The Library
1774 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
200–101 BC
3 works
c. 158 BC; survives in fragments
Greek
Eupolemus
A history claiming Moses as the first wise man, the inventor of the alphabet, who gave it to the Phoenicians, who gave it to the Greeks — with a long invented correspondence between Solomon and the kings of Tyre and Egypt about building the temple.
c. 2nd century BC; survives in fragments
Greek
Exagoge
Ezekiel the Tragedian
A Greek tragedy in iambic trimeter on the exodus, with Moses speaking the prologue. In one fragment he describes a dream in which a great figure on a throne at Sinai hands him a sceptre and a crown and steps down, and the stars bow to him.
c. 2nd century BC; survives in fragments
Greek
Artapanus
A retelling in which Abraham teaches astrology to the pharaoh, Joseph invents land measurement, and Moses — identified with Musaeus and with Hermes — organises Egypt into thirty-two districts, invents ships and weapons and philosophy, and is credited with the animal cults.
100–1 BC
1 work
c. 30 BC – AD 30
Hebrew, surviving in Latin
The Assumption of Moses
Anonymous
Moses hands the books to Joshua and foretells the whole of Israel's history to the writer's own day, culminating in a Levite named Taxo who takes his seven sons into a cave to die rather than transgress — and God's kingdom appearing throughout his creation.
1–100
1 work
c. AD 30–45
Greek
De Vita Mosis
Philo of Alexandria · c. 20 BC – c. AD 50
Two books making Moses king, lawgiver, priest, and prophet at once, written plainly enough for readers who had never opened the Pentateuch, and including the story of how the Seventy produced identical translations in separate cells.
5 of 1774 works