2 Baruch is a Jewish pseudepigraphon from the late first or early second century CE. It is comprised of an apocalypse (2 Baruch 1-77) and an epistle (2 Baruch 78-87). This ancient work addresses the important matter of theodicy in light of the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 CE. It depicts vivid and puzzling pictures of apocalyptic images in explaining the nature of the tragedy and exhorting its ancient community of readers. Gurtner provides the first publication of the Syriac of both the apocalypse and epistle with a fresh English translation on the opposite page. Also present in parallel form are the few places where Greek and Latin texts of the book. An introduction orients readers to interpretative and textual issues of the book. Indexes and Concordances of the Syriac, Greek, and Latin will allow users to analyze the language of the text more carefully than ever before.

The two Jewish works that are the subject of this volume, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, were written around the turn of the first century CE in the aftermath of the Roman destruction of the Second Temple. Both texts are apocalypses, and both occupy an important place in early Jewish literature and thought: they were composed right after the Second Temple period, as Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity began to emerge. The twenty essays in this volume were first presented and discussed at the Sixth Enoch Seminar at the Villa Cagnola at Gazzada, near Milan, Italy, on June 26-30, 2011. Together they reflect the lively debate about 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch among the most distinguished specialists in the field. The Contributors are: Gabriele Boccaccini; Daniel Boyarin; John J. Collins; Devorah Dimant; Lutz Doering; Lorenzo DiTommaso; Steven Fraade; Lester L. Grabbe; Matthias Henze; Karina M. Hoogan; Liv Ingeborg Lied; Hindy Najman; George W.E. Nickelsburg; Eugen Pentiuc; Pierluigi Piovanelli; Benjamin Reynolds; Loren Stuckenbruck; Balázs Tamási; Alexander Toepel; Adela Yarbro Collins

In this volume Gabriele Boccaccini and Jason M. Zurawski collect together essays from leading international scholars on the books of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch. The literature of the Second Temple Period has become increasingly studied in recent years as scholars have begun to recognize the importance of these texts for a developed understanding of Rabbinic and Christian origins. Through close readings of the texts themselves, examining the books in comparison with other Jewish apocalyptic literature and early Christian materials, and reading the texts in light of their social and historical settings, the fifteen papers collected herein significantly advance the current scholarly conversation on these defining Jewish apocalypses written at the end of the first century CE, and they shed light on the everlasting legacy of apocalyptic ideas in both Christianity and Judaism.

In The Conflict Myth and the Biblical Tradition, Debra Scoggins Ballentine analyzes the ancient west Asian theme of divine combat between a victorious warrior deity and his enemy, typically the sea or a sea dragon.

The Jewish culture of the Hellenistic and early Roman periods established a basis for all monotheistic religions, but its main sources have been preserved to a great degree through Christian transmission. This Guide is devoted to problems of preservation, reception, and transformation of Jewish texts and traditions of the Second Temple period in the many Christian milieus from the ancient world to the late medieval era. It approaches this corpus not as an artificial collection of reconstructed texts--a body of hypothetical originals--but rather from the perspective of the preserved materials, examined in their religious, social, and political contexts. It also considers the other, non-Christian, channels of the survival of early Jewish materials, including Rabbinic, Gnostic, Manichaean, and Islamic. This unique project brings together scholars from many different fields in order to map the trajectories of early Jewish texts and traditions among diverse later cultures. It also provides a comprehensive and comparative introduction to this new field of study while bridging the gap between scholars of early Judaism and of medieval Christianity.

In The Church as Paradise and the Way Therein: Early Christian Appropriation of Genesis 3:22–24, Christopher A. Graham demonstrates that early Christian authors employed the words “paradise” and “way” as allusions to the expulsion narrative (Genesis 3:22–24) to signify that the benefits available in protological Paradise were once again accessible in and through Jesus and the Church. The centrality of the expulsion narrative in their literary milieus gave these authors confidence that readers would discern these allusions. After considering the reception of the expulsion in texts circulating within the early Christian milieu, Graham turns to the texts of Luke and Irenaeus of Lyons. Both authors drew from an interpretive tradition in which a return to Paradise was desirable. Both celebrated Jesus's reversal of Adam's expulsion and the constitution of Jesus's followers as the location and means by which humanity could continue to access divine truth and life. For both authors, the Church is Paradise and the way therein.