The Main Issues in the Study of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

On the 10th of July 1978 it was 25 years since I had defended my thesis before the Faculty of Theology of the University of Leiden.1 On the 2nd of October of that year the new edition of the Greek text of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, prepared over a number of years by a small group of people in the same faculty of the same university, came off the press.2 One will understand that the attainment of this milestone gave rise to introspection, retrospection and circumspection. What have I achieved in all those years, what should still be done, why is there still so much difference of opinion among scholars working in the field of the Testaments? Why do I keep returning to them and why do I have the feeling that the more I know the more complications I notice?