Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Judah · Chapter 11
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 I knew that the race of the Canaanites was wicked, but the impulse of youth blinded my mind.
And when I saw her pouring out wine, owing to the intoxication of wine I was deceived, and took her although my father had not counselled (it).
And while I was away she went and took for Shelah a wife from Canaan.
And when I knew what she had done, I cursed her in the anguish of my soul.
And she also died through her wickedness together with her sons.