3556 — The Book of Esdras
By Editor
Please tell me where the book of Esdras is found. It is not in my Bible. — C. E. C. The book of Esdras is the first division of the Apocrypha, writings that are not received as canonical, but which are found in many large family Bibles, between the Old and New Testaments. "Esdras" is the Greek for "Ezra," and these books are found as 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras. They are held by Roman Catholics as canonical books, of equal authority with other books of the Bible. But all Protestants have held them as books which are uncanonical, altho some have believed that 2 Esdras was of greater authority than First — a prophecy of the nations which followed. The books of the Apocrypha are of no particular authority, except to show us the customs and teaching which obtained between the time of Malachi and the time of our Lord. The last part of the Apocrypha is the books of Maccabees, which give us, to quite an extent, the history of the Jewish struggle against the Syrians.