Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Judah · Chapter 3
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 when the two kings of the Canaanites came sheathed in armour against our flocks, and much people with them, single-handed I rushed upon the king of Hazor, and smote him on the greaves and dragged him down, and so I Slew him.
And the other, the king of Tappuah, as he sat upon his horse, [I slew, and so I scattered all his people.
Achor the king] a man of giant stature I found, hurling javelins before and behind as he sat on horseback, and I took up a stone of sixty pounds weight, and hurled it and smote his horse, and killed it.
And I fought with (this) other for two hours; and I clave his shield in twain, and I chopped off his feet, and killed him.
And as I was stripping off his breastplate, behold nine men his companions began to fight with me.
And I wound my garment on my hand; and I slung stones at them, and killed four of them, and the rest fled.