Esther Eshel
This description is unique in many ways: here we find for the first time
a full Aramaic description written using a poetic structure, similar to bibli
cal stichoi, with parallels and contradictions. Within these lines we find the
following "ways" terminology: miN, V'DtP, HVOH (two of these —
nVOH and 3 'nj — are Hebrew words found in this Aramaic composition).
We also find adjectives describing the right way, using OtPIp, "truth," or
fiON, "truth" (again, a Hebrew word). This, in turn, is contrasted with the
adjectives describing the wrong way as "IStt^, "falsehood", "TlttM^1 !, "darkness,"
or OHn, "violence."^38
Noah's testimony to walking in the path of truth in the Genesis
Apocryphon has its closest parallel in Tob 1:3: "I, Tobit, walked the paths of
fidelity and righteousness all the days of my life." Unlike Tobit, which, as
mentioned, relates the path of righteousness to Torah, in the Genesis
Apocryphon, as in ALD, no reference to the divine commandments is found.
But not only is the Genesis Apocryphon's description of the two ways
more detailed, it also introduces a significant new element, the eternality of
both good and evil: "I walked in the paths of eternal truth," which is con
trasted with the "path of everlasting darkness." Accordingly, the Genesis
Apocryphon represents the bestowing of an eschatological theology on the
two-ways motif.
My final example concerns a less-known parallel from Jubilees. Be
cause its two-ways imagery is less explicit than in the previously discussed
works, I rely on the Genesis Apocryphon for its extrapolation. As we saw
above, in its early biography of Noah the Genesis Apocryphon documents
how he walked in the path of truth. Jubilees' initial recounting of the story of
Noah's ark relies on 1 Enoch (6-16; 86-88) but also quotes Gen 6:8 (Jub 5:5:
"He was pleased with Noah alone"). Jubilees returns to the Noah story in
5:19, which reads: "To all who corrupted their ways and theirplan(s)^39 before
the flood no favor was shown, except to Noah alone because favor was
shown to him for the sake of his children whom he saved from the flood wa
ters for his sake because his mind was righteous in all his ways, as it has been
commanded concerning him. He did not transgress from anything that had
- This rich imagery of the two ways, including both Hebrew and Aramaic terms,
brings to mind the name-midrash of Levi's sons in ALD (chap. 11); and his grandson
Amram (12:4), which includes both Hebrew and Aramaic etymologies (Greenfield, Stone,
and Eshel, The Aramaic Levi Document, 184-93). - The addition of "and plans" seems to have originated in Tob 4:19, where G^11 reads:
"On every occasion praise God and beg Him that your ways may be made straight and all
your paths may lead to prosperity," and G^1 reads: "your paths and plans!'