Fourth Baruch is a

pseudepigraphical A pseudepigraph (also anglicized as "pseudepigraphon") is a falsely attributed work, a text whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past. The name of the author to whom the wor ...

text of the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

. Paralipomena of Jeremiah appears as the title in several

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

manuscripts of the work, meaning "things left out of (the Book of) Jeremiah." It is part of the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.

Origin and transmission

4 Baruch is usually dated to the first half of the 2nd century AD. Abimelech's sleep of 66 years, instead of the usual 70 years of

Babylonian captivity The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were forcibly relocated to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The deportations occurred ...

, makes scholars tend toward the year AD 136, that is, 66 years after the fall of the

Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...

in AD 70. This dating is coherent with the message of the text. The text is known in both full-length and reduced versions. The full-length versions came down to us in

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

(older manuscripts dated 10th–11th centuriesmanuscripts n. 6 and n. 34 of the Jerusalem Taphos Library, published in Harris J. R. ''The Rest of the Words of Baruch: a Christian Apocalypse of the year 136 AD, The text revised with an Introduction'', London-Cambridge 1889; it is also known the P. Paris Greek Manuscript 1534 (11th century) and 15th century), in Ethiopic Ge'ez (titled Rest of the Words of Baruch, the older manuscript dated to the 15th century), in

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

, and in Slavic. The shortened versions have come down to us in

(named ''Meneo''), Romanian and Slavic. Some parts of 4 Baruch appear to have been added in the Christian era, such as the last chapter; due to these insertions, some scholars consider 4 Baruch to have Christian origins.

Synopsis

4 Baruch uses a simple and

fable Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a parti ...

-like style, with speech-making animals, fruit that never rots, and an eagle sent by the Lord that revives the dead. The Lord reveals to

Jeremiah Jeremiah ( – ), also called Jeremias, was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah authored the Book of Jeremiah, book that bears his name, the Books of Kings, and the Book of Lamentations, with t ...

that

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

will be destroyed because of the impiety of the Israelites. Jeremiah informs Baruch, and that night they see angels open the door to the city. Jeremiah is instructed by the Lord to miraculously hide in the earth the vestments of the high priest of the Temple. The Chaldeans enter Jerusalem, and Jeremiah follows the Israelites into exile, while Baruch remains in Jerusalem. Abimelech (= Ebedmelech the Ethiopian of

38:7) falls asleep for 66 years and awakens next to a basket of figs, preserved perfectly fresh. Because the figs are fresh out of season, Abimelech realizes that he slept for years miraculously. Abimelech reunites with Baruch. They want to communicate with Jeremiah, who is still in Babylon, so Baruch prays to the Lord, who sends him an eagle. The eagle takes a letter and some of the figs to Jeremiah. It finds Jeremiah officiating at a funeral and alights on the corpse, bringing it back to life, thus announcing the end of the exile. The Israelites return to Jerusalem, but only those men who have no foreign wives are allowed to pass the Jordan. Like the greater prophets, 4 Baruch advocates the divorce of foreign wives and exile of those who will not do so. According to 4 Baruch, the

Samaritans Samaritans (; ; ; ), are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Hebrews and Israelites of the ancient Near East. They are indigenous to Samaria, a historical region of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah that ...

are the descendants of such mixed marriages.

Reception and influence

Fourth Baruch is regarded as

by all Christian churches, except the

Ethiopian Orthodox Church The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church () is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Christian churches in Africa originating before European colonization of the continent, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates bac ...

(see Rest of the Words of Baruch). The Jewish pseudepigraphical text '' History of the Captivity in Babylon'' belongs to the cycle of Baruch and is related to 4 Baruch. It is longer and probably older than 4 Baruch. It has very few and circumscribed Christian insertions and does not have the

-like style of 4 Baruch. Abimelech's sleep is here of 70 years, the usual duration of the

. The original

is lost, but we have Sahidic Coptic manuscripts and, even if less ancient,

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

Garshuni manuscriptsBibliothèque Nationale: Syr. 65 (dated 1594 and edited by Leroy-Dib 1910 and by Mingana 1927) and Syr. 238 (dated 1474 and edited by Coquin 1995)

References

External links

English translation

Greek text

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baruch, 4 2nd-century books Old Testament pseudepigrapha Apocalyptic literature Baruch ben Neriah

Origin and transmission

Synopsis

Reception and influence

See also

References

External links