Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Joseph · Chapter 15
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.
Now after four and twenty days came the Ishmaelites; for they had heard that Jacob my father was mourning much concerning me.
And they came and said unto me: How is it that thou saidst that thou wast a slave? and lo, we have learnt that thou art the son of a mighty man in the land of Canaan, and thy father still mourneth for thee in sackcloth and ashes.
When I heard this my bowels were dissolved and my heart melted, and I desired greatly to weep, but I restrained myself, that I should not put my brethren to shame. And I said unto them, I know not, I am a slave.
Then, therefore, they took counsel to sell me, that I should not be found in their hands.
For they feared my father, lest he [should come and] execute upon them a grievous vengeance. For they had heard that he was mighty with God and with men.
Then said the merchant unto them: Release me from the judgement of Pentiphri.