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Testament of Simeon

Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs

About this book
Chapter 8

1 When Simeon had finished commanding his sons, he died and joined his ancestors at the age of a hundred and twenty. 2 They laid him in a wooden coffin, intending to carry his bones to Hebron. 3 They carried them up secretly during a war of the Egyptians.⁠ 4 As for the bones of Joseph, the Egyptians kept them guarded in the tombs of the kings. 5 The sorcerers had told them that when the bones of Joseph left, there would be darkness and gloom throughout all the land and a terrible plague on the Egyptians, so that even with a lamp no one would recognize his brother.

Texts in conversation

Compare Jubilees 46:9 and Testament of Simeon 8:3

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions · Pseudepigrapha, Testaments

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Summary

In Jubilees, Jacob carries the bones of Joseph’s brothers to Hebron during a war with Egypt. The Testament of Simeon adds that they were moved in secret while sorcerers guarded Joseph’s bones, fearing their loss would bring darkness and plague.

Passages

Jubilees 46:9

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
8 And Joseph died in the forty-sixth jubilee, in the sixth week, in the second year [2242], and they buried him in the land of Egypt, and all his brothers died after him. 9 And the king of Egypt went out to war with the king of Canaan in the forty-seventh jubilee, in the second week in the second year [2263], and the children of Israel brought out all the bones of the children of Jacob except the bones of Joseph, and they buried them in the field in the double cave in the mountain. 10 And most (of them) returned to Egypt, but a few of them remained in the mountains of Hebron, and Amram your father remained with them.
170–125 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jubilees

Testament of Simeon 8:3

Pseudepigrapha, Testaments · Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs
2 They laid him in a wooden coffin, intending to carry his bones to Hebron. 3 They carried them up secretly during a war of the Egyptians. 4 As for the bones of Joseph, the Egyptians kept them guarded in the tombs of the kings.
100 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Testament of Simeon

References

... The same tradition can be found in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. There, too, it is said that the bones of all the patriarchs were buried in Hebron. In the case of Simeon and Benjamin, a war is also mentioned. In the Testament of Simeon 8.2, it is said that the bones of Simeon were carried by his sons 'in secret' up to Hebron 'during a war with Egypt'. The sons of Benjamin carried the bones of their father in secret to Hebron, 'because of a war with Canaan' (Testament of Benjamin 12.3). ...
Jacques T.A.G.M. van Ruiten, “The Birth of Moses in Egypt According to the Book of Jubilees,” in The Wisdom of Egypt: Jewish, Early Christian, and Gnostic Essays in Honour of Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, ed. Anthony Hilhorst and George H. van Kooten, AJEC 59 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 56.

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Jubilees 46:9 and Testament of Simeon 8:3

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