Subject: 4 ESDRAS

From: [email-masked] (HILL R KAPLAN)
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 11:58:49 EST

In preparing for my class on the Apocrypha, I became aware
of 70 missing verses from 4 Esdras, that are now included
as 7:36-105.

These verses emphatically deny the value of prayers for the
dead, and it is assumed that they were stricken from all Latin
Texts in about the sixth century.

Does anyone have any information regarding a church debate on
the subject of prayers for the dead that would lead to this
expungement.

Syriac and Aramaic versions were known but not accepted until a
copy was found at Amien in the early eighteenth century.

HILL