The Book of the Cave of Treasures: A history of the patriarchs and the kings

by E.A. Wallis Budge

The Cave of Treasures, sometimes referred to simply as The Treasure, is an apocryphal and pseudoepigraphical work, that contains various narratives related to the Christian Bible. It was written in Syriac language, approximately at the end of the 6th, or at the beginning of the 7th century. Its authorship was traditionally attributed to Ephrem of Edessa (d. 373), but modern scholarly analyses have shown that the true author was some other person, who also lived in northern Mesopotamia, but much later (c. 600). This text is attributed to Ephrem the Syrian, who was born at Nisibis soon after AD 306 and died in 373, but it is now generally believed that its current form is 6th century or newer. The assertion that the Cave of Treasures was written in the 4th century was supported by the general contents of the work. These reproduce Ephrem's peculiar methods of exegesis and supply many examples of his methods in religious argument, with which we are familiar from his other writings. His pride in the antiquity of the Syriac language also appears in this work. That it was written in Mesopotamia by a Syrian, there is no doubt, and if Ephrem was not the original author, the author belonged to the school of Ephrem. The oldest Christian work on the history of God's dealing with man from Adam to Christ is probably the anonymous Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, which, in its original form, is from the 5th or 6th century AD. The writer of the Cave of Treasures borrowed largely from the Conflict of Adam and Eve, or shared a common source with it.

Genres: Theology, Religion

217 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2003

About the author

Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge was an English Egyptologist, Orientalist, and philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient Near East.

Reviews

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting collection of apocrypha of questionable authenticity, but still fascinating as an insight into what early Christians included in their general beliefs. Kind of borders on headcanon at times with some of the elaborate connections being. And at one point the writer declares that since nobody else knows accurately all of the generations from Adam to Christ, he will write them down for us (it's never explained why he knows and nobody else does). Love it.

[Siobhan]

Link to free audiobook: https://youtu.be/XkrsNK6Wrk8

[Abri Theart]

Interesting!

[Fiona Robson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing book to read - a fascinating apocryphal work which supplemented other knowledge e.g. it went into Mary's genealogy and gave further anecdotal accounts of the patriarchs etc. Was particularly interested in tales of the Grigori or "The Watchers".

[Jackson Conrad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gives a great "outline" of life from Creation to the Death and resurrection of Jesus.