Various

“ It is also remarkable that in the shorter form there is no word. of Abraham’s unwillingness to die, which is so prominent a feature of the other, and is no doubt original, as the idea is not otherwise unknown in Apocryphal literature. The conclusion of the shorter version is very much curtailed, compared with the longer one.
On account of these many differences between the recensions of this remarkable work, it has been judged best to give both of them entire, and so arranged that the reader can readily discover in what respects the one differs from the other. ”

“ The tone of the work is perhaps rather Jewish than Christian, but as phrases and conceptions of a New Testament character appear in it, especially in the judgment scene, it is most probably to be assigned to a Jewish Christian, who for the substance of it drew partly on older legends, and partly on his own imagination. ”

“ Neither of the two versions can be supposed to be true copies of the original work. They differ from each other not only in length, but in arrangement. The shorter recension may preserve more of the original language, but it transposes certain sections, thereby confusing the order of the narrative, and in this the Arabic version generally agrees with it. The most essential discrepancy begins with Chap. X. of the longer recension, where Abraham, after being taken up on the cloud, is first shown the iniquities that take place on earth. ”