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biblical pseudepigrapha
in slavonic tradition
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Biblical Pseudepigrapha
in Slavonic Tradition
Alexander Kulik and Sergey Minov
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Et sont dittes apocrifes, pour ce que l’en ne sceit pas se elles sont vraies ou
non. Si ne la doit on mye affermer pour vraie. Mais je l’ai cy mise pour ce
que moult de gens lisent voulentiers escriptures apocrifes, pour ce qu’elles
sont moult plaisans et agreables, et assoagens les oreilles des escoutans.
(Guyart Desmoulins, Bible historiale;
MS British Museum, Bible 19 D iii, year 1297. f. 552v)
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Foreword
Early Slavonic writings have preserved a unique corpus of compositions that develop
biblical themes. These extra-canonical, para-biblical narratives are known as pseud-
epigrapha, and they preserve many ancient traditions neglected by the canonical
scriptures. They feature tales of Paradise and Hell, angels and Satan, the antediluvian
fathers and biblical patriarchs, kings and prophets. These writings address diverse
questions ranging from artistically presented issues of theology and morals to eso-
teric subjects such as cosmology, demonology, messianic expectations, eschatology,
and the afterlife.
Although these Slavonic texts themselves date from a relatively late period, they
are translations or reworkings of far earlier texts and traditions, many of them argu-
ably going back to late biblical or early post-biblical times. The material in these
works can contribute significantly to a better understanding of the roots of post-
biblical mysticism, rabbinic Judaism, and early Christianity, ancient and medieval
dualistic movements, as well as the beginnings of Slavonic literary tradition. Created
by the Jews of the “Greek Age,” some of these texts or the traditions behind them
bear witness to a most important moment in the intellectual development of human-
ity, when ancient, mythopoeic ways of thinking encountered philosophical reflection,
and new theologies were emerging.
This corpus has obviously been neglected in modern research. If major apocalyp-
tic works such as the Apocalypse of Abraham and 2 Enoch have achieved a certain
amount of attention, lesser known texts remain underexplored and virtually unknown
to Western readers. This book is intended to redress the disparity between these two
corpora, in terms of both familiarity and research. It provides a collection of the
minor biblical pseudepigrapha preserved solely in Slavonic; at the same time, it is
also the first collection of Slavonic pseudepigrapha translated into a Western European
language. It includes the original texts, their translations, and commentaries focus-
ing on the history of motifs and based on the study of parallel material in ancient
and medieval Jewish and Christian literature.
We hope that the volume will help to bridge the gap between the textual study of
this corpus and its contextualization in early Jewish, early Christian, rabbinic,
Byzantine, and other traditions, as well as to introduce these texts into the interdis-
ciplinary discussion of the intercultural transmission of ideas and motifs.
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Acknowledgments
This book would have not been possible without the help of many people. Natalia
Savelieva has prepared several of the original Slavonic texts (namely, About All
Creation, The Creation of Adam, The Tale of the Tree of the Cross, The Appeal of Adam
to Lazarus in Hell, and About the Ark) and helped in proofreading of other texts.
Sergeius Temčinas contributed valuable notes to many translations. Some important
parallels were suggested by Emmanouela Grypeou and Michael Tuval. Ruth
Clements improved the English style and offered substantive comments. We are
grateful for very useful notes given by the anonymous reviewer of the Oxford
University Press and for very efficient work of its commissioning editors Claire
Kennedy, Tom Perridge, Karen Raith, Elizabeth Robottom, production editors
Caroline Hawley and Manikandan Chandrasekaran, a copy-editor Jeff New and a
proof reader Ela Kotkowska. We would also like to thank Michael Schneider, Mara
Poļakova and Denis Dorum for their advice and help at various stages of the project.
Alexander Kulik would particularly like to express his deepest gratitude to his teach-
ers Moshe Taube and Michael E. Stone, on whose wise advice and friendly support
he has always been able to rely.
The research leading to these results was funded by the Israel Science Foundation
(grant no. 450/07) and the European Research Council, under the European Union’s
Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)/ERC grant agreement no. 263293.
Some of the work, especially the section on the Ladder of Jacob, was produced with
the support of the Berliner Antike-Kolleg (BAK) at the Excellence Cluster Topoi,
Freie Universität Berlin. Alexander Kulik spent the summer of 2013 there as a
Visiting Research Fellow hosted by Florentina Badalanova Geller, whom he cordially
thanks for this opportunity and her gracious assistance.
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