Anti-Christian Polemic in The Apocalypse of Abraham: Jesus As A Pseudo-Messiah in Apoc. Ab. 29.3-14

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Daniel C. Harlow
14 ! 29.3 Apoc. Ab. Pseudo-Messiah in
: Jesus as a Apocalypse of Abraham Anti-Christian Polemic in the

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Anti-Christian Polemic
in the !"#$%&'"() #+ !,-%.%/:
1esus as a Pseudo-Messiah
in !"#$0 !,0 29.3-14

DANIEL C. HARLOW

Department oI Religion, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI 49546, USA

Abstract

The Apocalvpse of Abraham describes a man Irom the heathen who is alternately
shamed, struck, and worshiped by Gentiles and by some oI Abraham`s descendants
(29.3-14). Most scholars have identifed the man as Jesus oI Nazareth but then excised
the passage as a Christian interpolation. This article proposes that the passage is
integral to the work and that it allusively depicts Jesus as a Ialse messiaha Ioil to
the true messiah Irom Abraham`s line. The passage coheres with the entire work`s
overriding concern to juxtapose Ialse worship with true worship oI the one God. Its
polemic against veneration oI Jesus is achieved through a deliberate distortion oI New
Testament traditions, a phenomenon not without parallel in roughly contemporaneous
literature.

Keywords: Azazel, Bogomils, idolatry, interpolation, Jesus, messiah, Slavonic.

The Apocalvpse of Abraham is one oI the most interesting, but also
most neglected, oI the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. The work Ialls
into two parts: a haggadah oI Abraham`s conversion Irom idolatry to
monotheism in chs. 18, and an apocalypse oI his ascent to heaven
and vision oI history in chs. 932. Like 2 Enoch and the Ladder of
at UNIV OF PITTSBURGH on January 11, 2014 jsp.sagepub.com Downloaded from
168 Journal for the Studv of the Pseudepigrapha 22.3 (2013)

Jacob, the Apocalvpse of Abraham survives only in Old Church
Slavonic manuscripts, all oI them copied in Russia Irom the Iourteenth
through the seventeenth centuries.
1
Four oI the six manuscripts are
integrated with material relating to Abraham in the Explanatorv
Palaia (Tolkovafa Palefa), a late Slavic compendium oI biblical and
non-biblical lore interspersed with exegesis and commentary. The
only independent witness containing the Iull text is Iound in the
Sylvester Codex (Silvestrovskif Sbornik), but unIortunately this
manuscript is the most deIective. The Slavonic is based on a Greek
translation which goes back to either an Aramaic or a Hebrew
original.
2
The latter is more likely, Ior, as Alexander Kulik has shown,
many obscure passages in the apocalypse make sense only when they
are retroverted into Hebrew.
3

The longstanding view that the Apocalvpse of Abraham was
composed by a Jewish author in the late frst or early second century
has been sustained in recent years, despite the current climate in
pseudepigrapha studies to take a Christian provenance Ior these works
as the deIault position unless persuasive evidence can be adduced Ior
a Jewish one.
4
Like 4 E:ra and 2 Baruch, the Apocalvpse of Abraham
responds to the destruction oI the Second Temple, although this event
is by no means the work`s major preoccupation. Its reliance on
traditions concerning Abraham`s conversion Irom idolatry known
Irom Jubilees and other Second Temple sources also argues in Iavor
oI a Jewish origin.
5
The most powerIul argument, however, is the

1. On the manuscripts, see Ryszard Rubinkiewicz, Lapocalvpse dAbraham en
vieux slave. Introduction, texte critique, traduction et commentaire (Lublin: Societe
des Lettres et des Sciences de lÙniversite de Catholique de Lublin, 1987), pp. 15-27.
2. See, e.g., Horace G. Lunt, On the Language oI the Slavonic Apocalypse oI
Abraham`, Slavica Hierosolvmitana 7 (1985), pp. 55-62.
3. Alexander Kulik, Retroverting Slavonic Pseudepigrapha. Toward the Original
of the Apocalvpse of Abraham (Atlanta: Society oI Biblical Literature, 2004).
4. See Marinus de Jonge, The So-called Pseudepigrapha oI the Old Testament
and Early Christianity`, in P. Borgen and S. Liversen (eds.), The New Testament and
Hellenistic Judaism (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1995), pp. 59-71; Robert A.
KraIt, The Pseudepigrapha in Christianity`, in John C. Reeves (ed.), Tracing the
Threads. Studies in the Jitalitv of Jewish Pseudepigrapha (SBLEJL, 6; Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1994), pp. 174-99; James R. Davila, The Provenance of the Pseude-
pigrapha. Jewish, Christian, or Other (JSJSup, 135; Leiden: Brill, 2005).
5. Jub. 12.1-8; Philo, Migr. 1.176-86 and Abr. 66-68; Josephus, A.J. 1.154-57;
L.A.B. 4.167.5. See Iurther James L. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible. A Guide to the
Bible as It Was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1998), pp. 244-74.
HARLOW Anti-Christian Polemic in the Apocalypse oI Abraham 169

linguistic one. Since the original language oI the work was Hebrew, it
was written in all likelihood by a Jewish author in Palestine.
In the last several chapters oI the Apocalvpse of Abraham, God
grants the patriarch a vision oI human history played out in a series oI
vignettes that are Iramed in a great picture. The picture is divided into
a leIt side occupied by the heathen and a right side inhabited by the
people oI Israel. One oI the scenes in the picture Iocuses on a man
Irom the heathen side who is alternately shamed, struck, and wor-
shiped by Gentiles and by some oI Abraham`s descendants. The
passage Ialls into two parts, the vision proper (29.4-6) and the inter-
pretation oI the vision (29.7-13). The text reads as Iollows:
(4)
And I looked and saw a man going out Irom the leIt side oI the heathen.
Men and women and childrengreat crowdswent out Irom the side oI
the heathen, and they worshiped him.
(5)
And while I was still looking,
those on the right side went out; some mocked this man, some struck him,
and some worshiped him.
(6)
And I saw that as they worshiped him, Azazel
ran Iorward and worshiped (him) and, having kissed his Iace, turned and
stood behind him.
(7)
And I said, Eternal Mighty One! Who is this man
(that was) shamed and struck (and) worshiped by the heathen with
Azazel?`
(8)
And he answered and said, Listen, Abraham, the man whom
you saw shamed and struck and again worshiped is the oslaba
6
oI the
heathen with respect to the people who will come Irom you in the last
days, in the twelIth hour oI this age oI ungodliness.
(9)
And in the twelIth
period, at the close oI my age, I will establish the man Irom your seed
which you saw.
(10)
All will accept him and regard him as one called by me,
being changed in their minds.
(11)
And as Ior what you saw going out Irom
the leIt side oI the picture and those worshiping him, (this means that)
many oI the heathen will hope in him.
(12)
And those oI your seed you saw
on the right side, some shaming and striking him and some worshiping
him, (this means that) many oI them will be deceived by him.
(13)
And he
will tempt those oI your seed who have worshiped him at the climax oI the
twelIth hour, at the end oI the age oI ungodliness.`

This passage has long puzzled interpreters oI the Apocalvpse of
Abraham. Michael Stone has called it the chieI critical problem` oI
the latter part oI the work, and Alexander Kulik has labeled it the
most enigmatic in the entire writing`.
7
Most scholars have identifed

6. I leave the word oslaba in 29.6 untranslated because its proper rendering is one
oI the problems oI interpretation.
7. M.E. Stone, Apocalyptic Literature`, in M.E. Stone (ed.), Jewish Writings of
the Second Temple Period. Apocrvpha, Pseudepigrapha, Qumran Sectarian Writings,
Philo, Josephus (CRINT, 2.II; Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1984), p. 418; Kulik, Retroverting Slavonic Pseudepigrapha, p. 51.

the man in Abraham`s vision as Jesus oI Nazareth, but then excised
the entire passage as a Christian interpolation. AIter reviewing the
scholarly discussion oI these verses, I proceed to read them as an
integral part oI the Jewish work, suggesting that they allusively depict
Jesus as a Ialse messiaha Ioil to the true messiah who will come
Irom Abraham`s line. The passage coheres with the entire work`s
overriding concern to juxtapose Ialse worship with true worship oI the
one God. Its polemic against Jewish and Gentile veneration oI Jesus is
achieved through a deliberate distortion oI New Testament traditions,
a phenomenon not without parallel in roughly contemporaneous
literature.

!"#$%&'"() #+ !,-%.%/ 29.4-13 in Retrospect:
A Review and Critique

The frst scholar to identiIy ch. 29 as a Christian interpolation seems
to have been M.J. Lagrange in 1905.
8
In the Iollowing decades several
interpreters, most notably G.H. Box, Paul Riessler, and Jacob KauI-
mann, reached the same conclusion.
9
None oI them, however, oIIered
a justifcation Ior singling out the passage as an insertion. Evidently,
they simply assumed that the Christian savior is out oI place in a
Jewish writing.
10
Jacob Licht took the same position but allowed that

8. M.J. Lagrange, Notes sur le Messianisme au temps de Jesus`, RB 14 (1905), p.
513. The Christian character oI the passage, though without the proposal oI
interpolation, was recognized already by G.N. Bonwetsch, Die Apokalvpse Abrahams
(Leipzig: Deichert, 1897), p. 64. Without explicitly reIerring to 29.4-13, L. Ginzberg
observed that The description oI the period preceding the Messianic time is the only
part containing Christian interpolations, which are easily separated Irom the main
part, all oI which has a decidedly Jewish character` (Abraham, Apocalypse oI`, in
Jewish Encvclopedia |New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1901|, I, p. 92).
9. G.H. Box, with the assistance oI J.I. Landsman, The Apocalvpse of Abraham
(London: SPCK, 1918), p. 78, n. 1. Box thought the passage was probably a Jewish
Christian addition. Paul Riessler was even more specifc in attributing it to an
Ebionite Christian (Altfdisches Schrifttumausserhalb der Bibel |Heidelberg: Kerle,
1927|, p. 1267). J. KauImann, Abraham-Apocalypse`, in Encvclopaedia Judaica
(Berlin: Nahum Goldman`s Eshkol Publishing Society, 1928), I, pp. 552-53.
10. J.-B. Frey oIIered as a rationale the observation that aside Irom ch. 29,
nothing specifcally Christian is Iound elsewhere in the work; all the material pre-
ceding and Iollowing the passage, he noted, is Jewish and has parallels in a host oI
apocryphal and rabbinic texts; see J.-B. Frey, Abraham, (Apocalypse d`)`, in Louis
Perot (ed.), Supplement au Dictionnaire de la Bible (Paris Letouzey et Ane, 1928),
p. 31.

the passage might refect an otherwise unknown Jewish perspective on
Jesus:

The most obvious and perhaps the best explanation oI this passage is to
declare it a late Christian interpolation, yet the man` does not ft the
medieval Christian concept oI Jesus. His Iunction is not clearly messianic.
This problematic passage thereIore may have originated in some Judeo-
Christian sect, which saw Jesus as a precursor oI the Messiah, or it may be
Jewish, badly rewritten by an early Christian editor. Perhaps it refects a
Jewish view oI Jesus as an apostle to the heathen, an explanation which
would make it unique, and indeed startling.
11

In the past three decades, the most prominent proponent oI the inter-
polation theory has been the great Slavicist Ryszard Rubinkiewicz. In
an essay published in 1979, he suggested that at least two interpolators
worked on the passage, the frst one depicting the man in the vision as
a descendant oI Abraham (vv. 9, 10 and parts oI vv. 4-8), and the
second one describing him as coming Irom the leIt side oI the heathen
(v. 3).
12
Yet in his critical edition oI the Apocalvpse of Abraham, pub-
lished several years later, he speculated that a lone Christian interpola-
tor reworked an ancient messianic prophetic text that originally
described the man not only as a descendant oI Abraham but also as
one who resembled Moses in coming Irom the milieu oI the heathen to
liberate his people Irom their oppressors.
13
But then, in his contribu-
tion to the Doubleday edition oI the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha,
Rubinkiewicz associated the alleged interpolation with the Bogomils,
a dualistic Christian sect that fourished in the Balkans Irom the tenth
to the fIteenth centuries.
14
A neo-Manichaean movement, the
Bogomils believed that the visible, material world was created not by
the God oI the Jewish scriptures but by the devil.
15
Rubinkiewicz also
detected Bogomil infuence in other passages, including 20.5, 7 and

11. J. Licht, Abraham, Apocalypse oI`, in Encvclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem:
Keter; New York: Macmillan, 1971), II, p. 127.
12. R. Rubinkiewicz, La vision de l`histoire dans lÀpocalypse dÀbraham`,
ANRW 2.19.1 (1979), p. 144.
13. Rubinkiewicz, Apocalvpse dAbraham en vieux slave, p. 66; see also p. 193
Ior a note on 29.4.
14. R. Rubinkiewicz and H.G. Lunt, Apocalypse oI Abraham`, in OTP, I, p. 684.
15. As a refex oI their dualistic cosmology, the Bogomils rejected practices that
entailed association with matter, especially marriage, eating meat, and drinking wine.
See Iurther Dmitri Obolensky, The Bogomils. A Studv in Balkan Neo-Manichaeism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

22.5, verses that ostensibly ally God with Azazel. Chapter 29 itselI, he
observed, shows that Jesus came Iorth Irom the heathen and not Irom
the Jewsthat is, Irom 'the people with Azazel! `
16

Rubinkiewicz`s various statements regarding the redactional history
oI ch. 29 are not easily reconciled. Does the chapter represent a
wholesale Bogomil insertion or a progressively reworked passage that
was glossed frst by a non-Bogomil Christian copyist and then by a
Bogomil one? Whatever the case, his detection oI Bogomil editing
has had a noticeable impact on North American scholarship on the
Apocalvpse of Abraham, as may be seen most notably in the premiere
introduction to apocalyptic literature by John J. Collins.
17
However, a
new generation oI Slavicists has cast doubt on the whole idea oI
Bogomil infuence. For instance, Andrei Orlov`s recent examination
oI the pertinent passages underscores their similarities to the dualism
refected in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in later Jewish mystical texts.
18

As with the proposal oI Bogomil infuence, so the broader theory
oI interpolation has not won universal acceptance. Without arguing
that the passage is original, Marc Philonenko has expressed dissatis-
Iaction with the consensus view.
19
More recently, Alexander Kulik has
rejected it, though with little elaboration except to note that the
passage`s picture oI two opposing messianic fguresa pseudo-
messiah, described in vv. 4-8, and a legitimate one mentioned in
passing in v. 10has some precedent in texts oI the pseudepigrapha,

16. Rubinkiewicz, Apocalypse oI Abraham`, p. 684.
17. J.J. Collins, The Apocalvptic Imagination. An Introduction to Jewish
Apocalvptic Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn, 1998), pp. 229-30.
18. A.A. Orlov, 'The Likeness oI Heaven: The Kavod oI Azazel in the
Apocalypse oI Abraham`, in D.V. Arbel and A.A. Orlov (eds.), With Letters of Light.
Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Earlv Jewish Apocalvpticism, Magic and Mvsticism
(Ekstasis, 2; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), p. 253. CI. idem, The Jewish Pseudepigrapha
in the Slavic Literary Environment`, in his Selected Studies in the Slavonic
Pseudepigrapha (SVTP, 23; Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 4-5.
19. B. Philonenko-Sayar and M. Philonenko, LApocalvpse dAbraham. Intro-
duction, texte slave, traductionet notes (Semitica, 31; Paris: Librairie dÀmerique et
dÒrient Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1981), p. 24: Ces explications laissent insatisIait:
authentique, interpole ou remanie, le texte reste pour nous enigmatique`. CI.
Philonenko-Sayar and Philonenko, Die Apokalvpse Abrahams (JSHRZ, 5.5;
Gtersloh: Mohn, 1982), p. 417: .diese Vermutung macht einen Abschnitt nicht
klarer, der Ir uns in jeden Fall rtselhaItig bleibt`.

the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other sources.
20
To this observation one may
add that a juxtaposition oI opposing fgures characterizes the entire
Apocalvpse of Abraham. Thus in the early haggadic chapters Terah`s
devotion to his liIeless idols is set over against Abraham`s appeal to
the living God. Then in the scene on Mt. Horeb in chs. 1214, the
high-priestly angel Yahoel opposes the Iallen angel Azazel, who
swoops down in the Iorm oI an unclean bird and tries to prevent
Abraham`s ascent to heaven by intimidating him. Abraham himselI
proleptically usurps the position Iormerly held by Azazel; the garment
that had been Azazel`s in heaven, Yahoel declares, is now reserved Ior
Abraham; and the corruption that was Iormally on Abraham has now
been transIerred to Azazel (13.14). Seen in the broader context, then,
the two messiahs oI ch. 29 represent yet one more opposite pair.
The most detailed reIutation oI the Christian-interpolation theory
has been put Iorward by Robert G. Hall.
21
He suggests that 29.4-13
can be read as part oI the original Jewish work and that only v. 9b
need be singled out as a Christian gloss. He thinks that this verse,
which appears at frst glance to picture the man as a descendant oI
Abraham, contradicts v. 4a, which describes him going out Irom the
heathen side. Thus Hall says,

When viewed as a Christian interpolation, certain Ieatures oI the interpre-
tation confict with the vision. In the vision, the man comes Irom the
heathen side oI the picture (29.4), but in the interpretation he is one oI
Abraham`s descendants (29.9b). Since the Ieatures conIorming to
Christian doctrine appear in the interpretation rather than in the vision
(only in the interpretation is the insulted and worshiped man one oI
Abraham`s tribe and only there does he bring salvation), the vision must
be original.
22

20. Kulik, Retroverting Slavonic Pseudepigrapha, p. 51. Kulik points to Beliar/
Belial and Melkiresha in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Armilus in Targum Isa. 11.4 and later
Jewish texts, and the antichrist fgure in the New Testament.
21. R.G. Hall, The 'Christian Interpolation in the Apocalvpse of Abraham`, JBL
107 (1988), pp. 107-12; idem, Revealed Histories. Techniques for Ancient Jewish and
Christian Historiographv (SheIfeld: JSOT Press, 1991), pp. 75-79. CI. A.-M. Denis,
Introduction a la Litterature religieuse Judeo-Hellenistique (2 vols.; Paris: Brepols,
2000), I, p. 210, who cites Hall`s suggestion as possible; and G.W.E. Nickelsburg,
Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2nd edn, 2005), p. 287, who accepts Hall`s thesis outright.
22. Hall, 'Christian Interpolation `, p. 107.

To make this point, Hall must rely on previous translations oI v. 9b,
all oI which take the antecedent oI the pronoun which` (ero) in the
phrase which you saw` to be the man`:
23

Bonwetsch: .stele ich diesen Mann von deinem Geschlecht,
welchen du sahst aus meinem Volk.
24

Box: I will set up this man Irom thy generation, whom
thou sawest (issue) Irom my people.
25

Rubinkiewicz: I will set up this man Irom your tribe, the one
whom you have seen Irom my people.
26

Philonenko-Sayar: Jìnstallerai cet homme venu de ta semence que tu
as vu issu de Mon peuple.
27

Pennington: I will raise up this man you have seen Irom among
your descendantsIrom my own people.
28

These translations, however, are not required by the Slavonic. The
pronoun which` (ero) can have as its grammatical antecedent either
the masculine noun man` (myx) or the neuter noun seed` (cemenn).
It may be, then, that the clause in v. 9b should be rendered I shall set
up the man Irom your seed, which (seed) you saw`. II this syntactical
construal is right, then v. 9b poses no contradiction to v. 4a; it reIers
not to the Ialse messiah whom Abraham has been shown in the vision
but the true messiah about whom God inIorms Abraham in v. 10a.
29

23. The exception appears to be Kulik, whose rendering preserves the ambiguity
oI the Slavonic: And in the |same| twelIth period oI the close oI my age I shall set up
the man Irom your seed which you saw`.
24. Bonwetsch, Apokalvpse Abrahams, p. 38.
25. Box with Landsman, Apocalvpse of Abraham, p. 79.
26. Rubinkiewicz and Lunt, Apocalypse oI Abraham`, p. 703.
27. Philonenko-Sayar and Philonenko, Apocalvpse dAbraham, p. 101. Verse 8a
in this edition is v. 9b in the others.
28. A. Pennington, Apocalypse oI Abraham`, in H.F.D. Sparks (ed.), The
Apocrvpha of the Old Testament (OxIord: Clarendon Press, 1984), p. 389.
29. The Slavonic text oI v. 10b is unclear and probably textually corrupt: nn
ns nmnn mon cemy ncn oynooxrcx n npnurn xxo or mene sonoma
npemnoymmncx n cnrex cnonx. The translations oI Bonwetsch, Box,
Philonenko-Sayar, and Pennington oIIer similar reconstructions oI the clause: und
hinzugezhlt werden wie von mir geruIen, die sich ndernden in ihren Ratsch-
lssen`(Bonwetsch); and such as are called by me (will) join, (even) those who
change in their counsels` (Box); Et ajoute ceux qui auront change dans leur conseil,
parce quìl sauront ete appeles par Moi` (Philonenko-Sayar); and will realize he has
been called by me and change their minds` (Pennington). Kulik reconstructs the
clause to read while the sayings oI him who was as iI called by me will be neglected

This true messiah is mentioned briefy near the end oI the apocalypse
when God tells the patriarch, Then I shall sound the trumpet Irom the
sky, and I shall send my chosen one, having in him the measure oI all
my power, and he will summon my people blamed among the
heathen` (31.1). What makes this fgure a true messiah is not simply
that he comes Irom Abraham`s line but that he neither invites nor
accepts worship.
30

According to Hall, the man in Abraham`s vision has little in com-
mon with a Christian view oI Jesus but recalls the beast in Rev 13.4`.
Despite substantial diIIerences in detail`, he says, both passages
Ieature a fgure who arises who though smitten is supported by the
lord oI evil and receives worship Irom many`.
31
He then proceeds to
identiIy the man who is worshipped as the emperor Hadrian, who
styled himselI as Jupiter and built temples to himselI and to that deity
in Jerusalem, which he renamed Aelia Capitolina (Dio Cassio 66.12.1-
2). He takes those oI Abraham`s seed who worship the man to
represent Jews who renounced their Judaism so as to avoid paying the
scus Judaicus in the decades Iollowing the First Jewish Revolt.
These Jews, he says, could not have avoided participation in the
imperial cult and thereIore must have paid homage to Hadrian. Hall
deserves credit Ior trying to make sense oI ch. 29 without excising it,
and his proposed identifcation oI the man with Hadrian is ingenious.
It has a Iatal faw, however: although Hadrian accepted divine honors,
he was never beaten or mocked as the man in Abraham`s vision is.

A New Proposal

Chapter 29 can be read as part oI the Jewish work. In this judgment
Hall is almost certainly correct. Contrary to Hall, though, the man in
the vision bears an uncanny resemblance to Jesus oI Nazareth. He
does so in three respects: frst, his being shamed and struck recall
Jesus` passion, in particular his being fogged and humiliated by

in their minds` but notes that his rendering is only an alternative interpretation`
(Retroverting Slavonic Pseudepigrapha, pp. 33, 51).
30. See Iurther D.C. Harlow, Idolatry and Alterity: Israel and the Nations in the
Apocalvpse of Abraham`, in D.C. Harlow et al. (eds.), The 'Other` in Second Temple
Judaism. Essavs in Honor of John J. Collins (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), pp.
302-30.
31. Hall, 'Christian Interpolation `, p. 107.

Roman soldiers and then being mocked at the Ioot oI the cross;
32

second, his being worshipped by the heathen and by some oI Abra-
ham`s seed evokes veneration oI Jesus by both Jews and non-Jews in
the decades aIter his death; third, his being kissed by Azazel echoes
not only Judas Iscariot`s betrayal oI Jesus with a kiss, known in all
three oI the Synoptic Gospels, but also the tradition known Irom the
Gospels oI Luke and John that Judas was possessed by Satan, who
entered him and inspired him to hand Jesus over to the authorities.
33

This last point has an interesting parallel in the late-medieval, anti-
Christian tractate Toledot Yeshu, which preserves a variation on the
tradition oI Judas`s betrayal oI Jesus that calls to mind Azazel`s
worship oI the man in our passage:

|Yeshu| entered the Temple with his three hundred and ten Iollowers. One
oI them, Judah Iskarioto, apprised the Sages that Yeshu was to be Iound in
the Temple, that the disciples had taken a vow by the Ten Commandments
not to reveal his identity, but that he would point him out by bowing to
him. So it was done and Yeshu was seized.
34

So here we have Judas directing Jesus` captors to the right man not by
kissing him but by prostrating himselI beIore Jesus, in a gesture oI
mock homage or worship aIter a Iashion.
Azazel`s worship oI the man in Abraham`s vision may also echo
Gospel traditions in which Jesus` opponents accuse him oI being in
league with the devil. Thus in Mark, the earliest oI the Gospels,
scribes Irom Jerusalem react to Jesus` reputation as an exorcist with
the accusation, He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler oI the demons he
casts out demons` (Mark 3.22). The Gospels oI Matthew and Luke,
which rely on Mark as a principal source, repeat this tradition (Mt.
12.24; Lk. 11.15). For its part, the Gospel oI John, which lacks
exorcisms altogether, depicts some members oI a crowd in Jerusalem

32. Flogging and mockerv bv Roman soldiers. Mt. 27.27-38; Mk 15.17-20; Jn
19.1-3. Mockerv at the foot of the cross. Mt. 27.38-43; Mk 15.27-32a; Lk. 23.35-38.
33. Betraval bv Judass kiss. Mt. 26.48-49; Mk 14.44-45; Lk. 22.47-48. (The
Gospel oI John`s version oI the betrayal |18.2-5| does not depict Judas kissing Jesus.)
Satan entering Judas. Jn 13.27; cI. 13.2; Lk. 22.3.
34. Trans. M. Goldstein, Jesus in the Jewish Tradition (New York: Macmillan,
1950), p. 152. For a Iascinating study oI the elaborate counter-history` oI Judas in the
Toledoth Yeshu, which transIorms him into a kind oI savior fgure Ior the Jews, see O.
Limor and I.J. Yuval, Judas Iscariot: Revealer oI the Hidden Truth`, in P. SchIer, M.
Meerson, and Y. Deutsch (eds.), Toledot Yeshu (The Life Storv of Jesus) Revisited.
A Princeton Conference (TSAJ, 143; Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), pp. 197-220.

joining Jesus` opponents in accusing him oI having a demon (Jn 7.20;
8.48, 52; cI. 10.20).
In light oI these points oI correspondence, the judgment that the
man in the vision has little in common with Jesus is diIfcult to
sustain. Accordingly, one may reconstruct the larger scenario implied
in the passage as Iollows: the devil led many Gentiles and even some
Jews to worship Jesus, but then engineered Jesus` death by having
Judaswho initially venerated him as the messiah but was later
possessed or infuenced by Satanturn him over to his captors, who
beat him and mocked him. II this interpretation has merit, then what
we have in the Apocalvpse of Abraham is a deliberate distortion oI
traditions known Irom the New Testament.
How might the author have become Iamiliar with these traditions?
On the one hand, he may have known them Irom Jewish disputations
with members oI the Jesus movement current in his day. On the other
hand, it is not beyond the realm oI possibility that he had access to the
text oI one or another oI the Gospels. II one supposes that he was
writing in Palestine or its environs in the early second century, two
gospels in particular suggest themselves as candidates, those attributed
to Matthew and Luke. Matthew is dated by New Testament scholars to
the penultimate decade oI the frst century and is thought to have been
written in a Jewish community oI Jesus` Iollowers located either in
Upper Galilee or Lower Syria.
35
The Gospel oI John, dated to the
Iollowing decade, is oIten assigned a provenance in the city oI
Ephesus in Asia Minor, but some scholars have made a compelling
case Ior locating it in Northern Transjordan, in the region oI
Gaulanitis, Batanaea, and Trachonitis, areas that were under the
control oI Agrippa II (Josephus, J.W. 3.56-57).
36
Wherever it was
composed, the Johannine community that produced the Fourth Gospel
likely had its origins within a Pharisaic synagogue community in
Palestine. This is clear especially Irom the story in John 9 oI Jesus
healing a blind man who is then expelled by the Pharisees Irom the

35. See, e.g., A.J. Overmann, Matthew, Gospel oI`, in J.J. Collins and D.C.
Harlow (eds.), The Eerdmans Dictionarv of Earlv Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2010), pp. 923-24.
36. See K. Wengst, Bedrngte Gemeinde und Jerherrlichter Christus. Der
Historischer Ort des Johannesevangeliums als Schssel :u seiner Interpretation
(BThST, 5; NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2nd edn, 1983), pp. 77-96;
G. Reim, Lokalisierung der johanneischen Gemeinde`, BZ 32 (1988), pp. 72-86.

synagogue Ior conIessing Jesus to be the messiah.
37
It is at least
possible, then, that Matthew or John could have been known to our
Palestinian author.
Now, there are two potential obstacles to taking Jesus as the Ialse
messiah in Abraham`s vision. The frst is that the man appears to be a
savior fgure. That, at any rate, is the impression one gets Irom Hall`s
discussion, and Irom the usual translation oI the Slavonic word oslaba
in 29.8, which says, Listen, Abraham, the man whom you saw
shamed and struck and again worshiped is the oslaba oI the heathen
with respect to the people who will come Irom you in the last days`.
Box, Rubinkiewicz, Philonenko-Sayar, and Pennington all render the
Slavonic with positive terms:

Box: the relieI |granted| by the heathen
Rubinkiewicz: the liberation Irom the heathen
Philonenko-Sayar: qui soulagera des paens
Pennington: the respite granted by the heathen

Despite these translations, the word oslaba can have a negative
connotation. Bonwetsch translates the word with Nachlassung and
Kulik with laxitv. The Greek words variously postulated as lying
behind the Slavonicovtoi Ior Box and Rubinkiewicz, tcoi or
opocoi Ior Kulikcan have the sense neglect` or negligence`.
38

Kulik makes the attractive suggestion that behind oslaba may stand
the Hebrew :'c, a term used in rabbinic tradition to reIer to laxity in
matters oI Torah observance.
39
II one accepts his suggestion, then v. 8
would be depicting Jesus as the epitome oI Gentile Iailure to worship
the one God. By making himselI an object oI worship, Jesus enticed
some in Israel to neglect the frst and greatest commandment oI the
Torahworship oI the LORD alone.
The second potential obstacle to the interpretation oIIered here is
that 29.4 depicts the man in Abraham`s vision going out Irom the

37. On synagogue expulsion as an anachronism being inscribed onto the story oI
Jesus in John, see especially R.E. Brown, The Communitv of the Beloved Disciple.
The Life, Loves, and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times (New
York: Paulist Press, 1979); and J.L. Martyn, Historv and Theologv in the Fourth
Gospel (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 3rd edn, 2003).
38. Lunt in Rubinkiewicz and Lunt, Apocalypse oI Abraham, p. 703, n. e on
29.10 suggests either otio or ovtoi.
39. Kulik, Retroverting Slavonic Pseudepigrapha, pp. 32, 51. He cites Lam. R. 1.4
(: o z'' :'c) and Midr. Tanhuma, Beshalah 25 (: :'c).

heathen side. Yet this portrayal need not be taken as a claim that Jesus
was a Gentile; it may rather reIer to the success oI the Jesus move-
ment among Gentiles in the latter decades oI the frst century.
40

Another possibility, though, is that the author oI the apocalypse did
indeed wish to hint that Jesus was not a Jew. There is a parallel Ior
such an insinuation, albeit not in relation to Christ but rather to Christ`s
apostle, Paul. It comes in an interesting passage in the second-century
Ebionite work the Ascents of James (Anabathmoi Iakobou), which
survives only in a summary paraphrase by the Iourth-century church
Iather Epiphanius oI Salamis. In his catalogue oI heresies, the
Panarion, Epiphanius says oI the Ebionites,

|They| are not ashamed to denounce Paul with certain slanders concocted
by the malice and error oI their Ialse apostles. They say that he was a
citizen oI Tarsus, as he himselI admits and does not deny, but also that he
was a Greek, basing this allegation on the passage in which Paul states
Iorthrightly, 'I am Irom Tarsus, a citizen oI no mean city (Acts 21.39).
Then they allege that he was a Greek, the son oI a Greek mother and a
Greek Iather, that he went up to Jerusalem and stayed there Ior some time,
and that he earnestly desired to marry the daughter oI a priest and Ior this
reason became a proselyte and was circumcised. But when he could not
win the girl, he became angry and wrote against circumcision, the Sabbath,
and the Law. (Panarion, haereses 30.16.8-9)
41

So, here we have a group oI Jewish Iollowers oI Jesus deIaming the
Jewish apostle to the Gentiles by claiming that he was a Greekand
doing so around the time our author chose to depict Jesus as a non-
Jewish pseudo-messiah.
Another paralleland one that is somewhat more pertinent than the
Ebionite anti-Pauline polemiccan be Iound in the Gospel oI John, a
New Testament writing well known Ior making exalted claims about
Jesus and placing those claims on Jesus` own lips. At several points in
the Fourth Gospel, Jesus claims a divine status Ior himselI; he asserts
that he existed beIore Abraham (8.58) and descended Irom heaven
(3.3), and that to see him is to see the Father (14.9) since he and the
Father are one (10.30). Jesus` antagonists in the Gospel, called simply
the Jews`, regard these assertions as blasphemous and accuse Jesus oI

40. This possibility was raised already by Box but then quickly rejected; he
deemed it better to read Irom the right side` and to omit the words oI the heathen` as
an incorrect gloss (Apocalvpse of Abraham, p. 78 n. 3).
41. My translation based on the edition oI K. Holl, Epiphanius. I. Ancoratus und
Panarionhaer. 133 (GCS, 25; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1915), p. 355.

making himselI out to be God (5.18; 10.33). In John 8, at a point in
the narrative where Jesus is in Jerusalem Ior the Festival oI Succoth,
the Jews` reply to his sacrilegious statements by asking rhetorically,
Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a
demon?` (8.48). In the Johannine context being a Samaritan and
having a demon may be two ways oI saying that Jesus is insane.
42
In
the ancient world insanity was widely attributed to demon possession.
Yet Irom a Jewish point oI view, the two insults also amount to a
charge oI idolatry, the idea being that Samaritans do not oIIer God
true worship and are thereIore apostate Israelites, and that demons are
ultimately behind Ialse worship.
43
The matter oI legitimate versus
illegitimate worship is a major theme in the Fourth Gospelas it is,
albeit in a diIIerent way, in the Apocalvpse of Abraham. In Iact, it is
the central issue in Jesus` conversation with the anonymous woman oI
Samaria in John 4, where Jesus declares, You people (c uti) worship
what you do not know; we worship what we do know, Ior salvation is
Irom the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true
worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth` (4.22-23).
Yet as RudolI Schnackenburg observes, one need not decide among
these alternatives: .heresy, blasphemous claims, 'adulterous idola-
try, all are embodied Ior the Jewish mind in being a Samaritan and can
be interpreted in no other terms than |demon| possession`.
44
All this is

42. CI. Jn 7.20, where the crowd answers Jesus, You have a demon! Who is
trying to kill you?` Also Jn 10.20, where many oI the Jews say that Jesus has a
demon and is out oI his mind (uoivtxoi)`. A similar charge is made in Mark 3.22,
where scribes Irom Jerusalem accuse Jesus oI having Beelzebul and oI casting out
demons by the ruler oI the demons. This accusation Iollows immediately on the
narrator`s statement that Jesus` Iamily thought he was out oI his mind (t toxu).
43. On the link between idolatry and demons, see Ior example Deut. 32.17; Ps.
106.37; 1 Cor. 10.20-21. In the background here may be traditions associated with the
Samaritan prophets Simon Magus and Dositheus, fgures who claimed to be specially
endowed by God with wonderworking power. According to the book oI Acts, Simon
perIormed magic in the city oI Samaria and was hailed by people with the accla-
mation This man is the power oI God that is called Great` (Acts 8.10). He was
subsequently cursed by the apostle Peter Ior trying to purchase the power to conIer the
Holy Spirit by the laying on oI hands (8.9-24). Origen reports that Dositheus made
divine claims Ior himselI, taking the title son oI God` (Cels. 6.11; cI. Comm. Jo.
13.27). Justin Martyr attributes the popular success oI these and other Samaritan
wonderworkers to demonic infuence (1 Apol. 26.3; Dial. 120.6).
44. R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel according to John. II. Commentarv on
Chapters 512 (New York: Seabury, 1980), p. 218.

to say that a polemical denial oI Jesus` Jewishness had some currency
around the time the Apocalvpse of Abraham was written.
II, then, ch. 29 refects a willIul distortion oI New Testament tradi-
tions concerning Jesus, a logical next step is to seek Ior an analogous
distortion in a second-century Jewish context, and indeed there is one
to be Iound, one that pertains not to Jesus` passion but to his birth. The
earliest dateable reIutation oI the Christian belieI that Jesus was born
oI a virgin comes by way oI the great church Iather Origen oI
Alexandria. Around the year 250 Origen composed a treatise against
Celsus, a Platonist pamphleteer who some seventy or eighty years
earlier had written an anti-Christian tract titled The True Doctrine
(Alths Logos), perhaps in response to the writings oI Christian
apologists like Justin Martyr.
45
As a vivid rhetorical device, Celsus
resorted at certain junctures in his treatise to putting his mockery oI
Christianity onto the lips oI an imaginary Jew who accosts Jesus,
interrogates him with rhetorical questions, and makes various and
sundry snide remarks. The man accuses Jesus oI having Iabricated the
story oI his birth Irom a virgin, when in Iact his mother was a poor
woman who made her living by spinning yarn. She had been engaged
to a carpenter, but when he Iound out that she had become pregnant by
a soldier named Panthera, he drove her out oI her village. DriIting and
destitute, she gave birth to Jesus, who, when he reached adulthood,
Iound work as a day laborer in Egypt. There he learned how to per-
Iorm magic and, on returning to his homeland, used his newly
acquired skills to deceive the gullible and claim Ior himselI the title
God`.
46

Celsus`s account has every appearance oI being a deliberately
garbled version oI Matthew`s birth and inIancy narrative.
47
It echoes
Joseph`s initial resolve quietly to break his engagement with Mary on

45. See C. Andresen, Logos und Nomos. Die Polemik des Kelsos wider das
Christentum (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1955), pp. 308-400.
46. C. Cels. 1.28, 32. On Origen, Celsus, and their respective treatises, see H.
Chadwick, Origin. Contra Celsum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953;
repr. with corrections, 1965), pp. ix-lx; and R.J. HoIImann, Celsus, On the True
Doctrine. A Discourse against the Christians (New York: OxIord University Press,
1987), pp. 5-49. HoIIman`s book oIIers a reconstruction oI Celsus`s treatise, extracted
Irom Origen`s scaIIolding.
47. See Iurther D.C. Harlow, Born oI Fornication: The Jewish Charge oI Jesus`
Illegitimacy in John, Celsus, and Origen`, in S.E. Meyers (ed.), Portraits of Jesus.
Studies in Christologv (WUNT, 321; Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), pp. 335-53.

learning oI her pregnancy (Mt. 1.19) and confates the visit oI the
Magi with the holy Iamily`s fight to and return Irom Egypt (2.1-15).
The charge that Jesus gave himselI the title God` recalls Matthew`s
explanation that the name Emmanuel means God with us` (1.23). As
many have suggested, the name Panthera, though common enough in
Roman antiquity, may have been chosen as a pun on the Greek word
Ior virgin`, optvo.
For our present purposes, it is worth asking whether Celsus con-
cocted his counter story oI Jesus` birth de novo, or whether he derived
it Irom slanders circulating among Jews in the second century. The
latter scenario seems Iar more likely.
48
Interestingly, Peter SchIer has
shown that this same Jewish counter narrative circulated among the
Rabbis and eventually made its way into the Babylonian Talmud. In
uncensored manuscripts and printed editions oI the Bavli, there are
two nearly identical passages, b. Sabbat 104b and b. Sanhedrin 67a,
that allude to Jesus under the name Ben Stada or Ben Pandera. In a
tradition attributed to Rabbi isda (d. 309), Miriam (Mary) had a
husband (baal) named Stada but also a lover (boel) named Pandera.
The last sentence in the discourse derives the name Stada Irom a pun
on the Hebrew/Aramaic root saa/se in order to slander Mary as
soaan adulteress.
49
What we have in the Pandera story, then, is an
example oI Jews in the second century and rabbinic sages in the Iourth
deliberately distorting the virgin birth tradition. This example quali-
fes, I think, as an analogy to the distortion that seems to be at work in
the Apocalvpse of Abraham. Moreover, iI SchIer is right that the

48. See also R.E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah. A Commentarv on the Infancv
Narratives of Matthew and Luke. New Updated Edition (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1993), pp. 535-37; J.P. Meier, A Marginal Jew. Rethinking the Historical
Jesus. I. The Roots of the Problem and the Person (New York: Doubleday, 1991),
pp. 223-24; Stephen Wilson, Related Strangers. Jews and Christians 70170 C.E.
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), pp. 186-87. Misleadingly, both Meier and Wilson
say that Celsus`s Jewish interlocutor was an actual Jew to whom Celsus had spoken,
when in Iact Origen makes clear that he was a rhetorical device.
49. P. SchIer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007),
pp. 16-17. This important book is a boon to scholarship and deserves to be read
especially by New Testament scholars, who Ior more than thirty years now have
Iollowed Johann Maier in concluding that there are Iew iI any bona fde allusions
to Jesus in rabbinic literature. See Johann Maier, Jesus von Na:areth in der
talmudischen berlieferung (Darmstadt: WissenschaItliche BuchgesellschaIt, 1978).
Representative oI the uncritical acceptance oI Maier is Meier, A Marginal Jew, pp.
94-98.

Rabbis had access to the Gospels, this strengthens the possibility that
the author oI our apocalypse did as well, especially given that the
Gospels oI Matthew and John, on the one hand, and the Apocalvpse of
Abraham, on the other, were written in or near the land oI Israel.
50

Conclusion

It is a well-known Iact that virtually all the evidence we have Ior early
Jewish responses to Christianity comes in Christian texts, beginning in
the New Testament writings, especially the Gospels and the book oI
Acts, and continuing in the writings oI the church Iathers, the earliest
signifcant one being Justin`s Dialogue with Trvpho the Jew. II ch. 29
oI the Apocalvpse of Abraham does indeed represent a polemic against
veneration oI Jesus, it would be the only Jewish text to do so in the
pre-Talmudic period. Yet this apocalypse, like most oI the Pseude-
pigrapha, owes its preservation to Christians. An obvious question
then poses itselI: Why did Christian scribes oI the work leave the
passage (virtually) intact? The answer seems to be that the very
allusiveness oI the apocalyptic genre was able not only to accom-
modate a Jewish author`s veiled critique oI Christian worship oI Jesus,
but also allow Christian scribes to read the passage in a way that did
not require excising it, since it was suIfciently elusive to escape
detection. The opaque character oI the passage may well have enabled
Slavic tradents such as the Bogomils to read it in ways compatible
with their dualistic theology but without having to rework it in accord
with their particular interests. II the proposal oIIered here is right, it
would be an exquisite irony that an anti-Christian passage remained
unscathed Ior centuries and eventually made its way into the Explana-
torv Palaia, that melange oI material with anti-Jewish commentary
interspersed among its preserved texts and interpretive elaborations.

50. For SchIer`s suggestion that the rabbis had some version oI the New Testa-
ment in Iront oI them (the text oI John in particular), see Jesus in the Talmud, pp. 122-
29.

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