The Apostolic Age · c. 100
Fourth Ezra
Anonymous
What it is
Seven visions in which Ezra, sitting in the ruins of Jerusalem, refuses to accept the angel's answers: why does God let the wicked prosper, why were so few made to be saved, and what use was a law that no one could keep. The consolations do not silence him.
Why it lasted
The most unflinching statement of the problem of evil in ancient Judaism, and the strongest non-Christian parallel to Paul on Adam, the law, and the few who are saved. It travelled with the Latin Bible as 2 Esdras and is still printed in the Apocrypha.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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