Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Dan · 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 Dan, which he spake to his sons in his last days, in the hundred and twenty-fifth year of his life.
For he called together his family, and said: Hearken to my words, ye sons of Dan; and give heed to the words of your father.
I have proved in my heart, and in my whole life, that truth with just dealing is good and well pleasing to God, and that lying and anger are evil, because they teach man all wickedness.
I confess, therefore, this day to you, my children, that in my heart I resolved on the death of Joseph my brother, the true and good man.
[And I rejoiced that he was sold, because his father loved him more than us.]
For the spirit of jealousy and vainglory said to me: Thou thyself also art his son.
And one of the spirits of Beliar stirred me up, saying: Take this sword, and with it slay Joseph: so shall thy father love thee when he is dead.