A soul’s second chance: The testament of Abraham and traditions of praying for the dead

In ancient Jewish and Christian intercessory traditions, one emerging trend insists that death is final with no allotment for postmortem mercy of any kind. By late antiquity, speculations about the in-between status of souls proliferated, eventually emerging, for Christians, as a nascent doctrine of purgatory. Scholars have long acknowledged the practice of efficacious prayers for the deceased, attested by at least the third century. The following article considers often neglected evidence from the Testament of Abraham arguing that the Testament of Abraham offers a compelling example of one early conceptualization of the practice of postmortem intercession.