testament discusses a certain vice or virtue. Usually this is then concluded with a very vague and general reference to God's law and commandments. Another theme that has been extensively discussed by Hollander is the role that Joseph plays in the ethics. He is often the example of an ethical man, and the deeds of the patriarchs are often weighed against those of Joseph. As argued by Robert Henry Charles, who studied and translated the Testaments in the beginning of the 20th century, the main, the overwhelming value of the book lies ... in its ethical teaching, which has achieved a real immortality by influencing the thoughts and diction of the writers of the New Testament, and even those of our Lord. He writes that the Testaments help to "bridge the chasm that divides the ethics of the Old and New Testaments." To a modern reader, the main value of the Testaments, is not in the variations on biblical text, but in their ethical teachings, as amplified by the following citations: Love the Lord through all your life, and one another with a true heart Love yea one another from the heart; and if a man sin against thee, speak peacefully to him, and in thy soul hold not guile; and if he repent and confess, forgive him. But if he deny it, do not get into a passion with him, lest catching the poison from thee he take to swearing, and so then sin doubly … Love the Lord and your neighbor. Anger is blindness, and does not suffer to see any man with truth Hatred, therefore is evil; etc. (from The Apocrypha in English. Edited by Rev. R. H. Charles.) Summary The work is divided into twelve books, each purporting to be the last exhortations of one of the twelve titular patriarchs. In each, the patriarch first narrates his own life, focusing on his strengths, virtues, or his sins, using biographical material from both the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition. Next he exhorts his listeners to emulate the one and to avoid the other. Most of the books conclude with prophetic visions. Reuben The Testament of Reuben is predominantly concerned with admonishing lust, and the sinfulness of Reuben in his having had sex with Bilhah, a concubine of his father. It is likely that the author wished to cover the topic of fornication anyway, and assigned it for