The Prophetic Writings

8 books · 200 BCE – 200 CE · Hebrew · Greek · Aramaic · Latin

Apocalypses, oracles, and prophetic hymns — the visions that shaped Jewish and early Christian expectation of the end.

4 Ezra (2 Esdras)

Ezra's seven visions wrestling with why God allowed the Temple's destruction — and the messianic answer he was given.

Baruch's apocalypse after the fall of Jerusalem — the cloud of black and bright waters mapping all of history.

Baruch's tour of the five heavens — the sun, the moon, the angels, and the prayers of the righteous.

Abraham taken into heaven before the covenant — shown the throne, the nations, and the future of his seed.

The death of Adam as Eve told it — and the angels who carried his soul into Paradise.

Jewish and Christian prophecies in the voice of the pagan sibyls — addressed to Rome, Greece, and the empires of the world.

Eighteen psalms written after Pompey took Jerusalem — the clearest pre-Christian portrait of the coming Messiah.

The earliest known Christian hymnbook — forty-two odes singing the union of the believer with the risen Christ.