What is 2 Esdras?
Like 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras was not written by Ezra. The earliest part of the book was not written until the first century AD. Second Esdras is made up of a Jewish writing called 4 Ezra with 5 Ezra stuck at the beginning and 6 Esdras at the end. Although 4 Ezra is a Jewish writing, the other sections are Christian.
Second Esdras belongs to the apocalyptic genre and so it is helpful when looking at Revelation. In fact, Revelation and 2 Esdras was written around the same time. This book is another example of the Jews looked to the destruction of the first temple by the Babylonians in their attempts to deal with the destruction of the second temple by the Romans.
You can find the text for 2 Esdras online but I’m using the one found in the The New Oxford Annotated Bible.
