The Canon of Scripture, Part 7: The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
The 7th part in my ongoing (and long) series on the Canon of Scripture – discussing what books that do and don’t make the divine Cut. Here are the first 6 parts: The Canon of Scripture, Part 1: The Apocrypha The Canon of Scripture, Part 2: Enoch and Jubilees The Canon of Scripture, Part 3: Jasher The Canon of Scripture, Part 4: The Other Books of Baruch The Canon of Scripture, Part 5: The Other Books of Enoch The Canon of Scripture, Part 6: The Lost Book of Ezekiel Today we are examining the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs , which claims to represent the final treatise of each of the 12 sons of Jacob/Israel on their respective death beds. It’s often divided into 12 books, one for each son. Although often accused of being Christian (or interpolated by Christians), fragments of the Testaments – comprising portions of Levi (in Aramaic) and Naphtali (in Hebrew) were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, predating Christ. There are severa...