Genesis Apocryphon

Extracts from Biblical Profile: The Birth of Noah by Jaap Doedens at BAR; Summer 2021.

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During the reconstruction process, it was found that the fourth scroll contained stories, written in Aramaic, about the patriarchs known from the biblical Book of Genesis. The scroll enhances the biblical narratives with interesting details. Since the first parts of the book have been lost, the reconstructed text begins with the story of Lamech, the father of Noah, and ends right after the story of Abraham freeing the captives of Sodom taken prisoner in the military campaign of the “kings of the east.” As such, the extant part loosely covers the biblical narrative from the end of Genesis 5 through the beginning of Genesis 15.²

Radiocarbon dating indicates that the document originated between 73 B.C.E. and 14 C.E. The content of the book shows familiarity with the tradition found in the Book of Enoch (written between 300 and 100 B.C.E.) and the Book of Jubilees (written c. 160 B.C.E.), both examples of expanded biblical narratives.

The Genesis Apocryphon has most of its personages speaking in direct speech. Fascinatingly, we not only hear the main biblical characters speaking, but also marginal ones, and even some completely absent from Genesis. These added dialogues and details do more than merely satisfy the reader’s curiosity. The author retells the Genesis story in such a way as to explain what could have been seen as flaws of the biblical patriarchs.

One example of such an expansion of the biblical Genesis involves Lamech, the father of Noah. When Lamech sees his newborn son, he concludes that he hardly can be the father of this child. He thinks that one of the “Watchers,” the “Holy Ones,” or the “Nephilim”—in short, the fallen angels—must have fathered the child.³ This is obviously a reference to the narrative of Genesis 6:1-4, about the “sons of God” who had children with the “daughters of men.”^a

But why is Lamech so distrustful? …

Endnote 1 – Epistles: Biblical Profile: The Birth of Noah

Numbered 1Q20 or 1QapGen. For text and English translation, see Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition, vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. 26–49. See also Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave 1 (1Q20): A Commentary, BibOr, 18/B (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 2004); Daniel A. Machiela, The Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon: A New Text and Translation with Introduction and Special Treatment of Columns 13–17, STDJ 79 (Leiden: Brill, 2009).

Endnote 2 – Epistles: Biblical Profile: The Birth of Noah

Based on vague traces of numbering of the columns, the scroll must have been much longer, probably missing between 70 and 105 columns. See Fitzmyer, Genesis Apocryphon, p. 38.

Go to the article to read more about Noah and family.