For my daily quiet time, I recently read the Testament of Abraham,
the Testament of Isaac, and the Testament of Jacob in my Charlesworth
Pseudepigrapha.
According to the Charlesworth Pseudepigrapha, the Testament of
Abraham dates to the first-second centuries C.E., the Testament of Isaac
to the second century C.E., and the Testament of Jacob to the
second-third centuries C.E. The books could be from the same milieu. The
scholars who introduced the works maintain that the Testament of
Abraham and the Testament of Isaac were from an Egyptian Jewish context.
But the Testament of Isaac has Christian redactions, probably Coptic
Christian redactions (according to W.F. Stinespring). In the scholarly
introduction to the Testament of Jacob, there is not much information
about the Testament of Jacob’s milieu, but it does say that the main
manuscripts for the Testament of Jacob are the same as those for the
Testament of Isaac (with Arabic, Coptic, and Ethiopic texts); in
addition, the person who put in the side notes of parallel passages
mentions the Testament of Isaac a lot, so perhaps the Testament of Jacob
drew from it.
In this post, I will talk about the topic of hell in these three
Testaments, but I will use as my starting-point Testament of Isaac 5.
The translation I will use will be that of Stinespring, for both the
Testament of Isaac and the Testament of Jacob.
In Testament of Isaac 5, Isaac sees a man who is torn apart and eaten
by lions, only to be ejected out of the lions’ mouths and eaten again,
over and over. Isaac inquires of his angelic tour-guide what this person
did to deserve this. The angel responds that the man “was in enmity
with his neighbor for five hours, and he died without having been
reconciled to him.” According to the angel, a man in the afterlife is
tormented for each hour that he has been hostile to his neighbor, if he
has not repented and reconciled with his neighbor prior to his death.
This occurs until the completion of a full year.
Isaac then sees a river of fire, and wisdom is in that fire. The fire
was not harming the righteous, but it was tormenting the sinners. At
the bottom of the river, suffering a “drastic punishment,” are those who
“have committed the sin of Sodom.” An overseer of punishment would tell
his helpers to kill the sinners that it might “be known that God exists
forever.” Isaac asks the angel how long these people will be tortured,
and the angel responds, “Until the God of mercy becomes merciful and has
mercy on them.”
Here are some thoughts:
1. Hell here is temporary, or at least it is possibly temporary:
there is the possibility that God will have mercy on the tormented
sinners and end their torment. Is that consistent with what is in the
Testament of Abraham and the Testament of Jacob? In Testament of Abraham
(Recension A), there is a reference to the everlasting punishment and
destruction of sinners, those who not go through the narrow gate. In
Testament of Jacob 5, adulterers, male homosexuals, masturbators,
astrologers, sorcerers, evildoers, idol worshipers, and slanders are
tormented in a place of outer darkness, weeping, gnashing of teeth, and
“fire which will not be extinguished.” In Testament of Jacob 7, we read:
“O my dear son, avoid the evil ways of the world, which are anger and
depravity and all vicious deeds. And beware of injustice and blasphemy
and abduction. For the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God, nor
will the adulterers, nor the accursed, nor those who commit outrages and
have sexual intercourse with males, nor the gluttons, nor the
worshipers of idols, nor those who utter imprecations, nor those who
pollute themselves outside of pure marriage; and others whom we have not
presented or even mentioned shall not come near the kingdom of God.”
2. Are these texts inconsistent with each other, or possibly
consistent? I can understand one answering “inconsistent.” In Testament
of Isaac 5, hell is possibly temporary. In Testament of Abraham
(Recension A) 11, it is everlasting punishment. In those Testament of
Jacob passages, there is the statement that certain sinners will not
come near the Kingdom of God, which would arguably be a meaningless
statement if hell is temporary, if the sinners spend some time in hell
then go to the Kingdom of God. Could the passages be consistent, though?
Maybe “everlasting” does not always mean eternal but can mean a very
long time that eventually comes to an end. Maybe the sinners do not come
near the Kingdom of God while they are still sinners, but their
torments in hell cleanse them of being sinners, of being the types of
people who would commit those sins (yet I should note that there is
nothing in the Testaments about hell being a place of purification for
sinners). Do these Testaments contain different concepts or views on
hell, or can the temporariness of hell that we find in Testament of
Isaac 5 qualify, in some sense, the pictures that are in Testament of
Abraham and Testament of Jacob?
3. Are the passages Jewish or part of the Christian redaction? On the
one hand, there are parts of the Testament of Abraham (Recension A)
that are probably Jewish and that pertain to hell: Testament of Abraham
(Recension A) 12 has a concept of God weighing people’s good and bad
deeds, and that is similar to what was in rabbinic literature. On the
other hand, Testament of Abraham (Recension A) 11 has the concepts of
the narrow gate and everlasting punishment, and E.P. Sanders states that
v 11 is “[a]pparently conflating Mt 7:13 (‘that leads to perdition’)
and Mt 25:46 (‘eternal punishment’).” Sanders also seems to see v 11 as
quoting Matthew 7:13. There is a note in the Charlesworth Pseudepigrapha
citing I Corinthians 6:9 beside Testament of Jacob 7, which may
indicate that a belief that I Corinthians 6:9 influenced the person who
wrote Testament of Jacob 7, or may simply be highlighting similarity,
without saying that one source influenced the other. The story of the
tormented man in Testament of Isaac 5 reminds me of Jesus’ parable of
the unforgiving man in Matthew 18. In both stories, a man is punished
because he did not forgive somebody else. Matthew 18:34 states that this
man was punished until he would pay what he owes, and that could imply a
temporary hell (though believers in conscious eternal torment would say
that the man could never pay what he owed, since it is an incredibly
large amount). But there is a difference between the stories. The man in
Testament of Isaac 5 is punished specifically for the sin of not making
peace with his neighbor, whereas the man in Matthew 18, because he did
not forgive his neighbor, is punished for his sins against the king that
the king had previously forgiven. The reason this issue could be
important is that it could help establish which voice said what in these
Testaments. That is relevant to the question of whether the temporary
hell in Testament of Isaac 5 should be understood as qualifying the
pictures of hell in the other Testaments, or is simply another viewpoint
inserted into the text. And that is relevant to the question of whether
ancient Jews and Christians, and even the New Testament, could
simultaneously call hell everlasting or eternal, while still regarding
it as temporary, in some sense.
4. I should also note that Testament of Isaac does have a concept of
forgiveness for those who do not know God, those who have never heard.
Testament of Isaac 4 reads: “And pardon all your creatures whom you have
fashioned, but who have not heard and learned of you.”