Assumption of Moses

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with
Revelation of Moses
.

The Assumption of Moses, also known as the Testament of Moses (

Hebrew עליית משה), is a 1st-century Jewish apocryphal work. It purports to contain secret prophecies Moses revealed to Joshua before passing leadership of the Israelites to him. It is characterized as a "testament", meaning the final speech of a dying person, Moses.[1]

The text is thought to have been originally written in

Hebrew or another Semitic language, and then translated to Koine Greek. The only surviving manuscript is a 6th-century Latin translation of the Greek text. The manuscript was incomplete, and the rest of the text is lost. From references in ancient works, it is thought that the missing text may have depicted a dispute over the body of Moses, between the archangel Michael and the devil
.

Manuscript history

The Assumption of Moses is known from a single sixth-century incomplete manuscript in

Antonio Ceriani in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan in the mid-nineteenth century and published by him in 1861.[2]

Identification

The two titles of this manuscript are due to different identifications with lost texts. The Stichometry of Nicephorus and some other ancient lists refer to both a Testament of Moses and an Assumption of Moses, apparently as separate texts.

Relation to the Epistle of Jude

Some ancient writers, including Gelasius of Cyzicus (2,21,7) and Origen (De principiis, III,2,1), cite the Assumption of Moses with reference to the dispute over the body of Moses, referred to in the Epistle of Jude 1:9, between the archangel Michael and the devil.

This dispute does not appear in Ceriani's manuscript; this could lend support to the identification of the manuscript with the Testament of Moses, but could also be explained by the text's incompleteness (it is believed that about a third of the text is missing).

An alternative explanation is that Jude is compounding material from three sources:

This explanation has in its favour three arguments: (1) Jude quotes from both 1 Enoch 1:9 and Zechariah 3. (2) Jeshua in Zechariah 3 is dead - his grandson is serving as high priest. The change from "body of Jesus" (Greek spelling of Jeshua) to "body of Moses" would be required to avoid confusion with Jesus, and also to reflect the historical context of Zech. 3 in Nehemiah concerning intermarriage and corruption in the "body" of the priesthood. (3) The example of Zech. 3 provides an argument against the "slandering of heavenly beings", since the Angel of the Lord does not do in Zech. 3 what Michael is reported to do in 1En1.[5][6]

Content

The text is in twelve chapters:

Date, original language and themes

Due to the vaticinia ex eventu, most scholars date the work to the early 1st century AD, contemporary with the latest historical figures it describes. These sections appear to be familiar with the death of Herod the Great, suggesting that at least these sections date from between 4 BCE–30 CE.[9] Other scholars[10] date the work to the previous century and suggest that the 1st-century references in Chapters 6 and 10 were later insertions.

Based on the literal translation of idioms within the text, it is generally accepted that the extant

Hebrew
or at least a text with considerable Semitic influence.

There are no theological peculiarities to help us attribute the text to any specific

Jewish group.[citation needed
]

See also

Notes

  1. OCLC 34877180
    .
  2. ^ Manuscript "C. 73 inf" published by A. Ceriani with the title of Fragmenta Assumptionis Mosis in Monumenta sacra et profana 1,1, Milano 1861 pag 55-66
  3. ISBN 3-11-017437-5
    pag 58
  4. ^ R.H Charles The Assumption of Moses, Translated from the Latin Sixth Century MS., the Unemended Text of Which Is Published Herewith, Together with the Text in Its Restored and Critically Emended Form, London 1897
  5. ^ 2 Peter, Jude - Neyrey, Jerome H. - Yale University Press 1995
  6. ^ Carol L. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1-8 Anchor Bible Series, Vol. 2:5B 1987
  7. Bell
    2,5,1 happened in 4 BCE, but there is not consensus among scholars
  8. 11QMelch
  9. ISBN 978-0-5676-9294-8
    .
  10. ^ for example J. Licht Taxo, or the Apocalyptic Doctrine of Venegance JJS 12 p. 95-103 (1961) or G. Nickelsburg
  11. ^  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Charles, Robert Henry (1911). "Moses, Assumption of". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 896–897.

Sources

External links
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