The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (61 page)

For the
editio princeps
of the Reworked Pentateuch, see J. M. Allegro,
DJD,
V, 1-6 (4Q158) and E. Tov and S. White,
DJD,
XIII, 187-351 (4Q364-7).

... And [J]ac[ob] w[as left a]lone there. And [a man] wrestl[ed with him. When the man did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his thigh; and Jacob's thigh was put out of joint] as he wrestled with him and he seized him. And he said to hi[m, What is your name? ... And he said to him, Jacob. And he said, Your name shall be Israel, for you have striven with God and with] men and have prevailed. And Jacob asked [and] sai[d, Tell me, pray, what is your name. And he said, Why is it that you ask my name, and he bless]ed him there. And he said to him, ‘May the Lo[rd] make you fruitful [and multiply] you. [May he grant you kn]owledge and understanding and may he save you from all violence and ... until this day and until everlasting generations. And he went on his way after he had blessed him there. And he ... [And] the sun [rose] upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his thigh.... on this day. And he said, You shall not e[at the sinew of the hip which is] upon the two hollows of the thigh until [this day. (Exod. iv) And the Lord said] to Aaron, Go to me[et Moses in the wilderness. So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. And Moses told Aaron all] the words of the Lord with which he had s[ent] him and all [the signs which he had charged him to do. And]
the Lord [spoke] to me saying, When you bring out the [people of Israel
]
... to go as slaves and behold these are [four hundred and] thirty (years]
...

II
you shall see him ... you shall see in peace ... your death. And upon [your] eyes ...
[Why should I be bereft of] both of you?
(Gen. xxvii, 45) And [Isaac] called [Rebecca his wife and told] her all [these] wor[ds] ... after Jacob her son ... And Esau saw that [Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to] Pa[dan] Aram to take [a wife] from [there] ...

... till [Thy people, 0 Lord], p[ass by, till the people pass by whom thou hast purchased.

Thou wilt bring them in, and plant them] on thine own mountain, the place, [0 Lord, which thou hast made] for thine abode, [the sanctuary which thy hands have established].

The Lord will reign for ever and ever.

For when [the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen] went [into the sea, the Lo]rd [brought back] the waters of the sea upon them; but the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea.

[And the water]s were a wall to them on their right and on their left (cf. Exod. xiv, 22, 29). [And Miriam the prophetess, sister of Aaron], took

[a timbrel in her hand; and al]l the women went out after her with [timbrels and dancing. And Miriam sang to them,

Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea].

...
thou hast despised
...
For pride ...
Thou art great, a saviour ...
The hope of the enemy has perished
and ... has stopped
...
They have perished in the mighty waters,
the enemy ... and lifts up to their height.
[Thou hast given a ransom]
...
...
[he who ac]ts proudly.

And Moses led [Israe]l onward from the sea, and they went to the wilderness of Sh[ur; they went three days and found no water]. They came to Marah, but [they] could [not] drink the water of Marah because [it was] bit[ter; therefore it was named Marah].

And the people murmured ag[ainst Moses] saying, What shall we drink? And Moses cried to [the Lord who showed him] a tree, and he threw it into [the wate]r, and the water became sweet. There he made for them a statute and [an ordinance and there he proved them. And he said], If [you will lis]ten di[li]gently [to the v]oice of the Lord your God and do that which is right in his eyes and [give heed to his commandments and judgements, and keep] all his statutes, [I will put none] of the diseases [upon you] which I put on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord, your [heale]r.

You shall dwell [in bo]oths for seven days; all that are native in Israel shall dwell in booths, tha[t your] gen[erations may kno]w that I made your fathers dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt; I am the Lord you[r] God.
vacat
And Moses declared to the people of Israel the appointed feasts of the Lord.
vacat
And the Lord said to Moses, Command the children of Israel,
saying, When you enter the land which I am giving to you as an inheritance, and you dwell upon it securely, you shall bring wood for a burnt-offering and for all the service of [the H]ouse which you shall build for me in the land, to lay it on the altar of burnt-offering, [and] the calves ... for Passover sacrifices and peace-offerings and thank-offerings and free-will offerings and burnt-offerings daily ... and for the doors and for all the service of the House you shall offer ... the festival of Oil, the twel[ve tribes] they shall offer wood ... Those who offer on the first day shall be Levi and ... [on the third day, Reu]ben and Simeon, [and on] the fou
[
rth
]
day ...

Nine fragments of a manuscript written in Hasmonaean characters (first half of the first century BCE) contain a paraphrase of Gen. i-iv, vi-ix, judging from disconnected expressions relating to the creation of the world by God's word, to various living creatures, the establishment of man as ruler over the rest of beings, the prohibition against eating from the tree of knowledge and the rebellion against God which led to the flood. Fr. 10 refers to the throwing of Israelite boys into the Nile, the commissioning of Moses, his vision of the burning bush, Moses' and Aaron's encounter with Pharaoh and the plagues which afflicted Egypt. The text can be arranged in three columns. Further unidentified fragments, which are not included here, are numbered from A to T. If the word
ywsr
in col. 1, line 12 actually means ‘inclination', the phrase ‘evil inclination' could be the earliest attestation of the rabbinic concept.

For the
editio princeps,
see T. Elgvin and E. Tov,
DJD,
XIII, 417-41.

 

I
... ... [The heavens and the earth and all] their host He made by [His] word. [And God rested on the seventh day from all the work whi]ch He had made. And [His] holy spirit ... [all th]e living and creeping [creatu]res ... [He put man on the ear]th to rule over it and to eat the frui[ts of the ground] ... w[ith]out eating from the tree of kn[owledge of good and evil] ... He rose against Him and they forgot ... with an evil inclination and for deed[s of] ... peace/payment ...

 

II
... [save Noah] and [his] wife and the w[ives of his sons from] the waters of the Flood ... God [cl]osed behind them ... the windows of heave[n] op[en]ed under all the heav[en ... for] the waters to rise on the ear[th forty] days and for[ty] nights was [rain] ov[er] the earth ... and in order to know the glory of the Most Hi[gh] ... to reach to Him, He enlightened the heaven ... sign for generatio[ns] of eternity ... [and never more] will a flood [destroy the earth] ... the periods of day and night ... to shine [o]n heaven and earth ... III ... their [s]ons into the rive[r] ... [And] He sent to them Moses ... in the vision ... in the signs and marvels ... And He sent them to Pharaoh ... plagues ... marvels for Egypt ... and they carried His word to Pharaoh to send away [their people]. But He hardened [his] (Pharaoh's) heart [to] sin so that the m[en of Isra]el might know for eternal gene[rations]. And He changed their [wate]rs to blood. Frogs were in all their land and lice in all their territories, gnats in their houses and they struck all their ... And He smote with pestile[nce all] their flock and their beasts He delivered to de[at]h. He pu[t dark]ness into their land and obscurity into their [hou]ses so that they could not see one another. [And He smote] their land with hail and [their] soil [with] frost to cause [al]l the fruit of nourishment [to perish]. And He brought locust to cover the face of the ea[rth], heavy locust in all their territory to eat everything green in [their] la[nd] ... And God hardened Ph[araoh's] heart so that he should not [dis]miss [them] ... and in order to increase wonders. [And He smote their first-born], the beginning of al[1 their strength] ...

Found in Cave 1, and partly published by N. Avigad and Y. Yadin (A Genesis
Apocryphon,
Jerusalem, 1956), IQapGen is an incomplete manuscript with twenty-two surviving columns of Aramaic text (cf. also IQ20). Remains of a further column, ‘The Genesis Apocryphon Col. XII', have since been edited by J. C. Greenfield and E. Qimron
(Studies in Qumran Aramaic, Abr-Nabrain,
Suppl. 3 (1992), 70-77). A preliminary transcription and translation of the rest of the unpublished material, deciphered with the help of advanced infra-red technology, has been issued by M. Morgenstern, E. Qimron and D. Sinan in ‘The Hitherto Unpublished Columns of the Genesis Apocryphon',
Abr-Nabrain
33 (1995), 3—52.

The beginning of the manuscript is missing. But since the sheet starting with col. v is numbered by the Hebrew letter
pe,
col. x by
sade,
and col. XVII by
qoph,
i.e. the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth letters of the Hebrew alphabet, it would seem that the surviving section was preceded by sixteen sheets of which only the end of the last one has been preserved (cf. M. Morgenstern, ‘A New Clue to the Original Length of the Genesis Apocryphon',
JJS
47/2 (1996), 345—7). If so, the story of Noah which begins the existing portion of the scroll must have been preceded by an extensive account of the creation, Adam and Eve, and the Genesis story up to Enoch and Noah. Columns II—V narrate the miraculous birth of Noah (on Noah see also the minute fragments from 1Q19 and
19bis),
whose father, Lamech, suspects that his wife has conceived by one of the fallen angels. Her denials fail to convince him and he asks his father, Methuselah, to travel to Paradise and obtain reassurance from his own father, Enoch. Columns VI—XV contain Noah's first-person account of the Flood and of his journeys. Col. x describes Noah's sacrifice after the Flood. Col. XI deals with the covenant between God and Noah with a mention of a ban on eating blood. Col. XII recounts the planting of a vineyard by Noah and his tasting of wine. The badly damaged cols. XIII—XV contain a vision concerning trees and its interpretation. Two further columns (XVI—XVII) deal with the division of the earth among the sons of Noah. Col. XVIII is completely lost. Cols. XIX—XXII, corresponding to Gen. xii—xv, deal with Abraham's journey to Egypt, his return to Canaan, the war against the invading Mesopotamian kings, and the renewal to him of a divine promise of a son. This lively and delightful narrative, largely devoid of sectarian bias, throws valuable light on inter-Testamental Bible interpretation. It is a mixture of Targum, Midrash, rewritten Bible and autobiography. Most scholars assign the manuscript to the late first century BCE or the first half of the first century CE. The composition itself is generally thought to originate from the second century BCE. Its relationship to the mid-second-century Book of Jubilees is generally accepted, but views differ on whether it depends on Jubilees or vice versa. I slightly prefer the theory that in its pre-Qumran version the Genesis Apocryphon precedes Jubilees, which would postulate for the former a date at least as early as the first half of the second century BCE.

 

...
II
Behold, I thought then within my heart that conception was (due) to the Watchers and the Holy Ones... and to the Giants... and my heart was troubled within me because of this child. Then I, Lamech, approached Bathenosh [my] wife in haste and said to her, ‘... by the Most High, the Great Lord, the King of all the worlds and Ruler of the Sons of Heaven, until you tell me all things truthfully, if... Tell me [this truthfully] and not falsely... by the King of all the worlds until you tell me truthfully and not falsely.'

Then Bathenosh my wife spoke to me with much heat [and] ... said, ‘O my brother, O my lord, remember my pleasure... the lying together and my soul within its body. [And I tell you] all things truthfully.'

My heart was then greatly troubled within me, and when Bathenosh my wife saw that my countenance had changed... Then she mastered her anger and spoke to me saying, ‘O my lord, O my [brother, remember] my pleasure! I swear to you by the Holy Great One, the King of [the heavens] ... that this seed is yours and that [this] conception is from you. This fruit was planted by you... and by no stranger or Watcher or Son of Heaven... [Why] is your countenance thus changed and dismayed, and why is your spirit thus distressed... I speak to you truthfully.'

Then I, Lamech, ran to Methuselah my father, and [I told] him all these things. [And I asked him to go to Enoch] his father for he would surely learn all things from him. For he was beloved, and he shared the lot [of the angels], who taught him all things. And when Methuselah heard [my words... he went to] Enoch his father to learn all things truthfully from him ... his will.

He went at once to Parwain and he found him there... [and] he said to Enoch his father, ‘O my father, O my lord, to whom I... And I say to you, lest you be angry with me because I come here...

VI
[I abstained] from injustice and in the womb of her who conceived me I searched for truth. And when I emerged from my mother's womb, I was planted for truth and I lived all my days in truth and walked in the paths of eternal truth. And the Holy One (was) with me ... on my pathways truth sped to warn me off the ... of lie which led to darkness ... and I girded my loins with the vision of truth and wisdom... paths of violence.
vacat
Then I, Noah, became a man and clung to truth and seized... and I took Amzara, his daughter as my wife. She conceived and bore me three sons [and daughters]. Then I took wives for my sons from among my brother's daughters, and I gave my daughters to my brother's sons according to the law of the eternal precept which the Most High [ordained] to the sons of man. vacat And in my days, when according to my reckoning... ten jubilees had been completed, the (moment) came for my sons to take wives for themselves... heaven, I saw in a vision and was explained and made known the action of the sons of heaven and... the heavens. Then I hid this mystery in my heart and explained it to no man. vacat ... to me and a great and... and in a message of the Holy One... and he spoke to me in a vision and he stood before me ...