Sefer Elijah (also known as Sefer Eliahu, Sefer Elias, or the Apocalypse of Elijah) is an ancient apocalyptic text which was written in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

audience as early as the 3rd century and as late as the 7th century. This text is presented in a fashion that closely matches the classical definition of the apocalyptic genre as a revelation coming to Elijah from an angelic being about judgment, the coming of a

messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of ''mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach'' ...

, and the destiny of the Jewish temple and of

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

. This text is not to be confused with the Coptic

Apocalypse of Elijah The Apocalypse of Elijah is an early Christian work written in the Coptic language commonly held to be a documentation of the oral presentation of multiple original and classical manuscripts. Presented in part as the direct word of the Hebrew God, ...

, which is an early Christian Apocalyptic text. Although the relationship between Sefer Elijah and the Coptic version is still being studied, there are very few similarities and a multitude of stylistic and content differences that suggest the two texts do not share an origin. The ''Sefer Elijah'' was published by

Adolf Jellinek Adolf Jellinek ( he, אהרן ילינק ''Aharon Jelinek''; 26 June 1821 in Drslavice, Moravia – 28 December 1893 in Vienna) was an Austrian rabbi and scholar. After filling clerical posts in Leipzig (1845–1856), he became a preacher at t ...

in 1855 and Moses Buttenwieser in 1897.

Theodor Zahn Theodor Zahn or Theodor von Zahn (10 October 1838 in Moers – 5 March 1933 in Erlangen) was a German Protestant theologian, a biblical scholar. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times. Career Zahn was born in Moers of t ...

assigns this apocalypse to the 2nd century AD but other scholars reject such an early date. It is more often dated as early as the 3rd century and as late as the 7th century.Buttenwieser, Moses (1901). "Outline of the Neo-Hebraic Apocalyptic Literature." Cincinnati: Jennings & Pye. p. 30.

References

Apocalyptic literature {{Jewish-hist-stub Elijah Texts in Hebrew