Theologies in Conflict in 4 Ezra

Download or read book Theologies in Conflict in 4 Ezra written by Karina Hogan and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2008 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent scholarship on 4 Ezra has taken two divergent approaches, the first reading the dialogues between Ezra and Uriel as a reflection of theological debates in the author's time, and the second focusing on the psychological development of the protagonist. Combining the two approaches, this book offers a new interpretation of the dialogues as a literary representation of a debate between covenantal and eschatological wisdom, two branches of Jewish wisdom that emerged in the late Second Temple period. The inconclusive quality of the dialogues indicates the author's dissatisfaction with Uriel's attempt at a rational theodicy. Ezra's subsequent transformation points to the symbolic visions as the locus of the author's apocalyptic solution to the intractable theological problems raised in the dialogues.