Lives of the Prophets

This page is edited by Géza G. Xeravits, Sapientia College of Theology, Budapest

Lives of the Prophets is a first century C.E. Jewish document, generally included in collections of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

Overview

Manuscript Tradition

Greek text: The most ancient witness is the so-called codex Marchalianus (Vat.gr. 2125), from the sixth century C.E. (An1). Scholars agree that every other text-type of the work originate from this version. Two versions are preserved among the writings of Epiphanios of Salamis (Ep1 and Ep2), one MS from the 13th century C.E., and one from the 10th century. Another witness is preserved among the writings of Dorotheos of Antioch (Dor), in a MS from the 13th century. The recension which is closest to the codex Marchalianus text is called recensio anonyma (An2), it comes from the 10th century. Finally, another type of the work can be reconstructed from various passages of the church fathers (Schol, i.e. recensio scholiis adiecta).

Besides of the Greek versions, we know various other translations of the Lives of the Prophets: Latin, Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopic, Georgian, Arabic, Church Slavonic, and Old Irish, which shows that the ancient Church read this work with predilection.

Synopsis

History of research

The Greek texts of the Lives of the Prophes were edited by T. Schermann, Prophetarum Vitae Fabulosae. Indices apostolorum discipulorumque Domini Dorotheo, Epiphanio, Hippolyto aliisque vindicata (Leipzig: Teubner 1907). He further studied the manuscript evidence in his Propheten- und Apostellegenden nebst Jüngerkatalogen des Dorotheus und verwandter Texte (TU 31/3, Leipzig: Hinrichs 1907).

The Christian origin of the collection was claimed by David Satran in a series of publications, most comprehensively in his 1995 monograph. Although Christian reworking is discernable at a couple of instances, the collection is rather of Palestinian Jewish origin.