The Testament of Moses

The Moses fragment discovered by Ceriani in 1861 is the only extant copy of a pseudepigraphon containing Moses' farewell to Joshua and anticipating the end of Moses' life. It is assumed that the end of the manuscript contained Moses' death and burial. This article builds upon Bauckham's reconstructions of the Testament of Moses and Assumption of Moses and Davila's recent methodological probes to discuss which title, if any, can be assigned to the fragment. It also evaluates suggestions of authorship and composition dates, based on the fragment's ideals and references to historical events. Due to the fact that the end of the Moses fragment is no longer in existence, many of these suggestions, while plausible, are almost impossible to verify.