2 Esdras (also called 4 Esdras, Latin Esdras, or Latin Ezra) is the name of an apocalyptic book in many English versions of the Bible (see Naming conventions below). Its authorship is ascribed to Ezra. It is reckoned among the apocrypha by Roman Catholics, Protestants, and most Orthodox Christians. Although Second Esdras was preserved in Latin as an appendix to the Vulgate and passed down as a unified book, it is generally considered to be a tripartite work.
As with 1 Esdras, there is some confusion about the numbering of this book. The Vulgate of Jerome includes 1, 2, 3 and 4 Esdras. Protestant writers, after the Geneva Bible, called 1 and 2 Esdras of the Vulgate Ezra and Nehemiah, and called 3 and 4 Esdras of the Vulgate 1 and 2 Esdras which became common in English Bibles.
Jerome and the medieval Latin manuscripts denoted it 4 Esdras, which to this day is the name used for it in modern critical editions, which are typically in Latin, the language of its most complete exemplars.
It appears in the Appendix to the Old Testament in the Slavonic Bible, where it is called 3 Esdras, and the Georgian Orthodox Bible numbers it 3 Ezra. This text is sometimes also known as Apocalypse of Ezra (chapters 3–14 known as the Jewish Apocalypse of Ezra or 4 Ezra, chapters 1–2 as 5 Ezra, and chapters 15–16 as 6 Ezra).
The first two chapters of 2 Esdras are found only in the Latin version of the book, and are called 5 Ezra by scholars. They are considered by most scholars to be Christian in origin; they assert God's rejection of the Jews and describe a vision of the Son of God. These are generally considered to be late additions (possibly third century) to the work.