JBL 125, no. 3 (2006): 453–476 Taxo’s Martyrdom and the Role of the Nuntius in the Testament of Moses: Implications for Understanding the Role of Other Intermediary Figures kenneth atkinson Kenneth.Atkinson@uni.edu University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50614 The Testament of Moses, also known as the Assumption of Moses, is a pseude- pigraphon that contains Moses’s farewell discourse to his successor, Joshua. In this document, Moses predicts a series of historical events from the conquest of Canaan to the partial destruction of the temple during the reign of Herod the Great’s sons (T. Mos. 1–6). Moses tells Joshua that a Levite named Taxo will appear at this time of persecution and say to his seven sons, “let us go into a cave which is in the open country, and let us die rather than transgress the commandments of the Lord of Lords, the God of our fathers, for if we do this and die, our blood will be avenged before the Lord” (T. Mos. 9:6–7). In the remainder of the work, Moses describes the eschaton and the arrival of God’s “messenger,” the nuntius, who will punish the wicked (T. Mos. 10–12). The relationship between Taxo’s martyrdom and the nuntius continues to be the most debated topic among scholars seeking to understand the Testament of Moses’s date of composition as well as its philosophy of noble death. The purpose of this study is to present a new scenario for understanding Taxo’s martyrdom and his relationship with the nuntius. In the first section I Te research and writing of this article were funded by a Summer Fellowship from the University of Northern Iowa Graduate College. I thank Jan Willem van Henten, Johannes Tromp, John J. Collins, Martin G. Abegg, Jr., and George Wesley Buchanan for their helpful comments to my questions concerning the Testament of Moses and the Second Temple period. I am grateful to the two anonymous JBL reviewers for their insightful remarks on this paper. All positions expressed in this study are my own and should not necessarily be imputed to any of these scholars. 453