The Abram in Egypt episode in the Genesis Apocryphon has been the subject of several studies which have focused upon its status as an example of “rewritten scripture” and its reclamation of the character of Abram from Genesis 12:10-20. This article attempts to assess not only the redemption of Abram’s character in the Genesis Apocryphon, but also the reconfiguration of the entire Abram in Egypt episode through the use of several literary techniques and tropes common to ancient Jewish fictional literature. This study argues that by remaking the entire episode of Abram’s sojourn in Egypt, the author of the Apocryphon not only transforms Abram into a Jewish hero in the midst of a foreign empire, but also creates a more attractive and meaningful narrative appealing to the literary predilections and tastes of a Hellenistic Jewish audience.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
Avigad, Nahman, and Yigael Yadin. A Genesis Apocryphon: A Scroll from the Wilderness of Judaea. Description and Contents of the Scroll, Facsimiles, Transcription and Translation of Columns II, XIX-XXII (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1956).
Bardtke, Hans and Otto Plöger. Zusätze zu Esther. Zusätze zu Daniel (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1977).
Berg, Sandra B. The Book of Esther: Motifs, Themes and Structures (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1979).
Bernat, David. “Biblical Wasfs Beyond Song of Songs.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 28.3 (2004), 327-349.
Bernstein, Moshe J. “Re-Arrangement, Anticipation and Harmonization as Exegetical Features in the Genesis Apocryphon.” Dead Sea Discoveries 3 (1996), 37-57.
Bernstein, Moshe J. “ ‘Rewritten Bible’: A Generic Category Which Has Outlived its Usefulness?” Textus 22 (2005), 169-196.
Billault, Alain. “Characterization in the Ancient Novel.” In The Novel in the Ancient World, ed. Gareth L. Schmeling (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 115-130.
Block, Ariel. “The Cedar and the Palm Tree: A Paired Male/Female Symbol in Hebrew and Aramaic.” In Solving Riddles and Untying Knots: Biblical, Epigraphic, and Semitic Studies in Honor of Jonas C. Greenfield, ed. Ziony Zevit, Seymour Gitin, and Michael Sokoloff (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 13-17.
Brand, Miryam. Evil Within and Without: The Source of Sin and Its Nature as Portrayed in Second Temple Literature (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013).
Cohen, Shaye J.D. “The Beauty of Flora and the Beauty of Sarai.” Helios: A Journal of Classics and Comparative Studies 8 (1981), 41-53.
Collins, John J. “The Court Tales in Daniel and the Development of Apocalyptic.” Journal of Biblical Literature 94 (1975), 218-234.
Collins, John J. Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993).
Crenshaw, James L. “The Contest of Darius’ Guards.” In Images of Man and God, ed. Burke O. Long (Sheffield: Academic Press, 1981), 74-88.
Dalley, Stephanie. “Assyrian Court Narratives in Aramaic and Egyptian: Historical Fiction.” In Historiography in the Cuneiform World, ed. Tzvi Abusch, Carol Noyes, William W. Hallo, and Irene Winter (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 2001), 149-161.
De Temmerman, Koen. “Characterization in the Ancient Novel.” In A Companion to the Ancient Novel, ed. Edmund P. Cueva and Shannon N. Byrne (West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), 231-242.
De Temmerman, Koen. Crafting Characters: Heroes and Heroines in the Ancient Greek Novel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
De Troyer, Kristin. “An Oriental Beauty Parlour: An Analysis of Esther 2.8-18 in the Hebrew, the Septuagint and the Second Greek Text.” In A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith, and Susanna, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Academic Press, 1995), 47-70.
Delbridge, Mary Lynnette. “Prayer in Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe.” In Prayer from Alexander to Constantine: A Critical Anthology, ed. Mark Kiley (London: Routledge, 1997), 171-175.
Dubel, Sandrine. “La beauté Romanesque ou le refus du portrait dans le Roman Grec d’époque impérial.” In Les personnages du roman grec: actes du colloque de Tours, 18-20 novembre, 1999, ed. Bernard Pouderon (Lyon: Maison de l’Orient méditerranéen, 2001), 29-58.
Ego, Beate. “The Figure of Abraham in the Genesis Apocryphon’s Re-Narration of Gen 12:10-20.” In Qumran Cave 1 Revisited: Texts from Cave 1 Sixty Years After Their Discovery, ed. Daniel K. Falk, Sarianna Metso, Donald W. Parry, and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 233-243.
Ehrlich, Ernst. “Der Traum des Mordochai.” Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 7 (1955), 69-74.
Enermalm, Agneta. “An Ephesian Tale: Prayers to Isis and Other Gods.” In Prayer from Alexander to Constantine: A Critical Anthology, ed. Mark Kiley (London: Routledge, 1997), 176-180.
Eshel, Esther. “Apotropaic Prayers in the Second Temple Period.” In Liturgical Perspectives: Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Esther G. Chazon (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 69-88.
Eshel, Esther. “The Proper Marriage according to the Genesis Apocryphon and Related Texts.” In Meghillot: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls VIII-IX, ed. Moshe Bar-Asher and Devorah Dimant (Jerusalem: Haifa University Press, 2010), 29-51 [Hebrew].
Falk, Daniel K. The Parabiblical Texts: Strategies for Extending the Scriptures in the Dead Sea Scrolls (London: T&T Clark, 2007).
Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave 1 (1Q20): A Commentary, 3rd ed. (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 2004).
Flesher, LeAnn Snow. “The Use of Female Imagery and Lamentation in the Book of Judith: Penitential Prayer or Petition for Obligatory Action?” In Seeking the Favor of God, Volume 2: The Development of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Jerusalem, ed. Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney A. Werline (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2007), 83-104.
Fox, Michael V. The Song of Songs and Ancient Egyptian Love Poetry (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984).
Fox, Michael V. Character and Ideology in the Book of Esther, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001).
Fox, Michael V. “Three Esthers.” In The Book of Esther in Modern Research, ed. Sidnie White Crawford and Leonard J. Greenspoon (London: T&T Clark, 2003), 50-60.
Fröhlich, Ida. “ ‘Invoke at Any Time …’: Apotropaic Texts and Beliefs in Demons in the Literature of the Qumran Community.” Biblische Notizen 137 (2008), 41-74.
Fröhlich, Ida. “Magic and Medicine in Genesis Apocryphon: Ideas on Human Conception and Its Hindrances.” Revue de Qumran 25/98 (2011), 177-198.
Futre Pinheiro, Marília P., Marily B. Skinner, and Froma I. Zeitlin, eds. Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012).
Gera, Deborah Levine. Judith (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014).
Gevirtz, Marianne L. “Abram’s Dream in the Genesis Apocryphon: Its Motifs and Its Functions.” Maarav 8 (1992), 229-243.
Gnuse, Robert. “The Jewish Dream Interpreter in a Foreign Court: The Recurring Use of a Theme in Jewish Literature.” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 7 (1990), 29-53.
Goldstein, J.A. “The Tales of the Tobiads.” In Christianity, Judaism, and Other Greco-Roman Cults: Studies for Morton Smith at Sixty, vol. 3, ed. Jacob Neusner (Leiden: Brill, 1975), 85-123.
Goshen-Gottstein, M.H. “Philologische Miszellen zu den Qumrantexten.” Revue de Qumran 2/5 (1959), 46-48.
Grelot, Pierre. “Un nom égyptien dans l’Apocryphe de la Genèse.” Revue de Qumran 7/28 (1971), 557-566.
Gruen, Erich. Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
Gruen, Erich. Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002).
Haynes, Katharine. Fashioning the Feminine in the Greek Novel (London: Routledge, 2003).
Hezser, Catherine. “ “Joseph and Aseneth” in the Context of Ancient Greek Erotic Novels.” Frankfurter judaistische Beiträge 24 (1997), 1-40.
Howe, Leo. “Risk, Ritual and Performance.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 6 (2000), 63-79.
Humphreys, W.L. “A Life-Style for Diaspora: A Study of the Tales of Esther and Daniel.” Journal of Biblical Literature 92 (1973), 211-223.
Hunter, Richard. “Ancient Readers.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel, ed. Tim Whitmarsh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 261-271.
Japhet, Sara. “The ‘Description’ Poem in Ancient Jewish Sources and in the Jewish Exegesis of the Song of Songs.” In A Critical Engagement: Essays on the Hebrew Bible in Honour of J. Cheryl Exum, ed. David J.A. Clines and Ellen van Wolde (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2011), 216-229.
Jay, Jacqueline E. Orality and Literacy in Demotic Texts (Leiden: Brill, 2016).
Johnson, Sara Raup. Historical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identities: Third Maccabees in Its Cultural Context (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004).
Johnson, Sara Raup. “Novelistic Elements IN Esther: Persian or Hellenistic, Jewish or Greek?” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 67 (2005), 571-589.
Joosten, Jan. Abram and Sarai in Egypt (Genesis 12:10-20).” Babel und Bibel 6 (2012), 369-381.
Joosten, Jan. “The Verb גער ‘to Exorcise’ in Qumran Aramaic and Beyond.” Dead Sea Discoveries 21 (2014), 347-355.
Koller, Aaron. Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Konstan, David. Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
Kuch, Henrich. “A Study on the Margin of the Ancient Novel: ‘Barbarians’ and Others.” In The Novel in the Ancient World, ed. Gareth Schmeling, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 209-220.
Kugel, James L. Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible As It Was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998).
Lange, Armin. “1QGenAp XIX10-XX32 as Paradigm of the Wisdom Didactic Narrative.” In Qumranstudien. Vorträge und Beiträge der Teilnehmer des Qumranseminars auf dem internationalen Treffen der Society of Biblical Literature, Münster, 25-26 Juli 1993, ed. Heinz-Josef Fabry, Armin Lange, and Hermann Lichtenberger (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 191-204.
Lee, Peter Y. Aramaic Poetry in Qumran, Dissertation (Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures, Catholic University of America, 2011).
Machiela, Daniel A. The Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon: A New Text and Translation with Introduction and Special Treatment of Columns 13-17 (Leiden: Brill, 2009).
Machiela, Daniel A. “A Brief History of the Second Temple Period Name ‘Hyrcanus.’” Journal of Jewish Studies 61 (2010), 117-138.
Machiela, Daniel A. “Some Egyptian Elements in the Genesis Apocryphon: Evidence of a Ptolemaic Social Location?” Aramaic Studies 8 (2010), 47-69.
Machiela, Daniel A. “Genesis Revealed: The Apocalyptic Apocryphon from Qumran Cave 1.” In Qumran Cave 1 Revisited: Texts from Cave 1 Sixty Years after Their Discovery, ed. Daniel K. Falk, Sarianna Metso, Donald W. Parry, and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 205-222.
Machiela, Daniel A. “Prayer in the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls: A Catalogue and Overview.” In Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature: Essays in Honor of Eileen Schuller on the Occasion of Her 65th Birthday, ed. Jeremy Penner, Ken M. Penner, and Cecilia Wassen (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 285-306.
Machiela, Daniel A. “Luke 13:10-13: ‘Woman, You Have Been Set Free From Your Ailment’—Illness, Demon Possession, and Laying on Hands in Light of Second Temple Period Jewish Literature.” In The Gospels in First-Century Judaea: Proceedings of the Inaugural Conference of Nyack College’s Graduate Program in Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins, August 29th, 2013, ed. R. Steven Notley and Jeffrey P. García (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 122-135.
Machiela, Daniel A. and Andrew B. Perrin. “Tobit and the Genesis Apocryphon: Towards a Family Portrait.” Journal of Biblical Literature 133 (2014), 111-132.
Matlock, Michael. Discovering the Traditions of Prose Prayers in Early Jewish Literature (London: T&T Clark, 2012).
Miller, Geoffrey David. Marriage in the Book of Tobit (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011).
Moore, Carey. Tobit (New York: Doubleday, 1996).
Morgan, J.P. “Make-Believe and Make Believe: The Fictionality of the Greek Novels.” In Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World, ed. Christopher Gill and T.P. Wiseman (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1993), 175-229.
Morgenstern, Matthew J. and Michael Segal. “The Genesis Apocryphon.” In Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture, ed. Louis H. Feldman, James L. Kugel, and Lawrence H. Schiffman (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013), 237-262.
Newsom, Carol A. with Brennan W. Breed. Daniel: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2014).
Nickelsburg, George W.E. “Patriarchs Who Worry About Their Wives: A Haggadic Tendency in the Genesis Apocryphon.” In Biblical Perspectives: Early Use and Interpretation of the Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Proceedings of the First International Symposium of the Orion Center, 12-14 May 1996, ed. Michael E. Stone and Esther G. Chazon (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 137-158.
Niditch, Susan. “Esther: Folklore, Wisdom, Feminism and Authority.” In A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith, and Susanna, ed. A. Brenner (Sheffield: Academic Press, 1995), 26-46.
Niditch, Susan and Robert Doran, “The Success Story of the Wise Courtier: A Formal Approach.” Journal of Biblical Literature 96 (1977), 179-193.
Oswald, Wolfgang. “Die Erzeltern als Schutzbürger: Überlegungen zum Thema von Gen 12, 10-20 mit Ausblick auf Gen 20.21,22-34 und Gen 26.” Biblische Notizen 106 (2001), 79-89.
Otzen, Benedikt. Tobit and Judith (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2002).
Paschalis, Michael, Stelios Panayotakis and Gareth L. Schmeling, eds. Readers and Writers in the Ancient Novel (Groningen: Barkhuis, 2009).
Perrin, Andrew B. The Dynamics of Dream-Vision Revelation in the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015).
Pizzone, Aglae Massima Valeria. “The Tale of a Dream: Oneiros and Mythos in the Greek Novel.” In Intende, Lector-Echoes of Myth, Religion and Ritual in the Ancient Novel, ed. Marília P. Futre Pinheiro, Anton Bierl, and Roger Beck (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), 67-81.
Rakel, Claudia. Judit—über Schönheit, Macht und Widerstand im Krieg: Eine feministisch-intertextuelle Lektüre (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2003).
Reardon, Bryan P. Collected Ancient Greek Novels (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008).
Redmount, Carol A. “The Wadi Tumilat and the ‘Canal of the Pharaohs.’ ” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 54 (1995), 127-135.
Reed, Annette Yoshiko. “Abraham as Chaldean Scientist and Father of the Jews: Josephus, Ant. 1.154-168, and the Greco-Roman Discourse About Astronomy/Astrology.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 35 (2004), 119-158.
Reed, Stephen A. “The Use of the First Person in the Genesis Apocryphon.” In Aramaic in Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity: Papers from the 2004 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar at Duke University, ed. Eric M. Meyers and Paul V.M. Flesher (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 193-215.
Rodrigues Pereira, A.S. Studies in Aramaic Poetry (c. 100 B.C.E.-c. 600 C.E.): Selected Jewish, Christian and Samaritan Poems (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1997).
Römer, Thomas C. “Competing Magicians in Exodus 7-9: Interpreting Magic in the Priestly Theology.” In Magic in the Biblical World: From the Rod of Aaron to the Ring of Solomon, ed. Todd E. Klutz (London: T&T Clark, 2003), 12-22.
Romm, James. “Travel.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel, ed Tim Whitmarsh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 109-126.
Schorch, Stefan. “Genderizing Piety: The Prayers of Mordecai and Esther in Comparison.” In Deuterocanonical Additions of the Old Testament Books, ed. Géza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010), 30-43.
Scurlock, JoAnn. “Physician, Exorcist, Conjurer, Magician: A Tale of Two Healing Professions.” In Mesopotamian Magic: Textual, Historical, and Interpretive Perspectives, ed. Karel van der Toorn and Tzvi Abusch (Groningen: Styx, 1999), 69-79.
Segal, Michael. “The Literary Relationship between the Genesis Apocryphon and Jubilees: The Chronology of Abram and Sarai’s Descent to Egypt.” Aramaic Studies 8 (2010), 71-88.
Segal, Michael. “Identifying Biblical Interpretation in Parabiblical Texts.” In The Dead Sea Scrolls in Contest: Integrating the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Study of Ancient Texts, Languages, and Cultures, ed. Armin Lange, Emanuel Tov, and Matthias Weigold (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 295-308.
Smith-Christopher, Daniel L. “Prayer and Dreams: Power and Diaspora Identities in the Social Setting of the Daniel Tales.” In The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception, ed. John J. Collins and Peter W. Flint (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 266-289.
Toorn, Karel van der. “Torn Between Vice and Virtue: Stereotypes of the Widow in Israel and Mesopotamia.” In Female Stereotypes in Religious Traditions, ed. by R. Kloppenborg and W.J. Hanegraaf (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 1-14.
Valeta, David M. “Court or Jester Tales? Resistance and Social Reality in Daniel 1-6.” Perspectives in Religious Studies 32 (2005), 309-324.
VanderKam, James C. “The Poetry of 1QApGen XX,2-8a.” Revue de Qumran 10/37 (1979), 57-66.
Vermes, Geza. Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1973).
Whitmarsh, Tim and Stuart Thomson, eds. The Romance Between Greece and the East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
Wills, Lawrence. The Jew in the Court of the Foreign King (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990).
Wills, Lawrence. The Jewish Novel in the Ancient World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995).
Wills, Lawrence. Ancient Jewish Novels: An Anthology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
Wills, Lawrence. “Jewish Novellas in a Greek and Roman Age: Fiction and Identity.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 42 (2011), 141-165.
Zahn, Molly M. “Genre and Rewritten Scripture: A Reassessment.” Journal of Biblical Literature 131 (2012), 271-288.
Zsengellér, József, ed. Rewritten Bible after Fifty Years: Texts, Terms, or Techniques? A Last Dialogue with Geza Vermes (Leiden: Brill, 2014).
Zuntz, G. “Aristeas Studies I: ‘The Seven Banquets.’ ” Journal of Semitic Studies 4 (1959), 21-36.
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 404 | 66 | 6 |
Full Text Views | 194 | 4 | 2 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 88 | 24 | 5 |
The Abram in Egypt episode in the Genesis Apocryphon has been the subject of several studies which have focused upon its status as an example of “rewritten scripture” and its reclamation of the character of Abram from Genesis 12:10-20. This article attempts to assess not only the redemption of Abram’s character in the Genesis Apocryphon, but also the reconfiguration of the entire Abram in Egypt episode through the use of several literary techniques and tropes common to ancient Jewish fictional literature. This study argues that by remaking the entire episode of Abram’s sojourn in Egypt, the author of the Apocryphon not only transforms Abram into a Jewish hero in the midst of a foreign empire, but also creates a more attractive and meaningful narrative appealing to the literary predilections and tastes of a Hellenistic Jewish audience.
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 404 | 66 | 6 |
Full Text Views | 194 | 4 | 2 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 88 | 24 | 5 |