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access to The Harvard Theological Review
*I am indebted to Karen King and Dan Merkur, who graced me with their insights. Member
the New Testament Seminar at Harvard Divinity School, where I visited in Fall 2001, made hel
suggestions. Carly Daniel-Hughes assisted me in a number of respects.
'Michael E. Stone, "Apocalyptic, Vision, or Hallucination?" Milla Wa Milla 14 (1974) 47
repr. in Selected Studies in Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha with Special Reference to the Arme
Tradition (SVTP 9; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991) 419-28.
2In fact, this is an oversimplification. 4 Ezra was written after the destruction, but desp
the overall temporal congruity, the framework is not a full one-for-one equivalence. Though
Before proceeding with the discussion, however, we should note the chief objec-
tions facing the proposition I am making here, i.e., the main arguments that can be
marshalled against using the religious experience of the apocalyptic authors as a
factor in understanding their pseudepigraphic works.
1. The pseudepigraphic framework of the apocalypses is, to a greater or lesser
extent, based on a convention. By attributing the pseudepigraphical work to an
ancient wise man (such as Enoch) or prophet (such as Isaiah or Moses), its writer
invokes a stereotypical framework of which visions are a part. The purpose of the
attribution to an ancient prophet or sage is primarily to invest the actual author's
words with the authority of antiquity, and this purpose is well served by attributing
visions to the pseudepigraphic author.
2. The apocalypse is a highly traditional genre, so much so that, in a number
of instances, direct lines of filiation can be drawn between different apocalypses
(such as 2 and 3 Baruch or, explicitly, between Daniel and 4 Ezra).9 Most apoca-
lypses, from the oldest apocalypses such as 1 Enoch on, describe ecstatic states
in very similar terms. Moreover, in a number of respects, that technical terminol-
ogy is drawn from biblical prophecy, particularly from Ezekiel and Zechariah.10
Terminological similarity, so it can be maintained, does not demonstrate that the
authors underwent similar experiences. To the contrary, when the actual authors
came to describe the experience of their literary heroes, Enoch or Ezra or Baruch,
they drew on a pool of traditional language and descriptions. The apocalypses'
traditional character suffices, consequently, to explain the resemblances between
their fictional descriptions of the ecstatic state of the seers.
3. Had the authors been drawing on their own religious experience in the liter-
ary labor of describing the seer's experience, their descriptions would have been
characterized by spontaneity. Instead, we find them using traditional language and
formulations.
4. Even if we admit that in some cases a kernel of the writer's own religious
experience does lie behind some literary descriptions, we cannot determine in
which instances this is so, because the apocalypses are so traditional in character.
They describe religious experiences in the same terms.
Just as the second vision had opened with election, the third vision opens with
creation, but returns and highlights the idea of election. "If the world has indeed
been created for us, why do we not possess our world as an inheritance?" (6:59),
asks Ezra, combining the two themes. In this long and complex vision, Ezra is led
through a series of progressive steps in his understanding: first he learns in detail
and accepts the fates awaiting the righteous and the wicked. This leads him to the
second central question of the book: How is it that God created so many in the
world and will redeem so few? Because the seer has accepted the idea of reward and
14 Ezra 11:1; 13:1. The seer's experience in Vision 7 is also atypical: see Stone, Fourth Ezra, 33-35.
12Translations of 4 Ezra are cited from our modification of the RSV, as used in Stone, Fourth Ezra.
The woman relates that, barren for thirty years, she prayed to God, who
eventually granted her a son. She and her husband rejoiced, and raised him with
love. However, on the happy evening of his nuptials he fell down dead. She had
mourned until the second evening and fled to the field, resolved to fast there until
she died.
The parallels between the woman and Ezra are most suggestive. Ezra's vision
culminating in promised redemption takes place after thirty years (3:1), while the
woman receives the child after thirty years (9:45). She fasts, weeps, and mourns
her loss just as Ezra did before each of Visions 1-3. Later, the reversed pattern is
completed: Ezra upbraids, instructs, and comforts the woman, just as the angel had
upbraided, instructed, and comforted him.
Ezra's new role as comforter is highlighted by a series of close parallel state-
ments made about Ezra here and about the angel previously: he reprises the angel's
earlier role. This can happen because Ezra has accepted fully what the angel said
13Dan Merkur interprets Vision 3 as a record of an only partially successful visionary experi-
ence: see Daniel Merkur, "The Visionary Practices of Jewish Apocalyptists," in The Psychoanalytic
Study of Society (ed. L. Bryce Boyer and Simon A. Grolnik; vol. 14; Hillsdale, N.J.: Analytic Press,
1989) 119-48, esp. 131-33.
14See Stone, Fourth Ezra, 29 and 311.
As I was speaking these words, behold, the angel who had come to me
at first came to me, and he looked upon me as I lay there like a corpse and
I was deprived of my understanding. Then he grasped my right hand and
strengthened me and set me on my feet, and said to me, "What is the matter
with you? And why are you troubled? And why are your understanding and
the thoughts of your mind troubled?"
I said to him, "Because you have forsaken me! For I did as you directed,
and, behold! I saw, and still see, what I am unable to explain."
He said to me, "Stand up like a man, and I will instruct you."
I said, "Speak, my lord; only do not forsake me, lest I die before my
time. For I have seen what I did not know, and I have heard what I do not
understand. Or is my mind deceived, and my soul dreaming? Now therefore
I entreat you to give your servant an explanation of this." (10:29-37)
The same angel appears as in the first visions, linking this unusual vision experi-
ence to them, and interprets the vision to Ezra (10:38-54). The woman is Jerusalem;
the thirty years of barrenness are the three thousand years before sacrifices were
offered in it; the birth of the son is the building of the Temple; his death, the city's
destruction. Ezra comforts her and is shown her true, future glory. Here, for the
first time in the book, the revelation to Ezra is described as "many secrets," a term
applied only to revelations to Abraham and Moses (10:38). A change has taken
place, and from this point on Ezra receives more and deeper revelations of secrets
and takes on a full prophetic role.
This vision as a whole is different from all the other visions in the book. Follow-
ing activities designed to induce an alternate state of consciousness, as happened
on the three previous occasions, Ezra is moved to deliver an address, which is
centered on Torah. But after he completes the address, the usual angelophany does
not take place. Instead, he sees the mourning woman. Nothing suggests a dream
vision or a revelatory context. The text just says, "I lifted up my eyes and saw a
woman on my right" (9:38).
Identity in Joseph and Aseneth, 4 Ezra, the Apocalypse and the Shepherd of Hermas (JSPSup 17;
Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). None of the later texts describes a major physical and
emotional response to the transformation of a woman into a city like that portrayed here. Jerusalem
as a mother already figures in the Hebrew Bible: Isa 50:1; Jer 50:12; Hos 2:4, 4:5; note also Gal 4:
26; Bar 4:16, 19-23, 36-37 and 5:5-6.
I just observed that it is well known that vision or trance experience, in various
societies, can be transmitted in a fixed, highly traditional literary form, often techni-
cally rather sophisticated. This is relevant when we think of the conventional and
stereotypical nature of the apocalyptic vision descriptions; in other words, when we
come to assess the fourth "objection" noted above. However, in apparent tension
with this assertion, I have founded the case for the genuineness of 4 Ezra's religious
experience precisely on its distinct character. That character makes the initial argu-
ment easier and more readily convincing in the scholarly world; the fourth vision
of 4 Ezra is unusual, both in its form and in the experience it describes. Because
the experience described is unusual, we do not have to take possible literary influ-
ences from earlier writings into consideration as its source. Thus, the question of the
description's source becomes acute. Since it resonates clearly with psychological
experiences and processes known to occur,27 it is most plausible to assume that its
source is direct or mediated knowledge of religious experience.
Now, once the door is opened to this factor, even in an unusual work, certain
implications inevitably follow. If we accept the idea that religious experience,
including alternate states of consciousness, is part, indeed a central part, of what 4
Ezra is about, then we must envisage the possibility that this factor is present also
in other works of the time. They are religious works, by religious people, and we
must consider religious experience when we interpret them. The traditional and
stereotypical features of the visionary descriptions in other works do not gainsay this
possibility, indeed likelihood. Yet in most specific cases, it is difficult to demonstrate
conclusively from within the work itself that this factor is present and it is difficult
for scholars to know how to take account of it, precisely because it is recounted
in conventional and stereotypical language. The pseudepigraphic character of the
apocalypses compounds this difficulty.
My final observations are directed towards those who would deny completely
the reality of these religious experiences, claiming that the descriptions in the
apocalypses are "literary." First, there remains a good deal of cogency in D. S.
Russell's observation that the very vision form itself implies, not that an actual
vision experience lies behind each and every description of a vision, but that such
visions did take place in the society in which some fictional vision experiences are
written.28 Indeed, religious visionary experiences, described in so many works of
late antiquity, both Jewish and non-Jewish, were a part of the culture of the time.
ster, 1964) 158-73, esp. 164-66. Such a position is taken, for exam
Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York: O
96-114.
29This appears to be obvious, of course. Apropos dreams, the same point is made tellingl
by E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California Press, 196
102-34. Gershom Scholem comments, "In general, then, the mystic's experience tends to confir
the religious authority under which he lives; its theology and symbols are projected into his mystic
experience, but do not spring from it" (On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism [NY: Schocken Book
1970] 9); and again, "the outward focuses of mystical religion within the orbit of a given religi
are to a large extent shaped by the positive contents and values glorified by that religion," idem
Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism [NY: Schocken Books, 1954] 10).
30See Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, 140-41.
31Merkur, "The Visionary Practices," 119-48.
32So already, in part, Russell, Method and Message, 132-34; see also Stone, "Apocalyptic
Literature," 383-84; John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewis
Matrix of Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1984) 29-30.
So, to conclude this essay. We maintain that the factor of religious experience
serves as a key to the understanding of Vision 4 of 4 Ezra, and indeed, of the whole
book. If one accepts this argument, it has implications for how we read other pseude-
pigraphical apocalypses. Religious experience is not a panacea, a key to unlock
all scholarly aporias, but it becomes a factor to be taken into account, and not just
to be noted grudgingly when the facts of the book force it upon us. In the end, it
should not strike us as very surprising that religious men and women in antiquity
had a spiritual life, that religious experience formed a part of their world. They
talked of it in conventional, traditional terms, using the language of their culture and
perhaps of their particular school or group. That raises challenges for scholars. This
essay does not claim to have exhausted even the theoretical consideration of this
phenomenon. If we are even partly right, however, then a considerable rethinking
of our approach to the literature is demanded. The fruit of this labor will enrich
our search for understanding.