Apocrypha
II Baruch
Syriac Apocalypse
87 chapters · read and listen
Reading note
An apocryphal or pseudepigraphal text — outside the canon of the Western churches, yet widely circulated among ancient Jews and Christians. Published here from a public-domain translation, edited for continuous reading.
Chapters
Dossier
A survivor's answer to the destruction of Jerusalem: if God allowed this, what is left of the covenant? The book asks without flinching and spends eighty-seven chapters trying to answer.
Where this text comes from
Probably written at the end of the 1st century AD, shortly after the fall of the Temple in AD 70 — though it speaks of the Babylonian destruction six hundred years earlier. It survives almost solely in Syriac, in a single 6th-century manuscript in the Ambrosian Library in Milan, which gives it the name Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch.
Why it is not in the Bible
Outside the Western canons. It appears in some manuscript Syriac Bibles in the Peshitta tradition, which places it in a rare intermediate position.
What you will find
- The vision of the cloud with alternating bright and dark waters, each water a period in Israel's history.
- Baruch's direct dialogue with God, in which he demands explanations instead of accepting.
- The closing letter to the nine and a half tribes in exile, sent by an eagle, which circulated separately from the book.
- The idea that the true Temple is preserved in heaven and that what fell was the copy.
Frequently asked questions
- Who was Baruch?
- The scribe of the prophet Jeremiah, named in the biblical book of Jeremiah. Several later apocalypses were attributed to him — this collection has 2, 3 and 4 Baruch, all pseudepigraphic.
- How is 2 Baruch related to 4 Ezra?
- They are siblings in date and theme: both answer the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 with seven visions and questions about God's justice. The literary kinship between them is obvious and much studied.