Date of composition

• First century AD
• Origen (254) mentioned that Jews used it, and it was still important enough in the 800s for Nicephorus of Constantinople to note that it had 1100 lines.

Type of book

• Apocrypha

Length

• Unknown; we only have a small number of lines in fragments (out of 1100 total lines; see above).

Summary

• What we have is quite inconclusive:
• From Eusebius: "Wherefore in the Prayer of Joseph we may understand in this way what is said by Jacob, 'For I read in the tablets of heaven all things that shall happen to you and to your sons.'"
• This does not help our understanding of the book, and the only other existing fragment does not do much better, from Origen: "Should the piece entitled The prayer of Joseph, one of the apocryphal works current among the Hebrews, be thought worthy of credence, this dogma will be found in it clearly expressed. Those at the beginning, it is represented, having some marked distinction beyond men, and being much greater than other souls, because they were angels, they have come down to human nature. Thus Jacob says: 'I, Jacob, who speak to you, am also Israel, I am an angel of God, a ruling spirit, and Abraham and Isaac were created before every work of God; and I am Jacob, called Jacob by men, but my name is Israel, called Israel by God, a man seeing God, because I am the first-born of every creature which God caused to live.' And he adds: 'When I was coming from Mesopotamia of Syria, Uriel, the angel of God, came forth, and said, I have come down to the earth and made my dwelling among men, and I am called Jacob by name. He was angry with me and fought with me and wrestled against me, saying that his name and the name of Him who is before every angel should be before my name. And I told him his name and how great he was among the sons of God; Are you not Uriel my eighth, and I am Israel and archangel of the power of the Lord and a chief captain among the sons of God? Am not I Israel, the first minister in the sight of God, and I invoked my God by the inextinguishable name?'" (Origen, Commentary on John, ii.31)