SOURCE: De Jonge, M. “Robert Grosseteste and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.” Journal of Theological Studies 42, Part I (April 1991): 115-25.

In the following essay, de Jonge explores the reasons for Grosseteste's interest in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, also speculating on why the text was considered so significant by his contemporaries.

I. Introduction

This article is devoted to the introduction of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs in the West by Robert Grosseteste, who had it brought from Greece to England and translated it into Latin in 1242.

Modern scholars number the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs among the pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, and generally regard them as a Jewish writing with substantial Christian interpolations. In his dissertation and in subsequent writings, the present author has argued that much more than interpolation is involved.¹ In 1953 he treated the Testaments as a Christian writing, but since then...