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They are therefore exemplars of penitence. In pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities (xvi.4) they are said
to have been seven in number, and it is in line with that tradition that our author regards them as
archetypes of seven varieties of penitents. As to their being styled lilies (a symbol of purity), cp.
Midrash Tehillim, in loc. (quoted also in Yalqut Shime'oni, §747): 'Whenever a man repents his
offenses, the Holy One, blessed be He, gives him an additional pet-name. Consider the case of the
sons of Korah. ... After they had repented, but not before, they were called lilies ... as in the title of
Psalm 45'. See further on this metaphor, I. Low, Die Flora der Juden (repr. 1967), ii.!72ff. This
fanciful interpretation is further supported by the fact that the Hebrew word for 'lilies', viz. shoshanim,
lends itself to a 'freak' identification with the similar shonim, 'those that change, i.e., repent'—which is
how the Greek (Septuagint) and Latin (Vulgate) Versions actually render it in our passage!
2. Our author's understanding of this clause accords more closely with the punctuation in the
traditional (Masoretic) text than does the usual version. The deeds of the speaker complement his
word (though the latter is here evidently taken to mean God's word). The king is, of course, identified
with God.
3. On inspiration by the Holy Spirit, cp. Targum, Isa. 40.13; TB Sanhedrin, 99b; Sifre, §176, etc.
Aristobulus, quoted by Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica, viii.10, 4; W. Bacher, Die aelteste
Terminologie der juedischen Schriftauslegung (1899), i.!69ff.; ii.202-6.
4. Vulgo, 'the Teacher of Righteousness', but the author is evidently referring to any of the accredited
expositors such as are prescribed in Manual, vi.6; 'Zadokite' Document, vii.18. See Analytical Index,
B. 2 (u). Our author interprets the Hebrew word for 'writer, scribe', viz., sopher, in the later sense of
'scholar'.
5. Literally, 'utterance (response) of tongue'; cp. Prov. 16.1.
H. Everyman's Bible
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Introduction.
Of a different order are two paraphrases of portions of the Pentateuch, both only partially preserved.
§1. The first, discovered in 1947, is composed not in Hebrew, the sacred tongue, but in Aramaic, the
vernacular 'understanded of the people'. Neither a formal commentary on Scripture, nor a mere set of
sermon notes, it is a fanciful elaboration of narratives about the patriarchs related in the Book of
Genesis. It belongs to a genre of literature (modelled, no doubt, on such romantic embellishments of
Homeric and early Greek legends as are exemplified by the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes and
the Heracleid of Rhianus of Crete) which seems to have developed and enjoyed popularity in Jewish
circles during the Hellenistic age (1) and which is best represented by the Book of Jubilees (alias The
Little Genesis)—with which our text in fact shares several legends—the apocryphal additions to
Daniel and Esther, the Biblical Antiquities falsely ascribed to Philo, and the compositions (preserved
only in quotations) of such writers as Artapanus and the poetaster Ezekiel. (2) Medieval examples of
the same genre are the Book of Jashar, the Chronicles of Josippon, the Samaritan Asatir (Legends) of
Moses, the Anglo-Saxon paraphrases of Genesis and Exodus attributed to Caedmon, and the English
poem Cleanness.
The work has come to be known as The Genesis Apocryphon, but that title is misleading. For modern
read-ers, the term apocryphon suggests a work which originally purported to be divinely inspired but
which, however popular it may have been, was not eventually accepted into the canon of Holy Writ.
There is no evidence, however, that the present composition ever claimed or enjoyed any more exalted
status than might have been accorded to the Targums (which no one would call apocrypha) or, in our
own day, to any popular volume of Bible stories.
§2. Not the least interesting feature of the work is that in its fanciful elaborations of the Scriptural
narrative it incorporates several motifs well attested elsewhere in world folklore.
(i) The birth of Noah is accompanied by a sudden blaze of light. This is likewise a feature of nativity-
stories associated with Abraham, (3) Moses, (4) Buddha, the Greek god Asklepios and the early
Roman king Servius Tullius, as well as with several Christian saints. (5) It is told also of the baptism
of Jesus, (6) and is in turn bound up with the ancient notions that (a) human children begotten by gods
or other supernatural beings reveal their parentage by having radiant faces, (7) and that (b) the 'genius'
of a hero, situated in his head, emits rays. (8)
(ii) Lamech seeks explanation of this phenomenon by appealing to his father Methuselah to repair to
his father, Enoch, which Methuselah does. Here we have but a Hebraic version of the familiar folktale
motif of 'Old, older, oldest', the theme of which is that a quest for information 'moves back by
progressive stages to the hoary Nestor who possesses the knowledge sought'. (9)
(iii) In order to reach Enoch, Methuselah travels to a land (or place) named Parvaim. This land or
place, the location of which is still unknown, is mentioned in II Chronicles 3.6 as that from which
Solomon obtained gold for coating the woodwork of the Temple. Now, since in Enoch 65.2 the
ancient patriarch is said to have been translated to 'the ends of the earth', it is apparent that Parvaim is
regarded by our author as a semi-mythical land in the far distance. (10) It is thus the equivalent of the
Earthly Paradise or Isles of the Blest, a characteristic of which in popular lore is their abundance of
gold. (11) A particularly arresting parallel is furnished in classical literature by the sands of the River
Pactolus, in Lydia, which are said similarly to have yielded the gold for the bricks presented by
Croesus to the shrine at Delphi, and which, even after that gold had in fact been exhausted, continued
to be spoken of in proverbial lore. (12)
(iv) Abram is forewarned of the danger which awaits him and Sarai at the hands of Pharaoh by
dreaming of a threatened cedar and palm, which symbolize their lives. Here, again, we have a familiar
motif of popular lore— namely, that the life (or soul) of a person is bound up with that of a tree. (13)
To cite but a few examples from classical sources: Domitian's death was thought to have been
presaged by the falling of a tree (Suetonius, Domit., 15), and that of Severus Alexander by the felling
of an ancient laurel and fig tree (Alex. Lampridius, Alex. Sev., 60.4—5). The grove of triumphal trees
planted by the Caesars finally died in Nero's last year (Suetonius, Galba, i; Tacitus, Ann., xiii.58).
Moreover, a story almost identical with that in our text is related in the Second Lay of Gudrun in the
Poetic Edda. In similar vein, it is (or was) a Jewish custom to plant a cedar at the birth of a boy and a
pine at that of a girl and later to fell them in order to build the nuptial canopy (huppah) at their
wedding (Bab. Talmud, Gittin, 57a; Pal. Talmud, Erubin, iv.27b). Goethe's father is said to have
planted a tree in his garden on the day the poet was born.
(v) The description of Sarai's beauty is couched in a series of cliches virtually identical with those
applied to the Virgin Mary in various apocryphal infancy gospels,
(vi) The 'plague' with which Pharaoh is afflicted—usu-ally identified in rabbinical legend as leprosy
(14)—here ap-pears to involve a sexual malfunction. This probably re-flects the widespread notion,
attested alike in accounts of witchcraft and in Graeco-Roman spells, that impotence and similar
disorders can be induced by sorcery. (15) More' over, the disorder is inflicted by a demon (spirit) , (16)
and is cured by the laying-on of hands, both of which ideas are, of course, staples of folklore
everywhere. (17)
(vii) Commanded by God, Abram ascends to the 'height of Hazor' and thence surveys the land [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]