Palaea Historica

Palaea Historica ("Old Testament History") is an anonymous ninth century AD Byzantine chronicle which retells and expands on events in the Hebrew Bible. The Greek text of Palaea survives in manuscripts dating from the 12th to 16th centuries[1] as well as a Slavonic translation. The work is of particular interest for biblical studies because of its recasting of Old Testament personalities such as Melchizedek, Abraham, and Moses in addition to its inclusion of extra-biblical material alluded to in the New Testament, for example Jannes and Jambres (2 Timothy 3:8) and Archangel Michael contesting for the body of Moses (Jude 1:9). It contains a version of the Story of Melchizedek.

Text

The opening in Greek as in found in Vassiliev's 1893 edition reads as follows:

Ἱστορία παλαιοῦ περιέχων ἀπὸ τοῦ ᾿Αδάμ.

Πρὸ πάντων καὶ up πάντων [χαὶ] διὰ πάντων χρὴ τὸν

ἀληθῆ χριστιανὸν ἐπιγνῶναι τίς θεός χαὶ οσαχως θεός

[καὶ χατὰ τί εἴρηται θεός]. Θεὸς ὁ πατὴρ ὁ ἄναρχος...

See also

• Historia scholastica
• Biblia pauperum

Further reading

• William Adler, "Parabiblical Traditions and Their Use in the Palaea Historica", in Tradition, Transmission, and Transformation from Second Temple Literature through Judaism and Christianity in Late Antiquity, ed. Menahem Kister et al. (Leiden ; Boston: Brill, 2015), 1–39.
• David Flusser, "Palaea Historica: An Unknown Source of Biblical Legends", in Studies in Aggadah and Folk-Literature, eds. J. Heinemann and D. Noy (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1971),

Notes

1. Adler, William (2013). "Palaea Historica ("The Old Testament History"): A new translation and introduction". In Bauckham, Richard; Davila, James R.; Panayotov, Alexander (eds.). Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, Volume 1. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. p. 585. ISBN 978-0-8028-2739-5. OCLC 852745712.

External links

• A. Vassiliev, Anecdota Graeco-Byzantina (Moscow: Moscow University, 1893), pp. 188-292.