“... The author of the apocalypse employs two dating methods, or rather offers two divisions of the time-period encompassing the visions shown to Abraham. The first comprises four ascents; secondly, there is a division into twelve ages (28.4–5; 29.2; cf. 27.3). The exact meaning of the four ascents is not entirely clear. The term is used twice. In a vision Abraham sees the heathen running towards the seed of Abraham through four ascents and then burning the temple. God interprets this by telling Abraham that his anger will come upon Abraham’s seed through the four ascents and in them will be retribution for their works. He goes on to say that the fourth ascent is one hundred years, so it is clear that the ascents are to be taken as time-periods (28.5). [...] Most scholars have understood the four ascents to refer to the four kingdoms of Daniel, modified, as they are in other apocalypses, to signify Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. There is good reason for this. The four kingdoms schema, which originates in the vision of Daniel, is elsewhere associated with Abraham’s sacrifice and the vision that he received from God. The account offered in the Targum Yerušalmi has Abraham see the four kingdoms that will rise against him: Babylon, Media, Greece, and Edom (Rome). ...”