Apocalyptic Judaism in Asia Minor?

Here is a volume of papers dedicated to Elaine Pagels.

I confess that my research interests and Pagels' haven't intersected since 1996 or so. As for her popular work, I deem its result as evil. The move in the 1970s to "go back" to gnosticism in Christianity hasn't "saved" Christianity; it partly draped a Christian cloak upon the evils of this modern world, and partly perverted Christian denominations. But even evil - lookin' at Marija Gimbutas here - can float good scholarship on occasion, and I haven't heard much wrong about Pagels' scholarship. Anyway this volume isn't Pagels'; it's her students' and colleagues'.

The last essay is John Marshall's, "6 Ezra and Apocalyptic Judaism in Asia Minor". This argues that 6 Ezra, which is "II Esdras 15-16" in Latin having booted out 4 Ezra's intended ending, is not gnostic in the least. 6 Ezra may not even be Christian: Christ by name is absent [UPDATE 4/2/23 although "Dominus" is here]. 6 Ezra famously parallels the Revelation to John, but - Marshall reminds us - that's questionably Christian itself. I suggest both the Revelation and 6 Ezra riff on stoutly Jewish apocalyptic tropes, perhaps even the Revelation's first edition. (We are all agreed that 6 Ezra is not that first edition itself.)

Marshall's paper further assumes the Ascension of Isaiah isn't Christian, but we may skip over that. His main thesis seems solid.

One further point of interest is that both 6 Ezra and the Revelation address Roman Asia, what we'd call western Turkey. As it happens we do know several literate Christians active there during that general time: the late first / early second century. We could look at Ignatius, in particular. He doesn't seem interested in apocalyptic, in 6 Ezra - nor even in the Revelation despite that he was writing to several of the churches which the Revelation addresses. Ignatius wrote to Ephesus (certain) and to Philadelphia and to Smyrna (probably). Revelation went out to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.

Ignatius did address - repeatedly - one "heresy" rife in the Asian churches. That is "Jewish Christianity", also an issue for Paul.

It may be that Ignatius is right about his "Jewish Christian" opponents - that many of them weren't much for Jesus in the first place. A sliding-scale may apply among Asian Jewish apocalypticists: 6 Ezra on one side, Ignatius (and the Syriac Gospel) on the other and between them the Revelation. The Epistula Apostolorum will be on Ignatius' side.

QUESTIONMARK 4/2/23: It took awhile but here's Luigi Walt 2018. Looks post-Pauline but... how post-? I don't even know anymore thus cannot endorse this mine own poast. I hate hate hate questionmarks at the end of titles but I cannot avoid this one.

My recommendation to my audience such-as-it-is would be, hold off until we have 6 Ezra more-complete in Greek. The Latin represents a larger project to remake 4 Ezra into "II Esdras". As far as we can tell this project was Christian.