Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Benjamin · Chapter 1
About this work
A collection of farewell discourses attributed to the twelve sons of Jacob, combining ethical exhortation, autobiographical retelling, and eschatological material. The transmitted text preserves Jewish traditions alongside Christian material or interpolation, and its compositional history remains debated.
- Author
- Anonymous
- Date
- Second Temple Jewish material; transmitted form includes later Christian elements.
- Origin
- Unknown
- Genre
- Testamentary Literature / Pseudepigrapha
- Textual language
- Greek textual tradition; earlier sources and layers are debated.
- Translator
- R. H. Charles
- Translation / Edition
- R. H. Charles translation, first published 1908.
The copy of the words of Benjamin, which he commanded his sons to observe, after he had lived a hundred and twenty-five years.
And he kissed them, and said: As Isaac was born to Abraham in his old age, so also was I to Jacob.
And since Rachel my mother died in giving me birth, I had no milk; therefore I was suckled by Bilhah her handmaid.
For Rachel remained barren for twelve years after she had borne Joseph; and she prayed the Lord with fasting twelve days, and she conceived and bare me.
For my father loved Rachel dearly, and prayed that he might see two sons born from her.
Therefore was I called Benjamin, that is, a son of days.