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2 Baruch

Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch

About this book
Chapter 42

1 And He answered and said to me: 2 ‘These things also will I show to you. As for what you said — “To whom will these things be, and how many will they be?”— to those who have believed there shall be the good which was spoken of previously, and to those who despise there shall be the contrary of these things. 3 And as for what you said regarding those who have drawn near and those who have withdrawn this is the word. 4 As for those who were before subject, and afterwards withdrew and mixed themselves with the seed of mixed peoples, the time of these was the former and was accounted as something exalted. 5 And as for those who before knew not but afterwards knew life, and mixed only with the seed of the people which had separated itself the time of these is the latter, and is accounted as something exalted. 6 And time shall succeed to time and season to season, and one shall receive from another, and then with a view to the consummation shall everything be compared according to the measure of the times and the hours of the seasons. 7 For corruption shall take those that belong to it, and life those that belong to it. 8 And the dust shall be called, and there shall be said to it: ‘Give back that which is not yours, and raise up all that you have kept until its time.’⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare 2 Baruch 42:8 and Revelation 20:13

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · New Testament

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Summary

2 Baruch depicts the dust being ordered to give back the dead it holds, similar to Revelation, which portrays death and Hades releasing theirs. Both follow traditions where Sheol or death are powers that must be forced to give up their captives.

Passages

2 Baruch 42:8

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch
6 And time shall succeed to time and season to season, and one shall receive from another, and then with a view to the consummation shall everything be compared according to the measure of the times and the hours of the seasons. 7 For corruption shall take those that belong to it, and life those that belong to it. 8 And the dust shall be called, and there shall be said to it: ‘Give back that which is not yours, and raise up all that you have kept until its time.’
70–135 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Baruch

Revelation 20:13

New Testament
12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. Then books were opened, and another book was opened—the book of life. So the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to their deeds. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each one was judged according to his deeds. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death—the lake of fire. 15 If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire.
92–96 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Revelation

References

"... the idea of Christ's defeat of the powers of Hades is sufficiently explained from the Jewish apocalyptic expectation that at the last day God would 'reprove the angel of death' (2 Baruch 42:8), command Sheol to release the souls of the dead (2 Baruch 42:8), abolish death (Pseudo-Philo Biblical Antiquities 3:10), close the mouth of Sheol (Pseudo-Philo Biblical Antiquities 3:10) or seal it up (2 Baruch 21:23). In the expectation of resurrection there was a sense of death and its realm as a power which had to be broken by God (compare also Matthew 16:18; 1 Corinthians 15:44-45; Revelation 20:14; 4 Ezra 8:53). These ideas were transferred to the context of Christ's descent to Hades because of the early Christian belief that Christ's death and resurrection were the eschatological triumph of God over death. The details, as we have seen, derived from that process of Christological exegesis of the Old Testament which supplied so much of the phraseology and imagery of early Christian belief ..."
Richard Bauckham, The Fate of the Dead: Studies on the Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, NovTSup 93 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 43.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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2 Baruch 42:8 and Revelation 20:13

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