Ancient Testaments Of The Patriarchs

Autobiographies from the Dead Sea Scrolls The Talmud teaches that the ancient patriarchs were all prophets, and that each one of them left testaments for their descendants to read. These contain commands for their children, moral lessons, and prophecy. This legend is not only repeated among the Essene community, but fragments of twenty such records have been found in the Dead Sea scrolls! In this book you will read for yourself the testaments of Enos (Adam's grandson), Enoch, Lamech (Noah's father), Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Levi, Judah, Naphtali, Joseph, Benjamin, Kohath (son of Levi, and father of Amram), Amram (father of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam), and Aaron. You will see many extra-biblical prophecies of the Messiah, including Aaron's warning about the Messiah's First Coming. Brought to you by Bible Facts Ministries, biblefacts.org

Herein are twelve biographies of the Patriarchs written between 107 B.C. and 137 B.C. They are a forceful exposition, showing how a Pharisee with a rare gift of writing secured the biographies of the 12 greatest men of ancient times. "There were intellectual giants in those days" and the Twelve Patriarchs were the Intellectual Giants! Each tells his life story and when he is on his deathbed he calls all his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren about him, and proceeds without reservation to lay bare his experiences for the moral guidance of his hearers. If he fell into sin he tells all about it and then counsels them not to err as he did. If he was virtuous, he shows what rewards were his. When you look beyond the unvarnished--almost brutally frank--passages of the text, you will discern a remarkable attestation of the expectations of the Messiah which existed a hundred years before Christ. And there is another element of rare value in this strange series. As Dr. R. H. Charles says in his scholarly work on the Pseudepigrapha: its ethical teaching "has achieved a real immortality by influencing the thought and diction of the writers of the New Testament, and even those of our Lord. This ethical teaching, which is very much higher and purer than that of the Old Testament, is yet its true spiritual child and helps to bridge the chasm that divides the ethics of the Old and New Testaments."

An excerpt from the INTRODUCTION - General Character of the Book: The book purports to give the last words, at the approach of death, of each of the twelve patriarchs to his sons. It is evident that the general idea of the book is based upon Jacob's last words to his sons as recorded in Gen. xlix. 1-27. Just as Jacob portrays the character of his sons and declares to them what shall befall them, so in our book each of the patriarchs is represented as describing, in some sense, his own character and as foretelling what shall come to pass among his posterity in the last times. From this latter point of view the book partakes of the character of a prophetic-apocalyptic work. In six of the testaments, those of Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Dan, Naphthali and Joseph, there is a certain correspondence between our book and Gen. xlix. regarding the characters of the patriarchs; as for the remaining six patriarchs no such correspondence exists.

R. H. Charles (1855-1931) was Professor of Biblical Greek at Trinity College Dublin (1898-1906), He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1906, and a fellow of Merton College, Oxford in 1910. In 1925 he was the first recipient of the British Academy Medal for Biblical Studies. Charles also received honorary degrees from the Universities of Belfast in 1923 and Oxford in 1928. His publications include: 'The Apocalypse of Baruch, ' 'The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, ' and 'The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English' (2 vols.)

The Testament of Judah, like the other Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, is considered to be a Jewish work that was added to by Christians in the Christian era. It is unclear when it comes from, however, fragments of the Testaments of Judah and and Naphtali have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls in Hebrew, dating to between 37 BC and 44 AD. Given the number of references to primordial gods, it is unlikely to be the work of a Pharisee, and was likely translated into Hebrew from Aramaic or Greek. As it has some of the same anti-Levitical content as the Testament of Levi, it was likely a text written by the Tobian Jews mentioned in 2nd Maccabees, that lived in Seleucid controlled regions.

The verses with extensive commentaries, references, and ideas for follow-up. This book is Based on the Apocryphal Book of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, which were originally written around the 16-17 Century BC or around 3700 years ago, by the 12 sons of Jacob, who himself was also known as ‘Israel’. ‘Israel’ is the Hebrew name Yisrael, meaning ‘God contends’, or ‘one who struggles with God’. Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs covers the whole panorama of the nation of Israel from Abraham to the Messiah and on to Eternity. It is one of the most important ancient manuscripts, apparently re- written between 107 and 137 B.C. from much older manuscripts. Until 1885 many of the apocryphal books used to be in the KJV of the Bible. Many of the apocryphal books can still be found in the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles to this day.

This volume, which appears on the occasion of Marinus de Jonge's retirement as Professor of New Testament at Leiden University, brings together twenty essays which he wrote recently for various periodicals and collective works. A number of articles deal with the expectation of the future in Jewish sources, like Ps. Sol., the Qumran Scrolls and Josephus. Closely connected with these are some essays on the question of how such titles as 'Christ', and 'Son of David' came to be applied to Jesus. Eleven essays delve into various important aspects of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: eschatology, ethics, paraenesis, but also their use of Jewish source material and their view of the history of God's dealing with man, a view related to that held by Justin and Hippolytus. This book throws light on the Jewish origins of early Christian theology and on its relationship with the Hellenistic culture in which it developed. The book also includes Marinus de Jonge's bibliography.

The ancient Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs is the death bed talks between the sons of Jacob and their children. Here is found answers to the stories told in the Bible about which there has been much unnecessary speculation. What was the real sin of Onan? Why was Joseph sold? Which brothers wanted to kill Joseph and why? This text was translated by R. H. Charles about 100 years ago.The translation contained words that are now obsolete, awkward sentence structure, and dialogue in King James English. This made the book a difficult read for today's readers. Timothy Sakach, Theologian, speaker, editor, writer and publisher revitalized the copy making the stories and instructions come alive. Each testament follows a pattern that appears to have been started by Enoch. Gather the sons. Confess the mistakes and troubles this caused. Instruct in righteousness and faith. Warnings about the end time troubles that will come on their offspring. Exhortation to remain faithful to EL and Yahua (the "God" of Abraham and Isaac.) And instructions for burial. All of the testaments were delivered while Jacob's family was in Egypt.