Texts in Conversation
The Dead Sea Scroll 4Q504 describes Adam created with a shining, divine glory. The Samaritan text Memar Marqah follows this tradition and describes Adam’s radiance and connects it to Moses, who was said to receive that same shining form at Sinai.
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4Q504
Words of the Luminaries
Dead Sea Scrolls
[Rememb]er, O Lo[r]d that... Thou hast fashioned A[dam], our [f]ather, in the likeness of [Thy] glory; Thou didst breathe [a breath of life] into his nostrils and, with understanding, knowledge [Thou didst give him] ... Thou didst make [him] to rule [over the Gar]den of Eden which Thou didst plant... and to walk in the land of glory... he guarded. And Thou didst enjoin him not to st[ray ...]... he is flesh and to dust [he will return (?)] ... And Thou, Thou knowest... for everlasting generations ... a living God and Thy hand ... man in the ways of... [to fill the] earth with [vi]olence and to shed [innocent blood] ...
Date: 160 B.C.E. - 100 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Memar Marqah 5.4
The Book of Wonders
Samaritan
Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died—twenty in Egypt, sixty in Midian, forty in the desert with exceedingly great exaltation in prophethood, in prayer, in fasting. His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. His eye was not dim—so in the case of his fathers, the Righteous of the world. His eye was not dim, for he was prepared for the recording of the law, and to see the four quarters of the world. Nor his natural force abated, for he was vested with the Form which Adam cast off in the Garden of Eden; and his face shone up to the day of his death.
Date: 100-300 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Notes and References
"... Jarl Fossum and April De Conick successfully demonstrated the importance of the Samaritan materials for understanding the connection between the glories of Adam and Moses. The Samaritan texts insist that when Moses ascended to Mount Sinai, he received the image of God which Adam cast off in the Garden of Eden. According to Memar Marqa, Moses was endowed with the identical glorious body as Adam ..."
Orlov, Andrei
Vested with Adam's Glory: Moses as the Luminous Counterpart of Adam in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Macarian Homilies
(pp. 498-513) Marquette University, 2002
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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