Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Joseph · Chapter 13
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.
And Pentephris was persuaded by her words, and commanded the merchant to be brought, and said unto him: What is this that I hear concerning thee, that thou stealest persons out of the land of Canaan, and sellest them for slaves?
But the merchant fell at his feet, and besought him, saying: I beseech thee, my lord, I know not what thou sayest.
And Pentephris said unto him: Whence, then, is the Hebrew slave? And he said: The Ishmaelites entrusted him unto me until they should return.
But he believed him not, but commanded him to be stripped and beaten. And when he persisted in this statement, Pentephris said: Let the youth be brought.
And when I was brought in, I did obeisance to Pentephris (for he was third in rank of the officers of Pharaoh).
And he took me apart from him, and said unto me: Art thou a slave or free? And I said: A slave.