The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

STONE Jewish Tradition and the Christian West 439
synoptically. 26 From his synopsis it is evident that, although the three
versions share a very substantial amount of material, each presents its
own difficulties and offers its distinctive challenges. Since Wells's time,
Armenian and Georgian versions of the Life of Adam and Eve have
also been published: the Armenian Penitence of Adam and the Georgian
Book of Adam. Moreover, fragments of a Coptic version have long
been known to exist, 27 though little studied. Consequently, a present-day
synopsis would have to contain five (and in some places six) columns. 28
St John Seymour, studying the sacred history embodied in the 162
cantos of the tenth-century Irish poem, Saltair na Rann, concluded that
cantos 6-11 make use both of Latin Vita Adam et Evae and of
Apocalypse of Moses. There is, it should be observed, no other evidence
that Apocalypse of Moses was known in the West. 29 A recent
study has been devoted by Brian Murdoch to the Adam materials in
the Saltair na Rann. 30 Murdoch stressed the antiquity of the Old Irish
material in comparison with the continental and English analogues. 31
He further noted the primacy of Saltair na Rann vis-a-vis the rest of
the Irish Adam works. It is his view that Saltair na Rann is based upon
26. In fact, Wells did not present the Slavonic version in full, but only its first
sections: see L.S.A. Wells, 'The Books of Adam and Eve', The Apocrypha and
Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (ed. R.H. Charles; Oxford, 1913), II, pp. 123-
54. The Slavonic version was published by JagiC, 'Slavische Beitrage zu den
biblischen Apocryphen'.
27. M.E. Stone, The Penitence of Adam, CSCO, 429-30; Scriptores Armeniaci
(ed. R. Draguet; Leuven: Peeters, 1981), pp. 13-14; J.-P. Mahe", 'Le Livre d'Adam
gdorgien', Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions (ed. R. van den Broek,
and M.J. Vermaseren; Leiden: Brill, 1981), pp. 227-60. On the Coptic texts, see
Stone, Adam and Eve, pp. 39-41.
28. Indeed, the synopsis just published includes the Greek and Latin texts in the
original languages, and translations of the Armenian, Georgian and Slavonic
versions. See G.A. Anderson and M.E. Stone, A Synopsis of the Books of Adam
and Eve (SBL Early Judaism amd its Literature, 5; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994).
29. St John D. Seymour, 'The Book of Adam and Eve in Ireland', in
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 36 C (1922), pp. 121-33. He points out,
for example, that in Canto 12 a herb called omamentum (i.e., apparently, odoramenta
or odoramentum) is mentioned, a detail not in Latin Vita Adam et Evae but occurring
in Apocalypse of Moses (p. 130). On pages 132-33 he gives a small piece of
otherwise unknown Irish apocryphal Adam literature, summarizing the Adam story.
30. B.O. Murdoch, The Irish Adam and Eve Story from Saltair na Rann: Volume
2, Commentary, (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976).
31. Murdoch, Irish Adam and Eve Story, p. 29.