EncyclopediaTestament of Moses
Testament of Moses, an early Jewish apocalypse discovered in 1861 and extant only in an incomplete 6th cent. A.D. Latin manuscript. The original work was probably written in Hebrew in the early 1st cent. A.D. It contains reflections on Jewish history and experiences in Palestine during the 1st and 2d cent. B.C., with allusions to the revolt of the Maccabees, the Romans entering (63 B.C.) Jerusalem, and the rise of Herod the Great. The work, which reflects upon the apocalyptic motifs of the coming of God's Kingdom, contains a narrative of the priest Taxo and his sons, who are martyred as the eschatological age is about to break.
See J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Vol. I, 1983).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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