Treatise_of_Shem
The Treatise of Shem is a pseudepigraphon, likely written in the first century B.C.E, attributed to Shem, the son of Noah.[1] This document is an example of a Kalandologion, and each of the twelve chapters correspond with a sign of the Zodiac, with the writer predicting what will occur if a year falls under a given sign.[1] The text of the Treatise of Shem is preserved in a single fifteenth century Syriac manuscript, currently held at the John Rylands University Library.[1] Alphonse Mingana was the first to translate the document in 1917, but it remained obscure until James H. Charlesworth, then associate professor at Duke University, discovered the treatise among a bundle of papers labeled "Aesthetica".[2][3] Charlesworth initially believed the manuscript to be a medieval forgery, but upon closer examination determined it to be an authentic Jewish document dating to the Roman period.[4]
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