The Chaste Son, the Lamb, the Good Mind

• Anchor Bible Dictionary — the entry on the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and on Joseph.
• Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism — entries on the Testaments and on Beliar/Belial.
• Dictionary of New Testament Background (IVP) — entries on the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. These are subjects to look up; exact entry titles were not checked, and none of these works is held on this disk.
• On the text — any article that says which Greek: Charles’s α/β families (1908) or de Jonge’s edition (1978), and whether it is reading a Greek manuscript or the Armenian. On Joseph 19 the answer changes the text.

• R. H. Charles, The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908) — the Greek quoted on this page, read off the page images.
• R. H. Charles, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (London: A. & C. Black, 1908; SPCK reprint 1917) — the English quoted on this page.
• R. H. Charles (ed.), The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1913) — his revised translation; held as a scan, not quoted.
• M. de Jonge et al., The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (Leiden: Brill, 1978) — not held, not consulted.
• H. W. Hollander and M. de Jonge, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1985) — not held, not consulted.
• H. C. Kee, ‘Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs’, in J. H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1 (1983) — not held, not consulted.

Genesis 39, told at length. In the Greek Old Testament the attempt on Joseph runs from Genesis 39:7 to 39:20, 14 verses. Joseph’s testament gives it chapters 3–9, 49 verses in Charles’s English: threats, flattery, an offer to convert, a plan to poison the husband, enchanted food, a threat of suicide, the garment, and visits to the prison. Counts of verses in two different texts and languages; the page offers them for scale, not as a ratio. Joseph names his own count at 2:7: “In ten temptations He showed me approved”.

The farewell speech. Each testament is a dying father’s instruction to his sons, ending with his death and burial (Joseph 20:4–6, Benjamin 12:1–4), the shape of Jacob’s own words in Genesis 49. Benjamin’s testament carries the wolf of that blessing: Genesis 49:27’s λύκος ἅρπαξ, ravening wolf, is the phrase Benjamin says he will no longer be called (11:1).

• Genesis 4:6 → Joseph 7:2: the husband asks his wife what God asked Cain, τί συνέπεσεν τὸ πρόσωπόν σου, why has your face fallen? — but for the final ν. See the codex line.
• Genesis 4:24 → Benjamin 7:3–5: Cain’s seven vengeances and Lamech’s ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά — two words that stand in one Greek Old Testament unit (Gen 4:24), in one SBLGNT verse (Mt 18:22), and in column c of Benjamin 7:4: ὁ δὲ Λαμὲχ ἐν ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά. Three texts, one numeral phrase; Matthew 18:22 uses it of forgiveness, Genesis and Benjamin of vengeance.
• Genesis 37 and 39 → Joseph 8:3: the α text’s word for the garment Joseph leaves is Genesis 37’s word for the coat, and the margin’s is Genesis 39’s. Measured on the words; no motive is assigned to either.
• Genesis 50:22–26 and Joshua 24:32 → Joseph 20:6: Greek Genesis gives Joseph ἔτη ἑκατὸν δέκα (50:22; 50:26 has ἐτῶν ἑκατὸν δέκα), and the testament’s English “one hundred and ten years”. They part over the grave: the testament’s English says “they buried him in Hebron with his fathers”; Greek Joshua 24:32 (the B text) says the bones were buried ἐν Σικιμοις, in Shechem.

• Joseph: 138 verses, 3,772 words of English; Benjamin: 69 verses, 1,987 words (a word is a run of letters; the three repairs of Stage 5 applied).
• Charles’s square brackets: 16 words in Joseph, 312 in Benjamin. His brackets, reported as his.
• Chastity 8 times in Joseph, none in Benjamin; Gentiles 8 times in Benjamin, none in Joseph.
• The woman of chapters 2–16 is never named — the Egyptian woman 5 times, the Memphian woman 3, the wife of Pentephris once — while her rival is: “Asteho, the concubine of thy husband” (7:5).
• Joseph is named 7 times in the English of Benjamin’s testament, the exemplar of chapters 3–5.

29 Greek manuscript rows against 7,927 SBLGNT verses: all 29 reach two, 22 reach three, 10 reach four, 4 reach five, and 1 reaches ten, and nothing reaches eleven. There is a gap below the top: no row’s deepest run is six, seven, eight or nine, and the one row above the gap is Joseph 19:11.

The same rows against 30,348 Greek Old Testament units: all 29 reach two, 24 reach three, 11 reach four, 3 reach five, 2 reach six, and 1 reaches seven, and nothing reaches eight.

These rows are not a random sample. They were chosen because an OCR screen, the acquisition notes or the structure pointed at them, so the distribution describes the places most likely to show contact. It is not a rate for the two testaments as a whole, and should not be quoted as one.

In the left column of Joseph 19:11 stand ten consecutive words that John 1:29 carries — [ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου] / ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου. Tie band 1: no other SBLGNT verse reaches ten. The ten-word sequence stands in one SBLGNT verse and in none of the 30,348 Greek Old Testament units. From John’s side, the deepest Greek Old Testament run is three, shared by 75 units; the deepest text anywhere this page screened is this row, at ten.

Now the qualifications, which are the finding. First, Charles prints the ten words in square brackets and says why: ‘Christian interpolations. For ὁ αἴρων τ. ἁμ. τ. κόσμου which c read, β, S read χάριτι.’ The ten words are the reading of one Greek manuscript, c — the same manuscript that, by Charles’s note 45 on Benjamin 3:8, writes in its margin περὶ Χριστοῦ, concerning Christ. Second, where c has who takes away the sin of the world, the β manuscripts and S¹ keep the Lamb of God and have one word, χάριτι — by grace — and with it the run against John 1:29 is four, the Lamb of God, band 2 (Jn 1:29, Jn 1:36). Third, the English on this shelf translates the other column. Its 19:11 is the Armenian’s, “for from them shall arise the salvation of Israel”, and the A column against John 1:29 measures one.

So the deepest New Testament run this page found in these two testaments depends on which column you read, and in that column on which manuscript. The page does not rule on whether the words are an interpolation: it reports that Charles bracketed them, that c carries all ten, that β and S¹ carry the first four and by grace for the rest, and that the English printed here does not translate that column at all. No direction of borrowing is asserted.

Joseph 1:6 and Matthew 25:36 share five words, band 1: με· Ἐν φυλακῇ ἤμην, καὶ / με, ἐν φυλακῇ ἤμην καὶ. The three words at their heart stand in one SBLGNT verse and no Greek Old Testament units, and from Matthew’s side the deepest Greek Old Testament run is three (band 3). The order matches too: sickness and visiting, then prison, in both. The verse before measures far less: Joseph 1:5’s hunger and Matthew 25:35’s hunger share one word in sequence.

A thematic list that also shares five words. Of the three rows whose deepest New Testament run is five (Joseph 1:6, Benjamin 3:1, Benjamin 10:6), it is the only one with a band of 1; it is in Charles’s base text; and the page asserts no direction.

• Benjamin 3:1 → Matthew 11:25 and Luke 10:21 — five words, band 2. τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ τῆς γῆς, of heaven and of earth: the same five stand in 4 Greek Old Testament units, and Genesis 24:3 shares six with the verse (κύριον τὸν θεὸν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ). A way of naming God, not a link; and by Charles’s note 2 and of earth is the reading of c and d only: ‘c, d. β–d, S¹ om.’ (β but d, and S¹, omit it).
• Benjamin 10:6 → Acts 3:13 and three more — five words, band 4. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; 18 Greek Old Testament units reach the same five.
• Joseph 8:1 → the Greek Old Testament — seven words, band 3 (1Sam/K 28:20, Isa 62:6, Num 11:32): ὅλην τὴν ἡμέραν καὶ ὅλην τὴν νύκτα, all the day and all the night. The deepest Greek Old Testament run on the page, and a phrase of time.
• Benjamin 9:2 → Acts 15:17 — four words, band 1. καὶ πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, and all the nations — and Acts 15:17’s words stand in a citation that Acts 15:15 introduces with καθὼς γέγραπται, as it is written (Acts 15:17’s deepest Greek Old Testament run is 14, band 1, with Amos 9:12). The same four words stand in 6 Greek Old Testament units: a band of 1 among New Testament verses, and still a common phrase.
• Joseph 10:1 → Revelation 13:10 — four words, band 1. ἡ ὑπομονὴ καὶ ἡ, the patience and the. Patience and prayer in Joseph, patience and faith in Revelation.

Charles’s brackets and verbatim contact do not coincide. Measured on whole verses (at 10:8 the three-word run lies outside the bracket, whose own words reach two, band 23), the bracketed passages of Benjamin read for this page reach, against the New Testament: 3:8, three (band 58); 9:3, two (band 229); 9:4, four (band 3, τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ Θεοῦ); 9:5, three (band 7); 10:7, three (band 55); 10:8, three (band 2); 11:2 (the part read), three (band 15). The only bracketed words on the page that reach ten are the one manuscript’s at Joseph 19:11.

• Benjamin 9:3 → Galatians 3:13 — two. ἐπὶ ξύλου, upon a tree; Acts 5:30 and 10:39 the same.
• Benjamin 9:4 → Matthew 27:51 — two. See the codex: the noun for the veil is not the Gospels’.
• Benjamin 3:8 → Hebrews 13:20 — three. [ἐν αἵματι διαθήκης (Charles’s bracket opens just before the first word), in the blood of the covenant: one SBLGNT verse (Heb 13:20), one Greek Old Testament unit (Zech 9:11).
• Benjamin 4:3 → Romans 12:21 — two. Overcoming evil by doing good: νικᾷ τὸ κακόν / νίκα ἐν τῷ ἀγαθῷ τὸ κακόν. The shared words are separated in Romans.
• Joseph 18:2 → Matthew 5:44 — one; Luke 6:28 — one. Praying for the one who wrongs you, in other words.
• Joseph 17:2 → John 13:34 — two. John’s and you love one another (in no other SBLGNT verse), cut in two by ⌈οὖν⌉ — a word Charles half-brackets as not found in A; without it the run would be four (band 1).
• Joseph 19:8 (left column) → Revelation 17:14 — one. A lamb that conquers, in different words.

The OCR layer of the 52 page images that carry Joseph and Benjamin (12,020 Greek word tokens, the two duplicate scans and the end of Asher left out) was screened against the same corpora. Its deepest exact run against the SBLGNT is six, at Joseph 19:11 — which reads ten on the image, so the OCR under-reports by four there. Allowing up to two non-matching words inside a run, it lines up five or more words in six places; every one was read on the image: Joseph 1:6 (five), Joseph 19:11 (twice), Benjamin 3:1 (five), and two in Charles’s apparatus notes, not his text. Against the Greek Old Testament the deepest exact OCR run is six (Benjamin 3:1), and with two non-matching words allowed two places reach six — Benjamin 3:1 and Joseph 8:1, which reads seven on the image.

An OCR screen can miss a run altogether if the misreads fall inside it; it cannot invent one. So this is a floor, not a ceiling.

• A section heading has been run into the English of Benjamin 10:1. The TSV row begins “I. Benjamin's Vision of Joseph X. Now wh…”; the 1917 page sets X. 1. Benjamin’s Vision of Joseph as a heading above the verse, and the headings file lacks it.
• Benjamin 10:11 opens with a misread numeral and a wrong capital: the TSV reads “II. If ye therefore, my children, walk in holiness According…”; the 1917 page reads 11. If ye … walk in holiness according …
• Joseph 19:7 carries an OCR fault: “t'Welve” where the 1917 page prints twelve.
• Two pages of the Greek scan are duplicated (printed pp. 190–191 appear twice, as PDF pages 262–265); the acquisition notes record only a Naphtali duplicate. An OCR screen that does not remove them counts Joseph 6–7 twice.
• None of the three English verses is printed on this page; the repairs are applied only to the counts, and the self-check proves each repair matches exactly one place.

• Any Greek of these two testaments beyond the rows read off the images. Everything else was screened through OCR only, a lower bound.
• The Armenian and Slavonic texts. Not held. The A column is Charles’s Greek; the page uses it for what is present and absent and never runs it against the New Testament as evidence.
• De Jonge’s critical edition (1978), which, by the shelf’s acquisition notes, re-edited the Greek on a different manuscript basis. In copyright; not consulted. Every reading here is Charles’s text and Charles’s apparatus.
• The manuscripts themselves. What c, β and S¹ read is what Charles reports.
• Who wrote the Testaments and when. Charles’s view (a Jewish work with Christian interpolations) and de Jonge’s (a Christian composition) are reported, not tested.
• Whether any run here is dependence, in either direction. The screen finds verbatim contact only.

• The 29 rows are a chosen sample. The distribution in Stage 4 describes the places most likely to show contact, not the two testaments.
• The Greek was read by eye. Accents, breathings and brackets were checked at high magnification, and Charles’s thick type (his mark that β differs) is not reproduced. A misread accent would not change a run; a misread word could.
• The English is not one column. The 1917 editors’ preface says they give the translation of the MS. called a by Charles where available, else the MS. called c (read here in the OCR of a second 1917 scan; the page image held lacks that page). Measured on the lines printed here, the English follows A at Joseph 19, the β, S¹ column at Benjamin 8:2, the margin at Benjamin 10:6 and 3:8, and Charles’s proposed reading for his own dagger at Joseph 1:6. Each codex line says which.
• At Joseph 19:8 the English and the Greek disagree on left and right, and the page cannot say why.
• Counts in the Testaments are counts of Charles’s English, not of the Greek.
• The column layout (which verses stand in which column) was read off the page images and is recorded in the sidecar file; the self-check verifies the text, not the layout.

• R. H. Charles, The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (1908) — text and apparatus; the source of every Greek line and every note quoted.
• H. W. Hollander and M. de Jonge, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary (1985) — not consulted.
• M. de Jonge et al., A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (1978) — not consulted.

• Ask which text. At Joseph 19:11 the same verse number carries the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world in one Greek manuscript, the Lamb of God … by grace in others (on Charles’s note 42), and the salvation of Israel in the Armenian. Anyone who quotes the Testaments for or against a Christian reading should say which of the three they mean.
• The church’s view, labelled as such: Jesus is the Lamb of God because John the Baptist says so in John 1:29, and nothing in that confession rests on this book. The Testaments are read here as a Second-Temple witness, not Scripture.
• Measure before you repeat. The good man’s eye and Matthew 6 share one word; the veil torn in Benjamin 9:4 and the Gospels share two. A theme is not a quotation, and a bracket is not a measurement.
• Joseph’s silence. In the second story he lets himself be beaten rather than say he is Jacob’s son, “that I might not put my brethren to shame”. Whatever else the testament is, it knows what it costs to protect someone’s name.
• One concrete response. Joseph 18:2 tells his children to pray for the one who seeks to do them evil, and Jesus commands the same in Matthew 5:44. Name one person who has wronged you, and pray for them by name this week.