4 Ezra

4 Ezra (2 Esdras 3-14 in the Latin Vulgate numbering)

Anonymous (pseudonymously attributed to the scribe Ezra) · c. AD 100-120, written in reaction to the Temple's destruction in AD 70 despite its fictional setting after the earlier, 6th-century BC destruction · Judea (exact place of composition uncertain) (Israel) · scripture

4 Ezra stages a series of dialogues between Ezra and the angel Uriel wrestling with why the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper, using the Babylonian exile as a transparent stand-in for the trauma of Jerusalem's second destruction; the Jewish core survives embedded within the later composite "2 Esdras," bracketed by separate Christian additions not part of the original work.