Of Forefathers, Falsehoods, and Found Scrolls
Lawrence Schiffman on Parshas Lech Lecha
Our Reading Jewish History in the Parsha segment is entering a new chapter. With Rabbi David Bashevkin wrapping up his year-long parsha and Jewish history reflections, we’re excited to share that this series will now feature past 18Forty guests as guest writers. Each week, they’ll bring their unique insights on how Jewish history connects with the weekly Torah portion.
This week, we’re excited to welcome Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman who joined us on the 18Forty podcast to explore the “Origins of Judaism.” Professor Schiffman teaches at New York University, where he lectures on topics such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, Midrashei Halacha, and Second Temple Judaism.
For most of the Jewish community, sources for understanding and learning lessons from the Torah begin with rabbinic texts, the Midrashim and Talmudim, compiled and edited after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. Earlier, however, in the Second Temple period, there developed a vast literature of biblical interpretation found in a variety of sources, the works of Philo, Josephus, the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Many of these are brought together in a three-volume collection, Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture.1 My goal today is to use one episode in Parshat Lech Lecha to illustrate the richness of Second Temple interpretation and why our community should be much more interested in it.
One of the most difficult narratives in the book of Bereishit is certainly that found in Parshat Lech Lechah, Bereishit 12: 10-20. Here the Torah tells us how Avram left Canaan because of a famine and travelled to Egypt. On the way, he asked his wife to promise to claim to be his sister so that the Egyptians would not kill Avram in order to take his beautiful wife. Indeed, after Pharaoh heard of her beauty, he took Sarai into the palace, presumably as his wife. All during this time, Avram flourished, but Pharaoh and his household were smitten with plagues. When Pharaoh discovered that he had been lied to, he excoriated Avram for this lie and expelled him from the kingdom. The fundamental question arising from this passage, of course, is this: How could Avram and Sarai lie about their relationship, knowing that it could easily result in Sarai’s being violated by Pharaoh?
A very similar episode is reported in Bereishit 20:1-18 regarding Avimelech, King of the Canaanite city of Gerar to which Avraham migrated at a later point. Here, Avimelech takes Sarah but God comes to him in a dream informing him that Sarah is indeed the wife of Avraham and that having relations with her, therefore, would mean that he would incur the death penalty. Avimelech protests his innocence and blames Avraham for lying. He then criticizes Avraham for his dishonesty, and Avraham then makes the excuse that indeed Sarah is his “sister”, sharing a common father. Again, a similar episode occurs in 26:1, 6-11 regarding Yitzchak with the same Philistine king, Avimelech of Gerar. Yitzchak identifies his wife Rivkah as his sister for fear of being killed. When Avimelech gets the impression from the couple’s behavior that they are married, he excoriates Yitzchak who makes the by-now-familiar excuse that he feared for his life. The repetition and variation of these episodes have led modern scholars to see them as evidence of either multiple sources being compiled into our account or evidence of folkloristic development within the traditions of ancient Israel.
For a time, in the 1960s and 70s, a theory became popular according to which several Akkadian tablets from the Nuzi archive in ancient Mesopotamia were understood to indicate that, along with the institution of marriage, it was possible for the husband to “adopt” the woman he was marrying as his sister. This supposed legal status was cited to explain why Avraham could identify his wife as his “sister,” without simply being a prevaricator. This claim got him off the hook for lying about his wife but did not solve the problem of how he could place her in the impossible situation that she faced. It turned out, however, that this explanation was based on very flimsy evidence, and it has since been rejected by virtually all biblical scholars.
The apparently unethical activity of Avram/Avraham was dealt with by traditional commentators. In dealing with our parsha, Ramban (Nahmanides, 1194-1270) to Bereishit 12:10 says outright that the reader should “know that Avraham, our father, committed a great accidental transgression.” Because he feared being killed, he exposed his wife to the possibility of illicit sexual relations. A similar approach is taken by Radak (Rabbi David Kimchi, 1160-1235). When we turn to the literature of the Second Temple period, we find an approach designed to explain why he followed this disingenuous approach.
The text that provides this answer is found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and is entitled the Genesis Apocryphon. It was one of the seven original scrolls discovered by the Bedouin boy in Qumran Cave 1 in 1947. Unfortunately, only some parts of the work are preserved. It constitutes an Aramaic retelling of much of the book of Bereishit. Despite its narrative style, much of its content is very much in the spirit of rabbinic Aggadah.
This text clearly wanted to answer the fundamental question posed to Avraham by Avimelech in the second episode in chapter 20:10, “What was your purpose in doing such a thing?” Ancient Jewish interpretation learned from one episode to the other. The answer given to Avimelech’s question by the Genesis Apocryphon appears in its account of the first story, Avram’s visit to Egypt. Here the Apocryphon (19:14-21) tells us, in Aggadic manner, how immediately after entering Egypt, Avram dreamt of a cedar and palm tree sharing one root. People came to uproot the cedar and spare only the palm tree. The palm tree cried out and begged to preserve the cedar as they shared one root and, as a result, the cedar was not chopped down.2 After relating this dream to Sarai, Avram understood that he must ask his wife to falsely claim that he was indeed her brother to protect him. This episode ends with tears of Sarai who understood the terrible sacrifice that this might entail. Since the dreams of the patriarchs are clearly seen as divinely inspired prophecy, this text essentially answers the question of Bereishit 22 and justifies Avram’s seemingly selfish behavior. We find him following the instructions of God, rather than simply trying to save his own life.3 Unfortunately, the Genesis Apocryphon is insufficiently preserved and does not include reports of the other two episodes.
Another important Second Temple work is the book of Jubilees, part of the informal group of texts we term Pseudepigrapha. Originally composed in Hebrew, a small number of fragments of manuscripts of the original text survive among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Most of the text as we have it is preserved in Ge’ez, the Ethiopic Semitic language used by the Jews of Ethiopia for their sacred texts and liturgy. Some portions of the text are also extant in Greek translation. This composition is a retelling of Bereishit and the very beginning of Shemot.
The account in Lech Lecha is paralleled in Jubilees 13:11-15. This author completely skipped Avram’s instruction to Sarai to lie, as he was apparently troubled by Avram’s actions.4 He skips it also in the second and third episodes.5 Indeed, the entire second episode (Bereishit 20) is omitted in Jubilees as embarrassing.6 Furthermore, his account includes a prayer of Avram (20:12-16)7 as well as a direct statement (20:11) that Pharaoh did not have relations with her, despite her being with him for two years (20:17-18). The entire lie and its consequences—indeed the episode of Rivkah’s being taken by Avimelech—is omitted from Jubilees 24:12-14, no doubt since it shows Yitzchak in a bad light, having chosen to follow his father’s wrong example.8
Josephus (Antiquities 1.161-170), writing soon after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, tells the story of Bereishit 12 more or less as it appears in the Torah, adding only a few details to strengthen the Egyptian setting. The second account (Antiquities 1:207-212) is essentially the biblical narrative without Avimelech’s upbraiding of Avraham for his and Sarah’s lie. However, this version explains Avraham’s failed strategy of dishonesty as simply repeating his earlier approach due to the same fear.9 The final account is simply skipped in Antiquities 1.259-62.10
Our foray into Second Temple exegesis shows that Second Temple period authors felt a genuine lack of comfort with the explanation given by the Torah for Avraham’s behavior on two occasions and Yitzchak’s following his example on one occasion. The Genesis Apocryphon dealt with this issue by its explanation that Avram received divine revelation through a dream that essentially commanded him to follow this disingenuous approach. The book of Jubilees, on the other hand, chose to narrate the story fully only once and to abbreviate and/or skip it in the second and third accounts. Josephus essentially stayed close to the Bible in the first episode, skipped the lying in the second, and essentially omitted the third occurrence. Clearly, the author of Jubilees also took this approach out of discomfort with Avraham’s behavior. Similar feelings no doubt motivated Josephus.
From a historical point of view, we had the opportunity to see here that questions such as those dealt with in midrashic and medieval rabbinic literature were already bothering Jewish religious thinkers in the Second Temple period. The actions of Avram/Avraham needed to be explained. What better explanation than a divine command!
Ed. L.H. Feldman [z”l], J. L. Kugel, L. H. Schiffman (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2013).
Cf. the custom of planting a cedar at the birth of a boy and a pine at the birth of a girl, and using them to construct the marriage canopy (b. Gittin 57a).
Kugel, Outside the Bible, 1.251.
Kugel, Outside the Bible, 1.341.
J. C. VanderKam, Jubilees (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2018), 2.718 n. 27.
Kugel, Outside the Bible, 1.351.
For Rabbinic parallels and also a prayer of Sarai, see L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1968) 5.221 nn. 72-73.
VanderKam, Jubilees, 2.718.
L. Feldman Judean Antiquities 1-4 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 78 n. 638.
Cf. Feldman, Judean Antiquities, 101-2 n. 786).
Will Rabbi Bashevkin no longer be writing?
I don't know if professor Schiffman will see this, but I wanted to ask if Philo's "Liber antiquitatum biblicarum" is included in the 3 volume "Outside the Bible"? It has interesting midrashim about Avraham, although not on this episode.