Testament of Adam

The Testament of Adam is a Christian work of Old Testament pseudepigrapha that dates from the 2nd to 5th centuries AD in origin, perhaps composed within the Christian communities of Syria. It purports to relate the final words of Adam to his son Seth; Seth records the Testament and then buries the account in the legendary Cave of Treasures. Adam speaks of prayer and which parts of Creation praise God each hour of the day; he then prophesies both the coming of the Messiah and the Great Flood; and finally, a description of the celestial hierarchy of angels is given.

The work was likely originally written in Syriac. Manuscripts are extant in Syriac, Arabic, Karshuni, Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian, and Greek. The earliest surviving manuscript is dated to the 9th century, and there appear to be three major recensions of the text.^[1]