Figures of Ezra

This book is one of the first modern collections of studies on important aspects of the Ezra figure that combines both Jewish and Christian traditions. The volume opens with a study of Ezra in rabbinic literature and continues with four chapters on 4 Ezra, discussing its dimensions of time, future agents and visionary practices as well as reminiscences of 4 Ezra in the Armenian Script of the Lord's Infancy. The following chapters study the relationship of 4, 5 and 6 Ezra, the nature of 5 Ezra and dissimulation strategies in 6 Ezra. The last chapters concentrate on the important discovery in 1984 of a longer version of the Vision of Ezra. Studies of its place, date, tour of hell as well as its scheme of atonements make a start with integrating this text in the study of early Christianity. Analyses of the Apocalypse of Sedrach and of anxieties of discontinuity in the Testament of Abraham and in Ezra traditions further contribute to a better understanding of this text. The final chapter offers the first German translation of this exciting discovery. As has become customary, the volume concludes with an extensive bibliography and detailed index.