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The Portrayal of Abraham in The Testament of Abraham
Published: November 11, 2014
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Last Updated: September 7, 2026
I do not know how to explain this counting.
The Testament of Abraham Recension A 1:1, in James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Volume One (2 Vols; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1983) 882.
The book was probably written in Egypt by a Jew, in either the 1st century B.C.E. or C.E.
Although these texts were almost certainly composed by Jews, they were not preserved and circulated by Jewish communities, but by early Christians. The emphasis on universal ethics in these texts made them appealing to Christians, who copied them and inserted Christian interpolations that referenced Jesus and the trinity.
The account in the Testament of Abraham contrasts with the biblical account in Genesis 25:8, which recounts Abraham’s peaceful death: “And Abraham breathed his last, dying at a good ripe age, old and contented; and he was gathered to his kin” (NJPS).
Many of the presentations of Abraham in Jewish literature that are now preserved in the Pseudepigrapha present Abraham as an entirely righteous and obedient individual. See the portrayals of Abraham in Jubilees, Genesis Apocryphon, Josephus and Philo, for example, all of which present Abraham as entirely righteous and obedient to God.
See b. Nedarim 32a.
Some stories portray Abraham as lacking in trust of God, if not defiant. For example, he lies twice about his relationship with Sarah (ch. 12 and 20) and doesn’t trust that God will protect him. The latter example is particularly egregious since it follows upon God’s promise that Sarah will bear him a son. To add insult to injury, in that story Abraham describes his coming to the land of Canaan as God “causing him to wander from his house.”
There are similar traditions regarding Moses, with long accounts of how Moses evades the Angel of Death. For more on this, see the addendum to this article.
This story has some resonance with the Talmudic story of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his son, who are horrified with people they see who are not studying Torah and burn them to death with their eyes (b. Shabbat 33b).
חזו אינשי דקא כרבי וזרעי, אמר: מניחין חיי עולם ועוסקין בחיי שעה! כל מקום שנותנין עיניהן – מיד נשרף. יצתה בת קול ואמרה להם: להחריב עולמי יצאתם? חיזרו למערתכם! הדור אזול.
The Testament of Abraham Recension A 10:10-14 in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Volume One, 887-888.
Translated by Ruth Bar-Ilan in Kushelevsky, Moses and the Angel of Death, 59-60.
These sources are Sifre Deuteronomy 305; Midrash Tannaim to Deuteronomy 34:5;Genesis Rabbah on 15:21, and Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael on Parshat Yitro Parsha 9; Midrashic sources dated to the late 6th century and onward likely relied more on earlier midrashic texts for inspiration than on Testament literature.
For more on this theme in rabbinic literature, see Moshe Lavee, “The Cycle of Life and Torah: Accepting Our Mortality,” TheTorah (2014).
My translation. For translations of some of these medieval texts, see Rella Kushelevsky, Moses and the Angel of Death (New York: Peter Lang) 195-267.
For more discussion on parallels between Petirat Moshe and TAb, see Samuel E. Lowenstamm, “The Testament of Abraham and the Texts Concerning the Death of Moses,”Studies on the Testament of Abraham (ed. George W.E. Nickelsburg; Missoula, Mt.: Scholars Press, 1976) 219-226.
The development of this section amplifies this Midrash’s high regard of Moses as a major instrument in the Israelites’ formative destiny. Instead of going to Gehennom as he does in Sifre, the Angel of Death goes to She’ol and Avadon. The latter, which comes from the Hebrew root A.B.D. which means to destroy, should be translated as something like, “The Place of Destruction,” or the place where negative judgment is meted. These two locations are, as far as I know, used interchangeably with Gehennom.
