The Genesis Apocryphon : A Chain of Tradition

The Genesis Apocryphon was one of the first seven scrolls to be discovered in Cave 1 at Qumran, and the final one to be unraveled. Opened in 1956, this scroll was the subject of many studies, but the official edition is yet to be published.
|The Genesis Apocryphon is an Aramaic parabiblical work that relates, with additions, omissions, and expansions, to the narratives corresponding to Genesis 5:18–15:5, that is, from the texts that mention Enoch to those dealing with Abram’s vision of the stars. The work is generally attributed to the second or first century BCE, but a date as early as the third century BCE should not be ruled out. The surviving text of the Genesis Apocryphon can be divided into three cycles, divided by blank lines between each cycle: the Enoch cycle, the Noah cycle, and the Abram cycle. Since the beginning and end of the scroll have not been preserved, the text might have originally included additional cycles, which have been lost. From the extant text, we can see a well-written story, with smoothly connected individual components, which employ shared themes and terminology. None of the cycles therefore appear to be independent compositions, taken from written sources that were later inserted into the Genesis Apocryphon. Nevertheless, the possibility that the author of the Genesis Apocryphon used earlier sources cannot be ruled out. This was probably true in the case of the Enoch cycle, where a clear connection with 1 Enoch can be seen.
|The existence of significant parallels between the main characters may indicate that the literary technique used by the author of this text should be regarded as a “chain of traditions,” and this will be the focus of my lecture.