The Book of the Cave of Treasures

The Book of the Cave of Treasures is a sixth century Christian sacred history written by a Jacobite. The text is attributed to Ephrem Syrus, who was born at Nisibis soon after AD 306 and died in 373, but it is now generally believed that its current form is 6th century or newer. The assertion that the Cave of Treasures was written in the 4th century is supported by the general contents of the work. This book and The Book of the Bee are both interesting because they present the 'history' of the world from the creation to the death of Christ, thus reproducing a good bit of the story contained in the Bible, but they also contain many stories not included in the canonical account, some of the material being Jewish, some of it Greek, and some of it Mesopotamian.