OUR PATRIARCHS' LAST WILL AND TESTAMENTS TO THEIR DESCENDENTS
Will you?
THE following twelve books are biographies written between 107 and 137 B.C. They are a forceful exposition, showing how a Pharisee with a rare gift of writing secured publicity by using the names of the greatest men of ancient times. "There were intellectual giants in those days" and the Twelve Patriarchs were the Intellectual Giants!
Each is here made to tell his life story. When he is on his deathbed he calls all his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren about him, and proceeds without reservation to lay bare his experiences for the moral guidance of his hearers. If he fell into sin he tells all about it and then counsels them not to err as he did. If he was virtuous, he shows what rewards were his.
When you look beyond the unvarnished--almost brutally frank--passages of the text, you will discern a remarkable attestation of the expectations of the Messiah which existed a hundred years before Christ. And there is another element of rare value in this strange series. As Dr. R. H. Charles says in his scholarly work on the Pseudepigrapha: its ethical teaching "has achieved a real immortality by influencing the thought and diction of the writers of the New Testament, and even those of our Lord. This ethical teaching, which is very much higher and purer than that of the Old Testament, is yet its true spiritual child and helps to bridge the chasm that divides the ethics of the Old and New Testaments."
The instances of the influence of these writings on the New Testament are notable in the Sermon on the Mount which reflects the spirit and even uses phrases from these Testaments. St. Paul appears to have borrowed so freely that it seems as though he must have carried a copy of the Testaments with him on his travels.
Thus, the reader has before him in these pages what is at once striking for its blunt primitive style and valuable as some of the actual source books of the Bible.
Testament of Reuben
" . . . my children, I say unto you, observe all things whatsoever I command you, and ye shall not sin. . . ."
Testament of Simeon
" . . . BEHOLD I have told you all things, that I may be acquitted of your sin. . . ."
Testament of Levi
" . . . And now, my children, ye have heard all; choose, therefore, for yourselves either the light or the darkness, either the law of the Lord or the works of Beliar. . . ."
The Testament of Judah
" . . . Observe, therefore, my children, all the law of the Lord, for there is hope for all them who hold fast unto, His ways. . . ."
The Testament of Issachar
" . . . And do you therefore give these commands to your children, that, if they sin, they may the more quickly return to the Lord; For He is merciful, and will deliver them, even to bring them back into their land. . . ."
The Testament of Zebulun
" . . . For I have learnt in the writing of my fathers, that ye shall be divided in Israel, and ye shall follow two kings, and shall work every abomination. . . ."
The Testament of Dan
" . . . OBSERVE, therefore, my children, the commandments of the Lord, and keep His law; depart from wrath, and hate lying, that the Lord may dwell among you, and Beliar may flee from you. . . . "
The Testament of Naphtali
" . . . Be ye therefore wise in God, my children, and prudent, understanding the order of His commandments, and the laws of every word, that the Lord may love you, . . ."
The Testament Of Gad
" . . . For I know that at the last your children shall depart from Him, and shall walk in all wickedness, and affliction and corruption before the Lord. . . ."
The Testament of Asher
" . . . And therefore shall ye be scattered as Gad and Dan my brethren, and ye shall know not your lands, tribe, and tongue. . . ."
The Testament of Joseph
" . . . If ye also, therefore, walk in the commandments of the Lord, my children, He will exalt you there, and will bless you with good things for ever and ever. . . . "
The Testament of Benjamin
" . . . If ye therefore, my children, walk in holiness according to the commandments of the Lord, ye shall again dwell securely with me, and all Israel shall be gathered unto the Lord. . . . "
