"Taxo" and the Origin of the Assumption of Moses‪.‬

For my mentors, Professor Joshua Efron and Professor Aryeh Kasher The identity of Taxo has intrigued the scholarly imagination ever since the appearance of a single fragmentary Latin manuscript of the Assumption (or Testament) of Moses. (1) The odd name comes up only once (in ch. 9), yet its identification is key to understanding the real significance of the book, including its time frame, religious affiliation, and overall meaning and tendency. (2) Numerous solutions based on diverse methods of reading, calculation, and decoding have been put forth since Antonio Ceriani first published the palimpsest in 1861. (3) However, all the attempts so far display the workings of richly inventive minds rather than of soundly grounded historical research.