has made, a prophet who alone receives a promise of salvation and is told to not care for "those other guys", and a world which was always fallen and basically exists purely to make us suffer to separate the good from the bad.

- It's not in any canon of the early Church that I know. Like Enoch, Jubilees, 4 Maccabees… it is an interesting text that both gives us context for the terminology and thoughts of the New Testament authors, and even elucidates some things, and as such had popularity among the Fathers. But it does not pass the expected norm of divine inspiration, both because of its very late authorship (it's older than some New Testament texts!) and because its theology is too difficult to reconcile with Holy Tradition. It simply doesn't fit what the local churches received from the apostles.

>>806479

It could be a reference to the Septuagint. In that way it would be a recognition that the Hellinistic communities which use the Septuagint instead of the traditional Hebraic canon have legitimacy but are secondary.

Scholars don't know of any sect that claims anything about 70 hidden books, so that's the hypothesis of some.

>>806501

Oh, also, if I remember correctly, a time is given for the end of the world and the last judgment, and, if one calculates, it approximately comes around the end of the 1st century. The author wrote after the 2nd temple was destroyed and thought this meant the end of the world was imminent.