A Reconsideration of Apocalyptic Visions

Author(s): Michael E. Stone

Source: The Harvard Theological Review , Apr., 2003, Vol. 96, No. 2 (Apr., 2003), pp. 167-
180
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School

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A Reconsideration of Apocalyptic
Visions*
Michael E. Stone
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

In 1974 I published a paper arguing that behind the pseudepigraphic presenta-

tions of the religious experiences attributed to apocalyptic seers by the Jewi
apocalypses of the Second Temple period, there lay a kernel of actual visionar
activity or analogous religious experience.' This was not the regnant view the
Indeed, it had long been a prevalent opinion of scholarship that pseudepigraph
apocalypses are in some sense forgeries and that they present completely fictiti
narratives about their claimed authors, with no roots in reality. The actual cours
historical happenings might be presented in a symbolic vision, often culminati
in prediction, but the framework, the seer, and his doings or feelings (there are
women among the supposed authors) are fictional. At most, the pseudepigrap
framework may hint at the general circumstances in which the work was compo
A Baruch or Jeremiah work about the destruction of the First Temple might w
have been written after the destruction of the Second, but that had to be proved
other grounds than correspondence between the fictional situation and that of t
author. (Indeed, the book of Baruch was not written in the context of the destruct
of the Temple, nor the Qumran Jeremiah Apocryphon.) Scholars regarded wo
and actions ascribed to the pseudepigraphic author as fiction.2 Moreover, they

*I am indebted to Karen King and Dan Merkur, who graced me with their insights. Member
the New Testament Seminar at Harvard Divinity School, where I visited in Fall 2001, made hel
suggestions. Carly Daniel-Hughes assisted me in a number of respects.
'Michael E. Stone, "Apocalyptic, Vision, or Hallucination?" Milla Wa Milla 14 (1974) 47
repr. in Selected Studies in Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha with Special Reference to the Arme
Tradition (SVTP 9; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991) 419-28.
2In fact, this is an oversimplification. 4 Ezra was written after the destruction, but desp
the overall temporal congruity, the framework is not a full one-for-one equivalence. Though

HTR 96:2 (2003) 167-80

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168 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

ten maintained that pseudepigraphic apocalypses were

particular and partisan viewpoint, and using a literary
As a result of such attitudes, scholars studying thes
composition, date, and coherence by basing themselv
criteria of literary form and tradition criticism; on hist
on translation characteristics; on the extent of the vatici
overviews; on insights yielded by other, more recent
In these studies, the religious life and experience ascri
authors are rarely taken into account.
This is true, mutatis mutandis, of scholarly attitud
the field of biblical studies. The biblical prophets clear
varied sorts of visionary and dream experiences, aud
authors of Psalms yearn for the deity's presence in la
the metaphorical;3 stories in Samuel are unambiguous.
the book of Ezekiel's reports of visionary phenomena
uncomfortable at the idea that the prophet is reportin
happened to him while in an alternate state of conscio
ments on Ezekiel 8-10 that "it must be freely admitte
unique [emphasis mine] in all prophetic literature."4
even more clearly when he says: "in our prophet the
pacity for psychic experiences which most of the wri
[emphasis mine]."5 The attitudes permeating this remar
Zimmerli, in his great commentary on Ezekiel, says: "
that ... we are certainly not dealing with a clichd-lik
[T]he ecstatic phenomenon not only meant a physical ex
crossing of the threshold dividing normal objective per
reality which is not discernible in the sober light of da

temporal framework can be shown, on various grounds, to be ro

the book was written in Rome because the author says he was w
and Michael E. Stone, Fourth Ezra: A Commentary on the Book
neapolis: Augsburg-Fortress, 1990) 10.
3"My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I co
(Ps 42:2); "O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts f
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water" (Ps 63:1); "I
soul thirsts for you like a parched land. [Selah]" (Ps 143:6); see
4Walther Eichrodt, Ezekiel: A Commentary (trans. Cosslett Qu
1970) 120. He adds, "We can understand why some ... feel the de
be an apocryphal invention. ... They prefer to think of a visit by
5Ibid.
6Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel: A Commentary (2 vols.; trans. Ronald E. Clements; Hermeneia;
Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 1:234.

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 MICHAEL E. STONE 169

rationalistic explanations of Ezekiel's experience acceptab

embrace this insight in his presentation of Ezekiel's pro
The following passage from Ezekiel is unambiguous:

In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of th

my house, with the elders of Judah sitting before me, th
God fell upon me there. I looked, and there was a figur
a human being; below what appeared to be its loins it w
the loins it was like the appearance of brightness, like
stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock o
spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and broug
God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the gateway of the in
north. (Ezek 8:1-3a, NRSV)

In discussions with colleagues, I have raised the ques

experience is to be handled by students of ancient texts
told that the prophet's experience or state of mind is to
is not a verifiable factor and should be used in sound sc
resort, if at all. Even Eichrodt and Zimmerli, who accept
the vision, nonetheless do not incorporate this factor in
the prophet's activity. Instead, they isolate it and stress
of biblical prophecy causes discomfort.7
In some fields of learning, religious experience is simp
freely considered and utilized by scholars endeavoring t
need only think of the history of medieval Western spi
of Hasidism, or a dozen other instances. Yet in study of
indeed of biblical literature overall, religious experience
account, though sometimes its presence is acknowledge
In the course of writing a commentary on 4 Ezra two
grave difficulties in understanding the book's coheren
my considerable surprise, I realized that these could be
posited the existence of a complex religious experience w
by the agency of the pseudepigraphic author. This reli
book cohere and provided its central message. I formulat
claim therefore is that the thread that holds the book t
Ezra's soul."8 In fact, I now realize that the view I had

7Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20: A New Translation with Int

(AB 22; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983) does not broach the
8Stone, Fourth Ezra, 32. We discuss 4 Ezra in detail and present o
understanding of the book presented here, as well as for the relati
Vision 4, in our work Fourth Ezra. We had already broached anothe
in Michael E. Stone, "Coherence and Inconsistency in the Apoca
4 Ezra," JBL 102 (1983) 229-43.

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170 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

a double assumption: First, that the book is about a serie

that the putative author, Ezra, underwent and that takin
the book is central to understanding it. Second, that this
about the religious experience of a fictional character, b
tive lay the religious experience and sensibility of the a
have an author.

Before proceeding with the discussion, however, we should note the chief objec-
tions facing the proposition I am making here, i.e., the main arguments that can be
marshalled against using the religious experience of the apocalyptic authors as a
factor in understanding their pseudepigraphic works.
1. The pseudepigraphic framework of the apocalypses is, to a greater or lesser
extent, based on a convention. By attributing the pseudepigraphical work to an
ancient wise man (such as Enoch) or prophet (such as Isaiah or Moses), its writer
invokes a stereotypical framework of which visions are a part. The purpose of the
attribution to an ancient prophet or sage is primarily to invest the actual author's
words with the authority of antiquity, and this purpose is well served by attributing
visions to the pseudepigraphic author.
2. The apocalypse is a highly traditional genre, so much so that, in a number
of instances, direct lines of filiation can be drawn between different apocalypses
(such as 2 and 3 Baruch or, explicitly, between Daniel and 4 Ezra).9 Most apoca-
lypses, from the oldest apocalypses such as 1 Enoch on, describe ecstatic states
in very similar terms. Moreover, in a number of respects, that technical terminol-
ogy is drawn from biblical prophecy, particularly from Ezekiel and Zechariah.10
Terminological similarity, so it can be maintained, does not demonstrate that the
authors underwent similar experiences. To the contrary, when the actual authors
came to describe the experience of their literary heroes, Enoch or Ezra or Baruch,
they drew on a pool of traditional language and descriptions. The apocalypses'
traditional character suffices, consequently, to explain the resemblances between
their fictional descriptions of the ecstatic state of the seers.
3. Had the authors been drawing on their own religious experience in the liter-
ary labor of describing the seer's experience, their descriptions would have been
characterized by spontaneity. Instead, we find them using traditional language and
formulations.

4. Even if we admit that in some cases a kernel of the writer's own religious
experience does lie behind some literary descriptions, we cannot determine in
which instances this is so, because the apocalypses are so traditional in character.
They describe religious experiences in the same terms.

9See, e.g., 4 Ezra 12:11.

0Michael E. Stone, "Apocalyptic Literature," Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period (CRINT
2.2; Assen/Philadelphia: van Gorcum/Fortress, 1984) 384-92.

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 MICHAEL E. STONE 171

Before proceeding to discuss these propositions, let us e

of 4 Ezra. The author sets forth his experience as seven
separate from the others. The first three visions present
his initial quandary, pain, and bewilderment to a measur
use a similar structural pattern that is abruptly broken
resolution in the powerful experience of the fourth visi
the end of which Ezra sings the Almighty's praise. The
of the revelation of the Torah to Ezra, concludes the boo
Each of the first four visions commences with a sim
weeping and mourning; suddenly inspiration seizes him
is not said to be among the people or in a public place, bu
what befalls him is not a dream but a different type of
call a revelatory dialogue. Later, when he does dream (i
quite aware that he is dreaming and states it explicitly."
In the first speech of Vision 1, Ezra reproaches God fo
humankind, he says; you allow humans to sin and then you
Your way of running the world, Ezra declares, leads dire
Zion. Suddenly he stops. What has he said? In Scripture
for sinning and justly punishes Israel's disobedience. Ho
he angrily rebukes the Creator! His words challenge th
and Jewish thought--that God is just in his dealings w
towards Israel do not exhibit divine grace but have led
destruction. The basic solution offered by his angelic int
of the Most High will prove just at the end of days.
The second vision is preceded by Ezra's address to
Israel. "If thou dost really hate thy people, they should
hands" (5:30).12 Again he is told that the end cannot be
created with the world and is inherent in it.

Just as the second vision had opened with election, the third vision opens with
creation, but returns and highlights the idea of election. "If the world has indeed
been created for us, why do we not possess our world as an inheritance?" (6:59),
asks Ezra, combining the two themes. In this long and complex vision, Ezra is led
through a series of progressive steps in his understanding: first he learns in detail
and accepts the fates awaiting the righteous and the wicked. This leads him to the
second central question of the book: How is it that God created so many in the
world and will redeem so few? Because the seer has accepted the idea of reward and

14 Ezra 11:1; 13:1. The seer's experience in Vision 7 is also atypical: see Stone, Fourth Ezra, 33-35.
12Translations of 4 Ezra are cited from our modification of the RSV, as used in Stone, Fourth Ezra.

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172 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

punishment, the issue of the few and the many becomes ac

is that God rejoices over the few righteous but does not gr
perish (7:49-61). Ezra tries to mitigate God's severity and
In the course of his long interchange with the angel, Ezr
God's conduct of the world. He has moved from his posit
the first two visions; he has accepted the angel's basic teach
like him are promised reward.13
The fourth vision is connected in many ways with the pr
signals that new events will happen.14 Its introduction cont
of the seer's distress and onset of speech. However, Ezra is
in a field outside the city, where he remains until the end
sion. Before each of the preceding visions he had fasted, w
abstains from meat and wine and eats wild flowers, a prac
between the fasts of Visions 1-3 and the absence of any fa
in Visions 5 and 6.

As before, inspiration possesses him. He broaches problems in the concept

of the Torah, heavenly in essence yet disobeyed by humans. The ensuing vision,
however, does not respond to these issues. Ezra, in the field, sees a woman mourn-
ing and weeping. "Then I dismissed the thoughts with which I had been engaged,
and turned to her," he says (9:39), and he abandons the issue of Torah, and with it,
all the questions that have preoccupied him since the first vision. A turning point
has been reached.

The woman relates that, barren for thirty years, she prayed to God, who
eventually granted her a son. She and her husband rejoiced, and raised him with
love. However, on the happy evening of his nuptials he fell down dead. She had
mourned until the second evening and fled to the field, resolved to fast there until
she died.

The parallels between the woman and Ezra are most suggestive. Ezra's vision
culminating in promised redemption takes place after thirty years (3:1), while the
woman receives the child after thirty years (9:45). She fasts, weeps, and mourns
her loss just as Ezra did before each of Visions 1-3. Later, the reversed pattern is
completed: Ezra upbraids, instructs, and comforts the woman, just as the angel had
upbraided, instructed, and comforted him.
Ezra's new role as comforter is highlighted by a series of close parallel state-
ments made about Ezra here and about the angel previously: he reprises the angel's
earlier role. This can happen because Ezra has accepted fully what the angel said

13Dan Merkur interprets Vision 3 as a record of an only partially successful visionary experi-
ence: see Daniel Merkur, "The Visionary Practices of Jewish Apocalyptists," in The Psychoanalytic
Study of Society (ed. L. Bryce Boyer and Simon A. Grolnik; vol. 14; Hillsdale, N.J.: Analytic Press,
1989) 119-48, esp. 131-33.
14See Stone, Fourth Ezra, 29 and 311.

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 MICHAEL E. STONE 173

to him in preceding visions. Thus, for example, he com

words, "all go to perdition, and a multitude of them ar
(10:10): this is the fate of most humans, Zion is mourn
can you grieve the loss of a single child? What is strikin
woman here precisely that teaching which he himself r
of the third vision, that few are saved and many damne
"If you acknowledge God's decree to be just" (10:16
comfort, while in the extraordinary address with whi
cast profound doubt on God's justice. He offers wholeh
that comfort he himself could not fully accept when it
a change in the course of the first three visions! Again,
asserts itself. With that, Vision 1 had opened, and mour
dominates this fourth vision. It is the meaning of the w
the mainspring of Ezra's eventual comfort. His deep dis
of Zion was channeled by the presence of the woman's
to console her. The act of reaching out to her was the
to internalize his newly integrated worldview. This ep
psychological insight.
Suddenly (10:25-27) the woman is transformed before
with huge foundations. Her countenance becomes brigh
like lightning; she utters a loud cry, and the earth shake
and his very physical orientation are disturbed. He is dee
is experiencing. He loses consciousness and, as he faint
guide, crying that his prayer for illumination has broug

And it came to pass, while I was talking to her, behold

shone exceedingly, and her countenance flashed like light
too frightened to approach her, and my heart was terrifie
dering what this meant, behold, she suddenly uttered a lo
so that the earth shook at her voice. And I looked, and
was no longer visible to me, but there was an establish
of huge foundations showed itself. Then I was afraid, an
voice and said, "Where is the angel Uriel, who came to me
he who brought me into this overpowering bewilderment;
corruption, and my prayer a reproach." (10:25-28)

A very powerful experience is being described, unlike

revelations in the first three visions. Nor does he react thu
5 and 6. There is nothing like it in the other Jewish apo

15Ibid., 312 and 318-21.

16Visions of women/cities recur in later texts, but 4 Ezra appea
study by Edith McEwan Humphrey, The Ladies and the Cities: Tr

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174 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

In its intensity, this experience corresponds to the extrem

stress evident in the first part of the vision, which prec
It resembles the major sort of reorientation of personali
religious "intensification," a powerful and sudden integ
religious beliefs previously assented to intellectually. Thi
accurately, conversion. The stress precipitates this intens
in a reorientation of the seer's worldview.

As I was speaking these words, behold, the angel who had come to me
at first came to me, and he looked upon me as I lay there like a corpse and
I was deprived of my understanding. Then he grasped my right hand and
strengthened me and set me on my feet, and said to me, "What is the matter
with you? And why are you troubled? And why are your understanding and
the thoughts of your mind troubled?"
I said to him, "Because you have forsaken me! For I did as you directed,
and, behold! I saw, and still see, what I am unable to explain."
He said to me, "Stand up like a man, and I will instruct you."
I said, "Speak, my lord; only do not forsake me, lest I die before my
time. For I have seen what I did not know, and I have heard what I do not
understand. Or is my mind deceived, and my soul dreaming? Now therefore
I entreat you to give your servant an explanation of this." (10:29-37)

The same angel appears as in the first visions, linking this unusual vision experi-
ence to them, and interprets the vision to Ezra (10:38-54). The woman is Jerusalem;
the thirty years of barrenness are the three thousand years before sacrifices were
offered in it; the birth of the son is the building of the Temple; his death, the city's
destruction. Ezra comforts her and is shown her true, future glory. Here, for the
first time in the book, the revelation to Ezra is described as "many secrets," a term
applied only to revelations to Abraham and Moses (10:38). A change has taken
place, and from this point on Ezra receives more and deeper revelations of secrets
and takes on a full prophetic role.
This vision as a whole is different from all the other visions in the book. Follow-
ing activities designed to induce an alternate state of consciousness, as happened
on the three previous occasions, Ezra is moved to deliver an address, which is
centered on Torah. But after he completes the address, the usual angelophany does
not take place. Instead, he sees the mourning woman. Nothing suggests a dream
vision or a revelatory context. The text just says, "I lifted up my eyes and saw a
woman on my right" (9:38).

Identity in Joseph and Aseneth, 4 Ezra, the Apocalypse and the Shepherd of Hermas (JSPSup 17;
Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). None of the later texts describes a major physical and
emotional response to the transformation of a woman into a city like that portrayed here. Jerusalem
as a mother already figures in the Hebrew Bible: Isa 50:1; Jer 50:12; Hos 2:4, 4:5; note also Gal 4:
26; Bar 4:16, 19-23, 36-37 and 5:5-6.

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 MICHAEL E. STONE 175

What we are proposing happened is a fairly complex p

involved a conversion-like "intensification" experience
vision, and then a "death" experience, a revelatory visio
book had commenced with Ezra's pain over the destruct
the first three visions, he accepted, grudgingly, the a
destruction of Jerusalem was just, both in terms of Isra
His activity as Creator. Moreover, he came to the edge o
seems, the idea of the few saved and the many destined
maintain that though Ezra had, by the end of the third
scious mind to these ideas, he had not yet internalized t
was not yet oriented in terms of them.'7
The psychological mechanics of the first part of Vis
role shift between Ezra and the angel. Throughout the f
been the one who lamented, who wept, and who argue
Now, in comforting the weeping woman, he comes to p
the weeping woman functions as Ezra did in the first th
level, Ezra perceives the woman's need and responds to it
experience he had commenced: "Then I dismissed the t
been engaged" (9:39). In the course of comforting the w
the arguments that the angel had used to comfort him,
ing at the heart of his words. This, we hypothesize, was
internalized the angel's assurances. Up to this point Ezra
they had not changed his inner orientation. Now, in com
we understand to be an externalization of his pain,'8 Ezr
comfort he himself had been given. This crucial moment
the inception of a conversion, not the conversion of the u
sudden renewal and reorientation, the "intensification,"
and that has been described frequently.19 The way this
doubts and tensions peak and then, in a major psychic e
had previously been accepted "intellectually" are profo
doubts and tensions are resolved. A feeling of joy and li
sive religious experience. Lewis Rambo in his studies of
process "revitalization" or "identification."20 For Ezra it
visual image (10:24) accompanied by terror. Then a l

17The above retelling of the book is indebted to my previous s

"II Esdras," in The Books of the Bible (ed. Bernhard W. Anderson;
1989) 2.21-34.
"See Stone, Fourth Ezra, 31-32, where this is set forth.
19Ibid., 32-33.
20Lewis R. Rambo, "Current Research on Religious Conversi
idem, "Conversion," ER 4:73-79. See further Stone, Fourth Ezra, 31

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176 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

earth shakes. The disorientation affects vision, hearing, an

a dead man; he experiences the visionary's trance death o
apocalypses. He "lay there like a corpse and [he] was depriv
ing" (10:30). He is disorientated; he seeks his prior angelic
the extraordinary words, "I did as you directed and, beho
what I am unable to explain" (10:32). He has carried out th
to prepare for a revelation or vision and has undergone som
from what he expected (9:23-25).
The next major stage of his visionary experience follow
tells him the woman's secret, that she is Jerusalem, and th
Ezra's own mourning for Jerusalem, the angel asserts, ev
city's glory: "For now the Most High, seeing that you are
profoundly distressed for her, has shown you the brillianc
loveliness of her beauty" (10:50).
This is not all. A final element in the text hints at one furth
The angel says to Ezra: "Therefore do not be afraid, and do
terrified; but go in and see the splendor and vastness of th
possible for your eyes to see it, and afterward you will he
can hear. For you are more blessed than many, and you h
the Most High, as but few have been" (10:55-57). On the f
is mysterious. However, the refrain "as much as your eyes
as your ears can hear" implies that what will be seen and
capabilities. This is a clear indicator that what is envision
the divine and the heavenly. "City," we suggest, is another
the heavenly reality, like the Merkabah and the Hekalot o
of Jerusalem is the house of the Lord; the Godhead's prese
heavenly Jerusalem. Ezra's human senses cannot apprehend
much as ... ."22 Earlier in the book, before the intensificati
possibility of such knowledge had been vehemently and s
5:36-38).23 Now Ezra is commanded to enter the heavenly
much of the heavenly reality as his human ears and eyes ca
in the series of very early references to direct experience
Our thesis is that only if the fourth vision is understo
problems inherent in the first three visions and in the interr
parts be resolved. We should, however, be explicit in statin
the book is quite different from those of nearly all previo

21This proposal will be the subject of further research.

22Intriguingly, in the conversion experience just discussed, Ezra's s
were unable to bear the woman's transformation into the City.
23Stone, Fourth Ezra, 84 and references there.
24The exception is the always perceptive Hermann Gunkel in "Das

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 MICHAEL E. STONE 177

the religious experience ascribed to the pseudepigraphi

presenting the axis around which the book is orientated.
for the textual evidence, which heuristically is one of t
its overall plausibility. This position is not adequate, how
this unusual episode's full implications.
Let us briefly consider three further points:
1. The four objections raised above against this type o
to hold. Nearly all of them disappear the moment the
experience can be demonstrated. This complex of vision
found elsewhere in the anterior Jewish apocalypses; so
the conventional or traditional character of the vision
particular nature of this description seems to depart in
from what we find in the more perfunctory description
2. The question remains, however, of the relationship
event to the experience of the writer him/herself. It seem
not be proved, the psychological mechanics that lie so c
vision are unlikely to have been invented, cut out of wh
Whoever composed this vision had direct knowledge
ecstatic dynamics described, either through personal ex
in a tradition in which such descriptions, based on real
The sophistication of the descriptions here admits no ot
at mystical or apocalyptic ascent activity in 10:55-59 m
ing even more likely.
3. We should stress that this instance, precisely becaus
is a powerful argument for the cultivation of deliberate
the circles that produced some of the apocalypses. The
however, we are required to reassess other apocalypses
ditional character. The hidden, modem assumption tha
bring about nontraditional, even spontaneous, composi
Even Vision 4 in Fourth Ezra is cast as a pseudepigraph
shamans in their ascents related the journeys of their se
ary forms.26 The biblical prophets wrote their experien
the standard tropes of Hebrew poetic composition. The
does not contradict the existence of the experience. How
difficult to demonstrate in any given case.

Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des alten Testaments (ed. E. Ka

2.335-50.

25Below, we refer to Dan Merkur's observations about the cultivation of techniques of

induction. We have dealt with this matter, including the elusive nature of the evidence, in
Selected Studies, 428. For the difficulties, compare Stone, Fourth Ezra, 114, 303.
26See also the beginning of Hesiod's Works and Days.

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178 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

Throughout this paper, I have talked of "Ezra" as if h

from the author, and of Ezra's experience as if it were e
Yet there is a certain na'vet6 in this position and, as the f
would like to refine it.

I just observed that it is well known that vision or trance experience, in various
societies, can be transmitted in a fixed, highly traditional literary form, often techni-
cally rather sophisticated. This is relevant when we think of the conventional and
stereotypical nature of the apocalyptic vision descriptions; in other words, when we
come to assess the fourth "objection" noted above. However, in apparent tension
with this assertion, I have founded the case for the genuineness of 4 Ezra's religious
experience precisely on its distinct character. That character makes the initial argu-
ment easier and more readily convincing in the scholarly world; the fourth vision
of 4 Ezra is unusual, both in its form and in the experience it describes. Because
the experience described is unusual, we do not have to take possible literary influ-
ences from earlier writings into consideration as its source. Thus, the question of the
description's source becomes acute. Since it resonates clearly with psychological
experiences and processes known to occur,27 it is most plausible to assume that its
source is direct or mediated knowledge of religious experience.
Now, once the door is opened to this factor, even in an unusual work, certain
implications inevitably follow. If we accept the idea that religious experience,
including alternate states of consciousness, is part, indeed a central part, of what 4
Ezra is about, then we must envisage the possibility that this factor is present also
in other works of the time. They are religious works, by religious people, and we
must consider religious experience when we interpret them. The traditional and
stereotypical features of the visionary descriptions in other works do not gainsay this
possibility, indeed likelihood. Yet in most specific cases, it is difficult to demonstrate
conclusively from within the work itself that this factor is present and it is difficult
for scholars to know how to take account of it, precisely because it is recounted
in conventional and stereotypical language. The pseudepigraphic character of the
apocalypses compounds this difficulty.
My final observations are directed towards those who would deny completely
the reality of these religious experiences, claiming that the descriptions in the
apocalypses are "literary." First, there remains a good deal of cogency in D. S.
Russell's observation that the very vision form itself implies, not that an actual
vision experience lies behind each and every description of a vision, but that such
visions did take place in the society in which some fictional vision experiences are
written.28 Indeed, religious visionary experiences, described in so many works of
late antiquity, both Jewish and non-Jewish, were a part of the culture of the time.

27See Merkur, "The Visionary Practices."

28D. S. Russell, The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic (OTL; Philadelphia: Westmin-

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 MICHAEL E. STONE 179

The absence of such factors, not their presence, would de

observation is most significant for understanding the r
Judaism, nascent Christianity, and contemporary pagan r
But there is more: it is well known that whatever the
terization of a religious experience might be, the one who
talk about it in the language of his/her culture.29 This is
in the sophisticated presentations of trance experience ob
anthropologists and historians of religion.30 It is equally t
to describe all mystical and other sorts of religious exper
experiences of Jews, Christians, Muslims, and others may b
come to describe those experiences, each of them speaks th
language of his/her culture and tradition. How does this
the literary or experiential character of apocalyptic vision
to be false. Apocalyptic writers have to use the cultural l
social context; there is no other language for them to u
a religious experience lies behind the language must be d
other grounds than the traditional nature of the descripti
a negative factor. Yet, once this insight is incorporated in
texts, the results may be rather surprising.
Furthermore, scholars have argued that various gro
dependent on one another: that 4 Ezra depends on Daniel
the later Ezra/Esdras apocalypses on 4 Ezra, the different
opic and Slavonic on one another, and so forth. Merkur
descriptions of vision inception in the apocalypses reflec
of techniques designed to induce alternate states of cons
be doubted by some; that there were schools, circles, or
apocalypses is, however, generally accepted.32 Such apoc

ster, 1964) 158-73, esp. 164-66. Such a position is taken, for exam
Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York: O
96-114.

29This appears to be obvious, of course. Apropos dreams, the same point is made tellingl
by E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California Press, 196
102-34. Gershom Scholem comments, "In general, then, the mystic's experience tends to confir
the religious authority under which he lives; its theology and symbols are projected into his mystic
experience, but do not spring from it" (On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism [NY: Schocken Book
1970] 9); and again, "the outward focuses of mystical religion within the orbit of a given religi
are to a large extent shaped by the positive contents and values glorified by that religion," idem
Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism [NY: Schocken Books, 1954] 10).
30See Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, 140-41.
31Merkur, "The Visionary Practices," 119-48.
32So already, in part, Russell, Method and Message, 132-34; see also Stone, "Apocalyptic
Literature," 383-84; John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewis
Matrix of Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1984) 29-30.

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180 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

contexts in which the religious/symbolic language of the

if Merkur is even partly correct, techniques of vision ind
member of such a school experienced a vision, he/she spo
or symbolic language of his/her culture, but in a delibera
symbolic language. Taking this consideration into accoun
see what a "merely" literary description of an apocalypti
Religious experience always stood in the background, wh
third remove. The challenge is how to assess it and how
understanding of ancient literature.
Thus, in the end we have no clear response to Objection
(and indeed may never be able to) provide a litmus test t
work the author is relating his/her own experience throu
he/she is drawing on a transmitted pool of knowledge in
in the world of the pseudepigraphic author. Perhaps read
factor in mind will itself lead to the emergence of tools
this task. The consideration of the fourth vision of 4 Ezr
relevant instance.

So, to conclude this essay. We maintain that the factor of religious experience
serves as a key to the understanding of Vision 4 of 4 Ezra, and indeed, of the whole
book. If one accepts this argument, it has implications for how we read other pseude-
pigraphical apocalypses. Religious experience is not a panacea, a key to unlock
all scholarly aporias, but it becomes a factor to be taken into account, and not just
to be noted grudgingly when the facts of the book force it upon us. In the end, it
should not strike us as very surprising that religious men and women in antiquity
had a spiritual life, that religious experience formed a part of their world. They
talked of it in conventional, traditional terms, using the language of their culture and
perhaps of their particular school or group. That raises challenges for scholars. This
essay does not claim to have exhausted even the theoretical consideration of this
phenomenon. If we are even partly right, however, then a considerable rethinking
of our approach to the literature is demanded. The fruit of this labor will enrich
our search for understanding.

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