The Testaments Of The Twelve Patriarchs Insights

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.

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.

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."