Sophia Scriptura

Epistle of Barnabas 4.7

Anonymous · Epistle of Barnabas · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · place unknown · Read in context

Traditional ascription rejected: The letter names no author. From Clement of Alexandria (late second century) onward it was ascribed to Barnabas, Paul's companion (Acts 4:36), but its date and its hostility to Jewish practice make that unlikely; modern scholars treat it as anonymous.

Summary: The covenant given to Moses was lost by Israel.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:350

ἡμῶν μέν· ἀλλʼ ἐκεῖνοι οὕτως εἰς τέλος ἀπώλεσαν αὐτὴν λαβόντος ἤδη τοῦ Μωϋσέως. λέγει γὰρ ἡ γραφή· Καὶ ἦν Μωϋσῆς ἐν τῷ ὄρει νηστεύων ἡμέρας τεσσαράκοντα καὶ νύκτας τεσσαράκοντα, καὶ ἔλαβεν τὴν διαθήκην ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου, πλάκας λιθίνας γεγραμμένας τῷ δακτύλῳ τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ κυρίου.

English · Claude translation

It is ours; but they lost it completely in this way, after Moses had already received it. For the scripture says, “And Moses was on the mountain fasting forty days and forty nights, and he received the covenant from the Lord, stone tablets written with the finger of the hand of the Lord.”

About this passage

Source
Lake, LCL 24:350 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1, LCL 24 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1912), 340–407 · Greek text: K. Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (LCL, 1912), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library and published by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Lake, LCL 24. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.
Translation
Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Lake (LCL 24, 1912); made independently of existing English translations.
Compare
Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)
Scripture

Cite this passage

Barn. 4.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/4/7/).

Plain text
Barn. 4.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/4/7/).

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