f So alread,v Kohler, JQM v. 402 ; and subsequently Bousset.
{ The Messianic hope here appears as in Eth. En. 83-90. The Messiah is said to proceed from 'Judah and Levi." This is certainly wrong for ' Judah ' or ' Levi ' or * Levi and Ju<lah * ; cf. Dan 6«. Reub. 6, Sim. 6. 7, Levi 2. Isa. 6. The onler ' Judah and Levi ' is found in Christian interjiolations, as Housset has already recognized ; cf. Gotl 8, Jos. 19. Acconiiiig to Jud. 24, the Messiah is to ho descended from Judah. This no doubt is what is meant In Eth. En. 9057- ss ; for the Messiah is there distinguished from Judos Moccabious, who is representeil as fighting till the advent of the Messianic kingilom. Bousset assigns both these hymns to the latter half of the 1st cent. b.a ; but the cliarmct«r ot the Mchatology is whollv against this assumption.
I See Preuschen's translation in ZSTit' 11900), ISa
V This date holds good of the narrative portion* also. See Bousset, op. eit. 197-205.
724 TESTS. OF XII PATRIARCHS
TESTS. OF XII PATRIARCHS
be restored by retranslation into Hebrew, and (3) that certain passages which are obscure or unintelligible in the Greek become clear on re- translation into Hebrew. We shall content our- selves with one or two examples of the above statements.
Thus in Reub. S ir «Jt« ijixtj«« = 13 "ins; Levi 81' iritXrSi-
e*Txt ctiry ii»UM tuctio» = Vin CV ^'7 Kip". Napht. l**i» iratcupy^a iirt'ytrl'Petxx^ . . . itcc nurt iMXxBr,^ SlfBet^t^Lc= . , . 7m n^n33
■'^n^j 'nunpj pS. Finally, in Napht. &"■ :ith rxcla ipx"' • • ■
fur^it Tetpixv*t is£T« r«t/Tj» awti xu^tpvr.reu, the phrase [Mrr'ew Txfiixi"t which = nVp k'?D, has arisen from a corrupt dittography of n^p kS3 = ;*t« tavrSf. This last fact was pointed out by Gaster (P^BA, Dec. 1893, Feb. 1894) in his edition of the Hebrew text of a Testament of Xaphtali, and may be regarded as con- clusive ; for the above phrase is found in this Hebrew Testa, ment— nSo n'^a . . . nD?in .T'JK nm.
V. Versions (Greek, Aramaic, Syriac, Armenian, Slavonic, Latin). — The earliest versions were the Greek, the Armenian, and probably the Syriac. (a) Of the Greek Version ■six ^LSS are known. Of these, the Cambridge MS (C) of the 10th and the Oxford MS (O) of the 14th cent, have already been made known through Sinker's edition of the Greek text {The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, 186'J) ; the Vatican MS (R) of the 13th and the Patmos MS (P) of the IGth cent., through the Appendix he published in 1879. The two remain- ing M.SS are still unpublished, but are being used by Sinker in forming a new Greek text. It is to be presumed that in the new text II will be mainly followed and not C as in the old edition.
(b) The Aramaic Version. — This version was not brought to light till quite recently. Only one complete leaf and a half of tlie entire MS have been preserved. The MS was brought by Schechter from the Cairo Genizah in 1S96, and its contents recognized in 1900 by H. L. Pass, who, togetlier with J. Arendzen, publislied the text in the JQR [1900], 651-661. The fragmentary folio contains a passage somewhat similar to Jud. 5. The complete folio has portions of Levi 11-13. Altliougn at times the Greek and Aramaic agree word for word, they more often diverge both as to contents and to order. The Aramaic is much fuller. It is note- worthj- that it agrees in this respect with the Syriac fragment against the Greek. To this point we shall return in dealing with that version.
(c) The Syriac Version. — Of this version only a fragment remains, preserved in a Syr. MS [Brit. .Mus., ..Vdd. 17,193 — C'a<. ii. 997], dated A.D. 874. This MS consists of a series of 125 extracts from ditlerent sources. No. 80 of which is derived from Levi 12. This extract contains three sentences which are unattested by the Greek, and it was probably on this ground that Preuschen (ZNTW [1900], 108) declared that its evidence was valueless as regards the existence of a Syriac Version. Now, it is worthy of remark that these additional three sentences are present word for word in the newly discovered Aramaic ; and yet, so far as all three versions have a common text, the Syriac and Greek agree against the Aramaic. Thus, Gr. and Syr. give iKTib whore Aram. = (Sk-ruKalSeKo, and where the former give iin-uiKalieKa the latter = iwca- KaioeKa.
{(l) The Armenian Version. — It is to F. C. Conybeare that we owe our first knowledge of the value of the Armenian Version, through his collation of the Armenian with Sinker's Greek text of the Testaments of Reulien, Simeon, Judah, Dan, Joseph, Benjamin (JQR [1895], 375- 3ri8; [1896], 260-268, 471-485). In 1896 the tirst Armenian edition of the text was published bv tlie Mechitarist Fathers at Venice in a small volume, including many other non-canonical writ- tugs of the OT. This edition is based on five
MSS.* Subsequently Preuschen wrote a learned article (ZA'^'IF [1900], 106-140), in which he shows, in dependence on the Venice edition, that thera ■were two recensions of the Armenian text o and /3, of which the former is much the briefer and earlier, and contains likewise fewer Christian interpolations. In this article he ^pves a German translation of the Testament of Levi. F jr further details see op. cit. 130-140.