The Testament of Adam is a Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 pseudepigraphical

Pseudepigraphy

Pseudepigrapha are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed authorship is unfounded; a work, simply, "whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past." The word "pseudepigrapha" is the plural of "pseudepigraphon" ; the Anglicized forms...

 work extant in Syriac and Arabic. The earliest manuscript is dated to the 6th century, but the text is 4th century AD in origin, probably composed in Edessa

Edessa, Mesopotamia

Edessa is the Greek name of an Aramaic town in northern Mesopotamia, as refounded by Seleucus I Nicator. For the modern history of the city, see Şanlıurfa.-Names:...

. It purports to relate the final words of Adam to his son Seth

Seth

Seth , in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is the third listed son of Adam and Eve and brother of Cain and Abel, who are the only other of their children mentioned by name...

 in which he speaks of prayer and then prophesies both the coming of the Messiah

Messiah

A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...

 and the Great Flood.

For other accounts of the last words of Adam see Apocalypse of Adam

Apocalypse of Adam

The Apocalypse of Adam discovered in 1945 as part of the Nag Hammadi library is a Gnostic work written in Coptic. It has no necessary references to Christianity and it is accordingly debated whether it is a Christian Gnostic work or an example of Jewish Gnosticism...

, Life of Adam and Eve

Life of Adam and Eve

The Life of Adam and Eve, also known, in its Greek version, as the Apocalypse of Moses, is a Jewish pseudepigraphical group of writings. It recounts the lives of Adam and Eve from after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden to their deaths. It provides more detail about the Fall of Man, including...

 and Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan

Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan

The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan is a Christian pseudepigraphical work found in Ge'ez, translated from an Arabic original and thought to date from the 5th or 6th century AD....

.

External links

• Early Jewish Writings: Testament of Adam, a discussion of the work.
• Sacred Texts: Christianity: Testamentum Adami, an English translation of the Testament of Adam by E. A. Wallis Budge.