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Life of Adam and Eve


The Life of Adam and Eve, also known, in its Greek version, as the Apocalypse of Moses, is a Jewish pseudepigraphical group of writings. It recounts the lives of Adam and Eve from after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden to their deaths. It provides more detail about the Fall of Man, including Eve's version of the story. Satan explains that he rebelled when God commanded him to bow down to Adam. After Adam dies, he and all his descendants are promised a resurrection.

The ancient versions of the Life of Adam and Eve are: the Greek Apocalypse of Moses, the Latin Life of Adam and Eve, the Slavonic Life of Adam and Eve, the Armenian Penitence of Adam, the Georgian Book of Adam, and one or two fragmentary Coptic versions. These texts are usually named as Primary Adam Literature to distinguish them from subsequent related texts, such as the Cave of Treasures that includes what appears to be extracts.

They differ greatly in length and wording, but for the most part are derived from a single source that has not survived, and contain (except for some obvious insertions) no undeniably Christian teaching. Each version contains some unique material, as well as variations and omissions.

While the surviving versions were composed from the early 3rd to the 5th century, the literary units in the work are considered to be older and predominantly of Jewish origin. There is wide agreement that the original was composed in a Semitic language in the 1st century AD/CE.

The main theological issue in these texts is that of the consequences of the Fall of Man, of which sickness and death are mentioned. Other themes include the exaltation of Adam in the Garden, the fall of Satan, the anointing with the oil of the Tree of Life, and a combination of majesty and anthropomorphism in the figure of God, involving numerous merkabahs and other details that show a relationship with 2 Enoch. While the idea of resurrection of the dead is present, there is no idea of Messianism, a fact that lends strong support to the theory of a Jewish origin. The Life of Adam and Eve is also important in the study of the early Seth traditions.


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