Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha

The Apocalypse of Abraham describes a man from the heathen who is alternately shamed, struck, and worshiped by Gentiles and by some of Abraham's descendants (29.3–14). Most scholars have identified the man as Jesus of Nazareth but then excised the passage as a Christian interpolation. This article proposes that the passage is integral to the work and that it allusively depicts Jesus as a false messiah—a foil to the true messiah from Abraham's line. The passage coheres with the entire work's overriding concern to juxtapose false worship with true worship of the one God. Its polemic against veneration of Jesus is achieved through a deliberate distortion of New Testament traditions, a phenomenon not without parallel in roughly contemporaneous literature.

A common occurrence in apocalyptic literature is the heavenly ascent of a revered figure, followed by a theophany. The divine image the seer beholds is often described as the ‘glory of God'. The Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch) is unique among apocalyptic literature in that Baruch, the main character and heavenly sojourner, receives no vision of God, despite all signs within the narrative pointing to a theophanic climax. The most significant indication is an oft-repeated promise by his angelic guide that he would ‘see the glory of God'. Scholars are divided as to how to explain this unfulfilled expectation in the narrative. In this essay, it is argued that the ‘glory of God’ concept is broader and more multi-faceted in 3 Baruch than in other apocalyptic works. In this regard, Baruch does see the glory of God even without experiencing a theophany.

The Hellenistic Judaean historian known as Eupolemos embedded four fanciful epistles in his history of the kings of Judaea: two letters from Solomon to the kings of Egypt and Tyre, and the two responses of those kings. The letters to and from the king of Tyre are closely modeled on an exchange between Solomon and Hiram of Tyre in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles. The letters involving the Egyptian king, however, are Eupolemos's invention. This article demonstrates through a close reading of Eupolemos vis-à-vis its sources, and in light of contemporaneous Greek letters, that the author used Hellenistic epistolary conventions as a medium for rewriting the traditional history of Solomon's reign. It is argued that he did so apologetically in order to characterize the foreign kings as ‘friends', that is, subordinate vassals, of the Judaean king. The historical context reflected in this epistolary re-characterization reflects political conditions in Hasmonean Judaea in the late second century bce, and thereby is offered as evidence against the consensus date of Eupolemos (158/57 bce) and the related assumption that this author can be identified as the ambassador Eupolemos mentioned in 1 Macc. 8.17 and 2 Macc. 4.11.

This article argues that 4 Ezra is structured as a test. Having resisted, over the course of the dialogue with Uriel, the temptation to abandon his people, Ezra enjoys visions of a restored Israel.