TY - CHAP
T1 - They Visited Heaven and Refused to Die: Anxieties of Discontinuity in the Testament of Abraham and in Ezra Traditions
AU - Mirguet, Francoise
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - The Testament of Abraham, the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra, the Latin Vision of Ezra (ms. B), and the Apocalypse of Sedrach all develop the motif of a patriarch who refuses to die and, in a vehement argument with the deity, resists the removal of his soul from his body. The motif is rooted, as Esther Chazon has established, in traditions about Moses’ death, as found for example in Petirat Moshe. After being attributed to Abraham, such traditions are developed around the figure of Ezra (or his double, Sedrach), traditionally known as a new Moses. The patriarch’s reluctance to die is highlighted by the narrative context, similar in all four texts: the patriarch resists (or continues to resist) his death after a guided journey beyond the earthly realm, to heaven and/or hell, where he receives assurance that he will gain access to a beatific afterlife. Texts hover between tragedy and comedy: the patriarch, a valiant advocate for human beings, validates anxiety about human mortality, despite the promise of an afterlife; however, the patriarch is also treated as a laughingstock for resisting—or even dreading—a fate that human beings cannot avoid.
AB - The Testament of Abraham, the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra, the Latin Vision of Ezra (ms. B), and the Apocalypse of Sedrach all develop the motif of a patriarch who refuses to die and, in a vehement argument with the deity, resists the removal of his soul from his body. The motif is rooted, as Esther Chazon has established, in traditions about Moses’ death, as found for example in Petirat Moshe. After being attributed to Abraham, such traditions are developed around the figure of Ezra (or his double, Sedrach), traditionally known as a new Moses. The patriarch’s reluctance to die is highlighted by the narrative context, similar in all four texts: the patriarch resists (or continues to resist) his death after a guided journey beyond the earthly realm, to heaven and/or hell, where he receives assurance that he will gain access to a beatific afterlife. Texts hover between tragedy and comedy: the patriarch, a valiant advocate for human beings, validates anxiety about human mortality, despite the promise of an afterlife; however, the patriarch is also treated as a laughingstock for resisting—or even dreading—a fate that human beings cannot avoid.
KW - fear of death
KW - Testament of Abraham
KW - Greek Apocalypse of Ezra
KW - Latin Vision of Ezra
KW - Apocalypse of Sedrach
KW - embodiment
KW - body
M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)
T3 - Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha
SP - 226
EP - 248
BT - Figures of Ezra
PB - Peeters Publishers
ER -