Księga Rodzaju 12–50 w Qumran: interpretacja opowiadań o patriarchach w wybranych tekstach z Pustyni Judzkiej

The popularity that the Book of Genesis enjoyed among the membersof the Qumran community (28 or more copies) undoubtedly accounted forthe great number of the works inspired by its content that functioned as theparaphrase of the biblical material. Hence, in the scrolls interpreting thenarrative of Gen 12–50 there were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls there arerelatively many references and allusions to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaacand Jacob. Unfortunately, most of the texts – apart from the Genesis Apocryphon(1QapGen) – survived in a very fragmentary state only, thereforetheir interpretation meets serious difficulties and any conclusions should bedrawn with the extreme cautiousness. Nevertheless, it can be acknowledgedthat, in many cases, the authors of the Qumran texts paraphrasing Gen12–50, on the one hand enriched the biblical material with new elementsby extending and supplementing it and, on the other hand, as in the biblicalnarratives of Gen, portray the patriarchs in a standard sequence listing theirnames (i.e. Abraham – Isaac – Jacob) in the context of the covenant and ofthe divine promises, and present them as the models of obedience, loyaltyand faithfulness to God.