Abraham, Apocalypse of

The *Apocalypse of Abraham* is a Jewish pseudepigraphal text composed in Palestine sometime between AD 70 and 150 — after the destruction of the Second Temple, which the work mourns in passing. The original Hebrew or Aramaic is lost; the book survives only in Old Slavonic translation, preserved in the Eastern Orthodox manuscript tradition. It is not canonical in any branch of Christianity, but is occasionally cited by patristic and medieval writers and is of substantial importance for understanding Second Temple Jewish apocalyptic thought.

The book has two parts. Chapters 1–8 narrate Abraham's conversion from idolatry — a haggadic expansion of the brief Genesis notices, set in his father Terah's idol-carving workshop, where the young Abraham mocks and finally destroys the family idols. Chapters 9–32 are the apocalypse proper: God commissions Abraham to offer sacrifice on Mount Horeb, takes him on a vision-tour of the heavens, and shows him the creation, the fall, the future of Israel, the destruction of the Temple, the coming of a chosen one (a messianic figure of disputed interpretation), and the end-time judgment of the nations.

The work shares themes with 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch — other late-first-century Jewish apocalypses written in the shadow of the Temple's fall — and influences later Jewish mystical traditions. It is mentioned in this Encyclopedia for completeness; scripture itself records nothing of these later traditions.