Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von 2 Baruch
Für wen es gedacht ist
For readers who love apocalyptic writing, heavenly visions and questions of faith after catastrophe, and for students of Judaism and early Christianity after 70 CE.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
Second Baruch, also called the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch, is a Jewish text from the decades after the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. Its author is unknown. He wrote in the name of Baruch, the scribe of the prophet Jeremiah, and set the story in 586 BCE, when Babylon took the city. Scholars broadly agree that the older disaster stands in for the newer one. The book asks a hard question: why does God let his holy city fall?
The text gives you a conversation between a grieving man and God. It holds fasts, laments, visions of a forest and a vine, a cloud that pours dark and bright waters, and a closing letter to the scattered tribes. It speaks of a Messiah, of resurrection, and of a world to come. It also insists that the Law of Moses remains a guide when the Temple is gone. We begin with where the text came from and how it survived.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1A book written after the Temple fellFree
- 2Jerusalem is doomed and its treasures hidden
- 3Baruch questions God and hears a hard answer
- 4The forest, the vine and the coming Messiah
- 5Resurrection, Adam, and the dark and bright waters
- 6A letter to the exiles and how to read it
Punkt 1 von 6
A book written after the Temple fell
Second Baruch belongs to a family of Jewish writings called apocalypses, meaning unveilings. In these books a seer receives secrets about God's plans, often through visions and an angel's explanation. This one claims to come from Baruch, son of Neriah, who in the Bible writes down the words of Jeremiah. Scholars call such a signature pseudonymous. Writers often borrowed an ancient name to give their words weight.
Most scholars place the book in the late first or early second century CE. The strongest clue is its grief. The Babylonian siege it describes mirrors the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, and the writer plainly lives in the shadow of that loss. Many think the book is close in time and in themes to a Jewish work called Fourth Ezra, and they debate which one came first.
The book probably began in Hebrew or Aramaic and passed into Greek. A small piece of the Greek turned up among the papyri found at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. The whole book survives only in Syriac, the Aramaic dialect of eastern Christians. Its one complete manuscript is a sixth century copy in the Ambrosian Library in Milan, which scholars studied and published in the nineteenth century.
A few other Syriac manuscripts carry only the final letter, which circulated on its own. This book is not the same as Third Baruch, a Greek work about a heavenly journey, nor is it the Greek Baruch found in some Bibles. It is the Syriac Apocalypse, and it stands outside the canon of most Jewish and Christian traditions.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
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Questions about 2 Baruch
What is the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch about?
It tells how Baruch, Jeremiah's scribe, mourns the fall of Jerusalem and questions God. He receives visions of the Messiah, resurrection and the course of history, and then writes a letter urging the exiles to keep the Law.
When was 2 Baruch written?
Scholars generally date it to the late first or early second century CE, after the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 CE. It is set in 586 BCE, but the Roman disaster is what the writer seems to have in mind.
Why is 2 Baruch not in the Bible?
It was not accepted into the Jewish canon, and most Christian churches did not include it in their lists of Scripture. Some Syriac Bible manuscripts, though, carry its closing letter.
Is 2 Baruch the same as 1 Baruch or 3 Baruch?
No. The book of Baruch found in some Bibles is a different work, and Third Baruch is a separate Greek text about a heavenly journey. Second Baruch survives complete only in Syriac.
How is 2 Baruch related to 4 Ezra?
Both are Jewish apocalypses written after 70 CE that wrestle with the loss of the Temple and God's justice. Scholars see strong links and debate which came first, and they differ in how they treat Adam's sin.