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Obviously interesting and so grateful to have this text. I am embarrassed that I am just now hearing of this. A lot of what you wrote showed similarities with the Book of Mormon. It seemed as though you were trying to reconstruct similarities between early Christianity and modern revelation. Does this text suggest changes should be made to the timeline some put on the apostasy?
I read the translation and saw that Dr Landau uses some Hebrew words (Sheol, Seraph). Can I ask what language this text is presumed to be originally written in? What about the excerpts from the Book of Seth?
I am not as familiar with Byzantine literature but you briefly discuss canon. A book on Hebrew literature “Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times” offers a criteria for determining the canonicity of a writing. Of course that is a modern concept but one key is if the text is cited authoritatively. I wonder in what genre this text can be placed. The book seemed to me like a play. Perhaps like the Genesis Apochryphon this was meant to teach principles to the less literate?
To even begin to understand the text or derive any good from it I feel we must understand how the authors viewed it and the scribal culture of the time.
I also wonder if there are Zoroastrian traditions about holding vigils for the star every generation since Adam.
I understand your point about comparing it to the apocrypha. However I do think that can be misleading. The Bible dictionary makes it seem the apocrypha are texts removed during the making of the Protestant Bible. Not everyone uses that term in that way. The Book of Jubilees was canon early on (cited authoritatively by Jews BCE as well as Early Christians) but it was removed hundreds of years before the Protestants even existed. I think it is slightly unfair to categorize so many extra canonical texts the same. Most people and religions don’t know what to make of all the texts coming about.
Thanks much for writing about this. I am embarrassed to say this is the first I’ve heard of it.
“Revelation of the Magi” appears to read like modern Christian or LDS fiction. Although the conversation with the one-month-old Jesus seems like a stretch (and how did they get there in one moth?), the story provides insights into the thinking of the author and intended audience of the time.