Anti-Christian Polemic in the Apocalypse of Abraham: Jesus as a Pseudo-Messiah in Apoc. Ab. 29.3–14

Full title
Anti-Christian Polemic in the Apocalypse of Abraham: Jesus as a Pseudo-Messiah in Apoc. Ab. 29.3–14
Research notes

Reader Checked|OA 07/04/2013

Reference type
Author(s)
Harlow, Daniel C.
Year
2013
Journal / Book Title || Series Title
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha
Volume
22
Issue / Series Volume
3
Pages
167-183
Alternative title
JSP
Label
25/03/2013
Abstract

The Apocalypse of Abraham describes a man from the heathen who is alternately shamed, struck, and worshiped by Gentiles and by some of Abraham's descendants (29.3–14). Most scholars have identified the man as Jesus of Nazareth but then excised the passage as a Christian interpolation. This article proposes that the passage is integral to the work and that it allusively depicts Jesus as a false messiah—a foil to the true messiah from Abraham's line. The passage coheres with the entire work's overriding concern to juxtapose false worship with true worship of the one God. Its polemic against veneration of Jesus is achieved through a deliberate distortion of New Testament traditions, a phenomenon not without parallel in roughly contemporaneous literature.