chapter five
WHICH IS OLDER, JUBILEES OR THE GENESIS APOCRYPHON?
One of the Þrst Dead Sea Scrolls texts to be discovered in the Qumran caves came to be known as the Genesis Apocryphon (Q). Almost from the time of the Apocryphon’s discovery, scholars began to notice similar- ities between it and the book of Jubilees. ough clearly dierent—the Apocryphon consists primarily of a series of Þrst-person narratives in Aramaic, allegedly written by dierent biblical Þgures recounting epi- sodes from their lives—the two texts seemed to share a wealth of com- mon lore and common biblical interpretations. is naturally led to spec- ulation about which author had borrowed from the other, or whether they had both borrowed from a common, now-lost source.1 On this question researchers have been, and still are, fundamentally divided. Among those who have maintained the priority of the Apocryphon over Jubilees are B.Z. Wacholder,2 P. Grelot,3 G. Vermes,4 and, more recently, C. Werman.5 ose who have taken the opposite position include J. Fitzmyer,6 G.W.E. Nickelsburg,7 and C.A. Evans.8 Still others,
1 Speculation has also focused on the Apocryphon’s relationship to another text, the account of Noah’s birth in Enoch chapters –. I deal brießy with the connection between the Apocryphon and Enoch – later in this chapter. 2 B.Z. Wacholder, “How Long Did Abram Stay in Egypt,” HUCA (): [– ]. 3 P. Grelot, Review of J.A. Fitzmyer, e Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave , in RB (): . 4 G. Vermes, Scripture and Tradition (StPB ; Leiden: Brill, ), . 5 C. Werman, “Qumran and the Book of Noah,” in Pseudepigraphic Perspectives: e Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Proceedings of the Second International Symposium of the Orion Center, – January (ed. M.E. Stone and E.G. Chazon; STDJ ; Leiden: Brill, ), –. 6 J.A. Fitzmyer, e Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave (Rome: PontiÞcal Biblical Institute, ), . 7 G.W.E. Nickelsburg, “Patriarchs Who Worry About eir Wives,” in Biblical Per- spectives: Early Use and Interpretation of the Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. M.E. Stone and E.G. Chazon; Leiden: Brill, ), [–]. 8 C.A. Evans, “e Genesis Apocryphon and the Rewritten Bible,” RevQ (): [–]. chapter five including F. García Martínez,9 have suggested that the two texts drew on a common source. One particular focus for comparison has been the two texts’ account of the division of the world among Noah’s sons and grandsons, since both the Apocryphon and Jubilees contain a wealth of geographic details in their accounts that are not present in the Bible. ree recent studies have focused on this issue. Daniel Machiela has sought to reconstruct the map of the world underlying the two texts; his conclusion is appro- priately tentative, but he ultimately suggests that the similarities between the two texts are best explained by postulating the existence of a common source from which the two drew some of their material.10 Esther Eshel, in a article on the same topic, has come down on the side of the Apocryphon’s priority to Jubilees, though she also points out the similar- ity between the world map found in the Apocryphon and in Josephus’s much later account of the division of the world in his Jewish Antiqui- ties :–; Josephus diers from the Apocryphon, she notes, only in small details, and “these are due to the diering amounts of detail pro- vided.”11 is actually seems to me a compelling argument against equat- ing the more Hellenistic map of the Apocryphon with priority. e same argument holds for a still more recent study, an attempt by Cana Wer- man to reinforce her previous conclusion about the Apocryphon’s pri- ority to Jubilees via a detailed examination of the world map in both.12
9 F. García Martínez, Qumran and Apocalyptic: Studies in the Aramaic from Qumran (Leiden: Brill, ), –. 10 D. Machiela, “e Genesis Apocryphon (Q): A Reevaluation of its Text, Inter- pretive Character, and Relationship to the Book of Jubilees” (PhD Dissertation, Notre Dame University, ), –. 11 E. Eshel, “e Imago Mundi of the Genesis Apocryphon,” in Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identitiy and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (ed. L. LiDonnici and Andrea Lieber; Leiden: Brill, ), [–]. 12 C. Werman, “e Book of Jubilees and its Aramaic Sources,” Meghillot – (): –. Werman seeks to show that the author of Jubilees “Judaized” the Ionian world map as presented in the Apocryphon. at is certainly one possible explanation for the dierences between the two—though her construction of the evidence certainly deserves further scrutiny—but it is only one explanation. It is just as possible that the author of the Apocryphon sought to bring the map of his “Judaizing” source text (that is, Jubilees) more in line with the widely known Ionian map precisely because he had none of the anti- Hellenizing concerns so amply evidenced in Jubilees. It may also be that the Apocryphon departed from Jubilees (though the extant of his departure is very di cult to pin down because of the many lacunae) in an attempt to “modernize” the map in the light of subsequent developments in cartography. Finally, it should be clear that neither Jubilees nor the Apocryphon was the originator of this world map: both texts ultimately owe their maps to a Greek model that had been around since the late sixth century bce