Robert Henry Charles

“ TESTAMENTS OF THE THREE PATRIARCHS. This apocryphal work of the Hebrew Scriptures was first published by M. R. James (The Testament of Abraham, the Greek Text now first edited with an Introduction and Notes. With an appendix containing extracts from the Arabic Version of the Testaments of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, by Barnes, Texts and Studies, ii. 2: Cambridge) . The Greek testament of Abraham is preserved in two recensions from six and three MSS. respectively. This testament is also edited by Vassiliev in his Anecdota Graeco-Byzantina, 1893, i. ”

“ With the exception of x.–xi. the work is really a legend and not an apocalypse.
To the above conclusions Schürer, Gesch. des jüd. Volkes, 3rd ed., iii. 252, takes objection. He denies the reference in Origen, and asserts that there are no grounds for the assumption of a partial Jewish origin. But the present writer cannot agree with Schürer in these criticisms, but is convinced that a large body of Jewish tradition lies behind the book. ”