BobRyan said:
↑
Moses: died but then in the book of Jude - we see a quote from "The Assumption of Moses" regarding Moses'
bodily resurrection and
bodily assumption into heaven.
Nope
Jude may, or may not have quoted the pseudepigraphal work called,
The Assumption of Moses,
That is not a support for "nope" since you are backing it up by saying it may be true in that "may or may not" statement.
The Assumption of Moses speaks of Moses' body being buried, as does the Bible.
The book "Assumption of Moses" deals with ... "The assumption of Moses" -
bodily assumed into heaven after being resurrected.
The Assumption of Moses
"The question, as to the origin of the narrative to which St. Jude refers, is answered by Origen,
[99] who intimates that it is derived from a book which he calls the Ascension of Moses, Analepsis Moseos. That St. Jude should refer to a work current in his day, though not appertaining to the canon of Holy Scripture, is quite supposable, as there is good ground for .believing that in another place (ver.14) he cites the apocryphal Book of Enoch. The existence of this Assumption or Ascension of Moses is testified by many other early writers....
"Thus we see that the Assumption of Moses was a book known and quoted up to the twelfth or thirteenth century of our era. But
from that time till some twenty years ago it has been wholly lost." Commentators on St. Jude were forced to content themselves with a vague reference to this unknown composition; and the words of Dean Stanley in Dr. Smith's Dictionary of the Bible (art. "Moses"), written in 1863, accurately represent the amount of acquaintance with the subject possessed by most people. Speaking of the passage in Jude, he concludes thus: "It probably refers to a lost apocryphal book mentioned by Origen, the Ascension or Assumption of Moses. All that is known of this book is given by Fabricius, Codex Pseudep. V. T. i.838-844." The fragments, however, printed by Fabricius are very insignificant, and quite insufficient to give any idea of the character and contents of the work. But Dr. Stanley was unconsciously inaccurate when he made the statement just mentioned. Already in 1861 A. M. Ceriani, the learned librarian of the Ambrosian Library at Milan,
had published a Latin version of a large portion of the Assumption which he had found in a palimpsest of the sixth century.
[117] It is curious that nearly forty years previously Amedeus Peyron had edited from the same manuscript some hitherto unknown orations of Cicero,
[118] but the "Assumption" remained still undiscovered. It was therefore with the utmost satisfaction that the learned world received the news that fresh fragments of this apocryphal work had been suddenly disinterred.
The MS., indeed, was without title, corrupt and imperfect, and in places illegible; but these circumstances only augmented the interest which was centred upon it. Here was a nodus which demanded solution at the hands of scholars. "Liber enim," as Erasmus says,
[119] "prodigiosis mendis undique scatens, crux est verius quam liber." T
hat it was the same book as the old Analepsis Mos.
was proved by its containing the passage in the Acts of the Nicene Council quoted above. The discovery appears to have passed almost unnoticed in England, but in Germany it stirred the minds of savants with an excitement as great as that lately aroused by the "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles."
Professors set themselves the task of correcting, explaining, and supplying the gaps in the very imperfect publication of Ceriani. First Hilgenfeld, with the aid of other scholars, put forth a critical edition
[120] containing
a corrected text, which threw much light on the many dark places, and afforded a readable whole. A year or two later he took the pains to
translate the Latin into Greek, no very difficult task, as the version had been most slavishly rendered from the original, retaining everywhere Greek phraseology and often Greek words. This he published with valuable notes. Then Volkmar
[121] printed a neat little edition with a German translation and commentary. This was followed by that of Schmidt and Merx,
[122] whose conjectures and corrections are remarkable rather for
audacity than probability. Fritzsche,
[123] the last editor, speaks somewhat slightingly of his predecessors' labours,
but has largely availed himself of them. In his very useful edition he prints on one page the text as originally published by Ceriani, and on the opposite side gives an amended text with the lacunæ mostly supplied, and with copious critical notes. The work has never, I believe, been published in England. A useful dissertation on the book, which combines the latest information, is appended to Dr. Gloag's Introduction to the Catholic Epistles.
"There is
another work which is sometimes confounded with the Assumption, but is entirely different in scope and treatment. This is
an Apocalypse of Moses in Greek, written by a Christian, and belonging to the class of Adamaic books, wherein is given a history of Adam's life and death as revealed to Moses. It has been published by Tischendorf and Ceriani.
"Whether the Assumption was originally
written in Hebrew cannot now be determined. [124] If its birthplace was Palestine, it is most probable that it was composed in Hebrew or Aramaic. It is evident that
it was known only in a Greek form to those early writers who mention it; and it is also certain from internal evidence that the old Latin version which has survived was made from the Greek and not the Hebrew. The use of such words as "prophetiæ," "scene testimonii," "allophyli," proves this incontestably. The
Latin of the translation is beyond measure barbarous and anomalous, the vulgar dialect of country peasants, and resembling the old Itala rather than any classical form which we possess. It appears, too, to have been
transcribed by an ignorant writer, who has accordingly introduced many blunders of his own manufacture. As the MS. came originally from the Abbey of Bobbio, near Pavia, whence also issued the famous Muratorian Canon (the language of which is very similar to that of the Assumption), it was probably copied by one of the inmates of that establishment,
"stronger," as Colani says, "in caligraphy than Latin."
...
"The earliest reference which can be relied on is found in the works of Clemens Alexandrinus,
[103] who, describing the death of Moses, says
it is probable that Joshua saw Moses in twofold form when he was taken up (analambanomenon), one with the angels, and one honoured with burial in the valley. This curious opinion is shared by Origen,
[104] who asserts that in a certain uncanonical book mention is made of two Moses' being seen, one alive in the spirit, the other dead in the body. Evodius,
[105] a contemporary of St. Augustine, has the same gloss, derived from the same source: "When he ascended the mountain to die, the power of his body brought it to pass, that there should be one body to commit to earth, and another to be the companion of his attendant angel." Another legend, traced to the same origin,
[106] recounts how at Moses' death a bright cloud so dazzled the eyes of the bystanders that they saw neither when he died nor where he was buried....
...
"Here the manuscript ends,
some ten or twelve leaves being lost. The missing fragment doubtless
contained the conclusion of Moses' address, and then told how Joshua departed to his appointed work, and how Moses took his Pisgah view of the promised land, died, was buried by the angels in spite of Satan's opposition,
and received his "assumption" -- his mortal body being laid to rest in the unknown valley, his immortal part being escorted by angel bands to heaven itself.
"It is unfortunate that the only quotations of, and references to, the Assumption which have reached us from antiquity
contain sentences and statements not now extant, though there can be no reasonable doubt that they were portions of the original document. From our present fragments we can gather enough, however, to teach us the importance and utility of the work."
