David Taylor - The authorship of the apocalyptic section of the Testament of Our Lord reconsidered

In 1994 Han Drijvers published an influential article arguing that Jacob of Edessa (ca.640-708) was not simply the translator into Syriac but the actual author of the apocalypse which begins the Testament of Our Lord, and that he composed it as a response to Islam. His paper has had a strong influence on subsequent discussions of the work of Jacob of Edessa, of Syriac Christian attitudes to early Islam, and of Syriac apocalyptic. This communication will argue that Jacob’s authorship of the apocalypse is not only intrinsically implausible, but that it is impossible in the light of the available textual evidence.