Reading the GENESIS APOCRYPHON as Biblical Commentary

• In Event: Contours of Biblical Commentary

Abstract

The GENESIS APOCRYPHON (1QGen ap ar), an Aramaic text from Cave 1 at Qumran, presents, in its surviving portions, a version of the narratives of Genesis 5-15. Its mode of presentation is not uniform across its 23 columns, most of which are fragmentary, and it can be divided loosely into Part I, which we may term the Lamech-Noah section, and Part II, which we can characterize as the Abram Section. The former does not adhere as closely to the biblical text as does the latter, and contains a good deal of material that cannot, in any sense, be considered interpretation of the Bible, as opposed to expansion or enhancement of the biblical narrative. Quite appropriately, the Apocryphon is usually studied as an artefact of Second Temple/Qumran literature, and, as a result, the techniques with which it offers solutions to exegetical issues confronting the reader of the biblical story are often overlooked. This paper will attempt to classify and demonstrate the methods in which the Apocryphon can and should be read as a biblical commentary, with most, but not all, of the examples being derived from Part II, the Abram section. The techniques include, among others, translation, rearrangement of details, and filling in gaps in the biblical narrative.

Author

• Moshe Bernstein, Yeshiva University