הנישואים הראויים על פי המגילה החיצונית לבראשית ועל פי מקורות קרובים לה

This paper investigates how the author of the Genesis Apocryphon refers to women, in particular the anonymous women in his composition:the daughters of men who had relations with the Watchers, and the women from Noah's family - his wife, daughters, daughters-in-law, and granddaughters. These two groups are counterposed. If the behavior of the women who had relations with the Watchers was inacceptable, Noah's actions altered the future: he followed the truthful path and made appropriate matches for his sons and daughters, with his brother's children. Comparison of the description of the post diluvian period in the Genesis Apocryphon and Jubilees shows some differences with regard to marriage. In the Genesis Apocryphon, following the Flood, the sons of Ham marriedthe daughters of Japheth, and the sons of Japheth the daughters of Ham, according to "the eternal law for marrying an uncle's daughters". On theother hand, the children of Shem, the chosen line, married their sisters, following the practice of the children of Adam and Eve. Because of the Genesis Apocryphon's poor preservation, the picture remains incomplete.In Jubilees emphasis is placed on the rivalry between Noah's sons, and women do not receive mention as leaving the ark, or participating in the celebration of the fourth-year produce. The question of who were the women Jubilees refers to as having married Noah's sons remains open. Even Noah's sons receive but brief mention here. An additional difference between the Genesis Apocryphon and Jubilees relates to the continuation of the line. In the Apocryphon Arpachshad is listed as Shem's firstborn (12:10) and, as VanderKam suggests, it appears that, like Shem's other children, he married one of his sisters. The author of Jubilees only refers to the marriage of one of Noah's grandchildren, Arpachshad, here Shem's third son, who married Rasuya, his brother Elam's granddaughter. Also discussed here are the similarities between the Genesis Apocryphon and Tobit with respect to the clear preference for first-cousin marriages.
|In both texts, we find emphasis on choosing the right spouse - a first cousin on the paternal side. This similarity sheds light on this central motif in Tobit - a point also found in Jubilees. Tobit expands on this topic, noting that the punishment for an unacceptable wife is death, and that the daughter ruins her father's name, just as a priest's daughter does in the Pentateuch. Thus, in Tobit, the seven inappropriate husbands of Sarah die at the hands of an evil spirit, until she makes a suitable marriage to Tobit, the son of her father's brother. Presumably, the references to Noah as a prophet and the reference to marrying relatives(Tob 4:12) are based on the author's familiarity with the tradition in theGenesis Apocryphon, which he developed by adding the prohibition against, and punishment for, exogamy.