Prayer Of Joseph
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia [1]
An Old Testament pseudepigraph, number 3 in the Stichometry of Nicephorus (Westcott, Canon of the New Testament7 , 571), with the length given as 1,100 lines, and number 5 in the List of Sixty Books (Westcott, 568). The work is lost, and the only quotations are in Origen ( In Joan ., ii. 25, English in Ante-Nicene Fathers , IX, 341; In Gen ., iii. 9,12). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are said to have been created before every work, but Jacob-Israel is the greatest, "the firstborn of every living creature," the "first minister in God's presence," greater than the angel with whom he wrestled. The purport may be anti-Christian, the patriarchs exalted in place of Christ; compare, perhaps, Enoch 71 (but not so in Charles' 1912 text), but Origen's favorable opinion of the book proves that the polemic could not have been very direct.
Literature.
Gjv , 4th edition, III, 359-60; Dillmann in Pre , 2nd edition, Xii , 362; compare Beer in 3edition, Xvi , 256; Fabricius, Codex pseudep . Vet. Test., I, 761-71.
