Along with our own commentary, the following is a continuation of the work by Isabel Hill Elder, probably written in the mid-20th century. (The little booklet in our possession is worn and old but contains no date of publication or copyright whatsoever.)
In this blog, all emphases and comments in [brackets] are mine. Unless within my brackets, all words in (parentheses) are presumably by Ms. Elder.
Additionally, we have spelled out the full names of her biblical references and changed the chapter numbers from Roman numerals to Arabic numerals. We have also shortened many of her lengthy paragraphs to make them more readable for the tiny and narrow screens of some of our modern digital devices.
This installment continues with Ms. Elder’s extensive quotation from the pseudepigraphal book, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. It is her manner of providing background information—questionable though it is—before she presents her research from later and more recent centuries about the descendants of the tribe of Levi.
There is more our readers should know as we proceed with Ms. Elder’s excerpts from The Testament of Levi. It is one chapter in a larger collection of twelve, Levi being one of the twelve sons of Jacob-Israel.
The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, in turn, is itself only one of a collection of pseudepigraphal books which were edited and published in 1913 by Dr. R.H. Charles in a thick volume entitled The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, which I have in my library. You should know this about Dr. Charles, which we have excerpted from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library website. QUOTE:
Robert Henry Charles left parochial work in 1889 to devote himself to biblical research and became the greatest authority of his time in matters of Jewish eschatology and apocrypha. He became a canon at Westminster Abbey in 1913 and archdeacon there in 1919. His books include Eschatology (1913, 2nd ed), Between the Old and New Testaments (1914), and his edition of The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament. (1913).
Charles was born in county Tyrone, Northern Ireland. He was educated at Queen's University, Belfast, and Trinity College, Dublin. Among his other publications are The Apocalypse (1920), Divorce and Nullity (1927), and The Resurrection of Man (1930). END QUOTE
Dr. Charles is still recognized today in ecclesiastical circles as one of the giant intellects in the field of the apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings. Why is that important? You will see.
The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs were republished in 1927 with other Old Testament pseudepigraphal works under the title of The Forgotten Books of Eden, and that collection was combined with apocryphal and pseudepigraphal works from the first four centuries after Christ, which is entitled The Lost Books of the Bible.
All that is in my own library copy as a single, very thick volume, from which we quote the following excerpt from the introduction to The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. QUOTE:
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…” END QUOTE
That is astonishing! Dr. R. H. Charles, this “great scholar,” is saying that the “ethical teaching” found in this likely work of fiction is on a higher level than the inspired and inerrant Word of God in the Old Testament. Even if it were based on stories handed down through the centuries, none of the pseudepigraphal works were included in canon of the Bible.
Speaking of ethics, the perfect law of God is found in the Old Testament. Jesus Himself (being God in the flesh and the Author of the law) kept the law perfectly and did not abolish it with His death!
My research and study of these apocryphal and pseudepigraphal works over many decades reveals many common threads among the Bible scholars, theologians, ministers, divines, reverend doctors, etc. who have compiled and/or edited and/or written commentaries on them.
Sadly, the most common thread is this, which is demonstrated in my emphasized portion of the quotation from Dr. Charles above: They all evince their lack of faith in the Bible we have today.
They cast doubt here and there, usually with the perspective that this or that particular book should have been included in the canon of the Bible. My extensive study of Bible versions and of the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha is available in my 20-lecture (on CDs) series entitled Which Bible? Which Version? (Still available from our offices for $67 postpaid.)
Here below is part two of Ms. Elder’s treatise on the tribe of Levi.
LEVI'S PROPHECY CONCERNING HIS POSTERITY
"Whatsoever I command you, children, that observe, for whatsoever things I have heard from my fathers I have declared unto you, and behold I am clear from your ungodliness and transgression which ye shall commit in the end of the ages against the Saviour of the world, Christ, acting godlessly, deceiving Israel, and stirring up against it great evils from the Lord.
And ye shall deal lawlessly together with Israel, so He shall not bear with Jerusalem because of your wickedness, but the veil of the temple shall be rent as not to cover your shame. And ye shall be scattered as captives among the Gentiles (nations) and shall be for a reproach and a curse there. For the house which the Lord shall choose shall be called Jerusalem (new Jerusalem) as is contained in the book of Enoch the righteous."
LEVI'S SONS AND GRANDSONS
"When I took a wife I was twenty-eight years old, and her name was Melcha. And she bare a son and I called his name Gersom, and I saw concerning him that he would not be in the first rank. Kohath was born in the thirty-fifth year of my life, and she, Melcha, bare me a third son in the fortieth year of my life, and since his mother bare him with difficulty I called him Merari, that is "my bitterness" because he also was like to die.
Jochebed was born in Egypt in my sixty-fourth year (of a second marriage), and in my ninety-fourth year Amram my eldest grandson took Jochebed my daughter to wife, for they were born in one day, he and my daughter. In my forty-eighth year I went into Egypt. In my hundred and eighteenth-year Joseph died."
LEVI'S INSTRUCTIONS TO HIS CHILDREN
"And now, my children, I command you, fear the Lord your God with your whole heart; and walk in simplicity according to all His law, and so also teach your children letters, that they may have understanding all their life, reading increasingly the law of God; for everyone that knoweth the law of the Lord shall be honoured, and shall not be a stranger whithersoever he goeth.
Yea, many friends shall he gain more than his parents, and many men shall desire to serve him, and to hear the law from his mouth. Work righteousness, my children, that ye may have it as a treasure in heaven; and sow good things in your souls, that ye may find them in your life, but if ye sow evil things ye shall reap every trouble and affliction.
Get wisdom in the fear of God with diligence; for though there be a leading into captivity, and cities and lands be destroyed, and gold and silver and every possession perish, the wisdom of the wise nought can take away, save the blindness of ungodliness and the callousness of sin; for if one keeps oneself from these evil things, then even among his enemies wisdom shall be a glory to him, and in a strange country, a fatherland, and in the midst of foes shall prove a friend. Whosoever teacheth noble things and doeth them shall be enthroned with kings, as was also Joseph, my brother. (Proverbs 2: 7
LEVI FORETELLS THE FALLING AWAY OF HIS CHILDREN
"Therefore, my children, I have learnt that at the end of the ages ye will transgress against the Lord, stretching out hands to wickedness against Him, and to all the nations shall ye become a scorn. For our father, Israel, is pure from the transgression of the chief priests who shall lay their hands upon the Saviour of the world.
For as the heaven is purer in the Lord's sight than the earth, so be ye the light of Israel, purer than all the Gentiles (nations). But if ye be darkened through transgressions what, therefore, will the nations do living in blindness? Yea, ye shall bring a curse upon our race, because the light of the law which, was given to lighten every man; this ye desire to destroy by teaching commandments contrary to the ordinances of God.
The offerings of the Lord ye shall rob, and ye shall be puffed up because of your priesthood, lifting yourselves up against men and against the commands of God. The temple shall be laid waste because of your uncleanness, and ye shall receive ever-lasting (age lasting) shame from the righteous judgment of God; and if ye were not to receive mercy through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob our fathers, not one of our seed should be left upon the earth.
Ye shall make void the law, and set at nought the words of the prophets by evil perverseness, and ye shall persecute righteous men and hate the godly. And a man who shall renew the law in the power of the Most High ye shall call a deceiver, and at last, ye shall rush upon Him to slay Him, not knowing His dignity, taking innocent blood through wickedness upon your heads; and your holy places shall be laid waste even to the ground, because of Him. Ye shall be among the nations a curse and a dispersion until He shall again visit you, and in pity shall receive you through faith and water."
LEVI'S LAST WORDS TO HIS CHILDREN
"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 (Satan). And his sons answered him, saying: ‘Before the Lord we will walk according to His law.’ And thus Levi ceased commanding his sons, and was gathered to his fathers, after he had lived one hundred and thirty-seven years. And afterwards they buried him in Hebron with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."
(To be continued.)
At this juncture, Isabel Hill Elder breaks off her quotation and commences her own commentary and recitation of the results of her historical research.
END
