KVSA VERTAALPRYS / CASA TRANSLATION PRIZE

Abstract

The primary source that will be used in this translation is The prayer of Jacob chapter 1. The selected text is from Henrichs and Preisendanz 1974:148–149. I will also make reference to the translation of the text in Charlesworth’s Old Testament Greek pseudepigrapha with morphology (1983).1 According to Penner and Heiser (2008), the term pseudepigrapha does not mean ‘false books’ or ‘false writings’, but rather refers to writings that were not written by those whose names appear in them (falsely attributed writings). The Old Testament pseudepigrapha builds on the narratives, themes, and worldview of the canonical books of the Old Testament. This explains why books may be attributed to significant Old Testament figures. This source was selected because it demonstrates dramatically the enduring influence of the Old Testament on Jewish thinking after the exile. The prayer of Jacob is included in collections of Old Testament pseudepi-grapha though it is preserved in only one Greek manuscript (papyrus XXIIb)2 and its original composition dates sometime before the fourth century CE (Charlesworth 1983). However, the meaningless mystical words (voces mystica)3 reflect earlier (first century) Jewish prayers (Van der Horst and Newman 2008:217). Although it is said to be a Jewish prayer from the patriarch Jacob, it is often categorized as a magical incantation belonging to the genre of magical texts. The prayer’s themes and language may reflect influences from the Hebrew Bible, Hellenistic Jewish literature, ancient Jewish prayers, and Greek magical papyri (Reif and Egger-Wenzel 2016:609). In this prayer, the patriarch Jacob summons God and requests wisdom and deification. Is it Jewish or pagan? The prayer mentions that the one who recites this prayer should be from the race of Israel but also refers to the serpent