Early Christian Temples and Baptism for the Dead: Defining Sacred Space in the Late Antique Near East

This paper examines similarities between the account of the sacrifice and epiphany of the first parents in Moses 5:1–15 and analogous accounts found in apocryphal literature of the late antique and medieval periods. Apocryphal texts considered include primarily the Greek Life of Adam and Eve (also known as the Apocalypse of Moses) and secondarily the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, the Cave of Treasures, the medieval Jewish Sefer Raziel, and Islamic collections of Qisas al-Anbiya’ (“Stories of the Prophets”). The focus is not only on the content of the narratives, but also on structural elements such as voice and narrative flow. Based on this examination, David argues that some of these texts have a common type of origin, being both revelatory and oriented to a ritual context, while others belong to different types associated with different historical contexts.