Texts in Conversation
The Dead Sea Scroll known as Words of the Luminaries describes Adam created with shining glory and set to rule in Eden. A Rabbinic midrash in Leviticus Rabbah describes the same tradition of Adam created with a physical, shining brightness.
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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
Leviticus Rabbah 20:2
Aggadah
Rabbinic
Another exposition of the text, AFTER THE DEATH OF THE TWO SONS OF AARON. R. Levi opened his discourse by citing: I say unto the arrogant (laholelim): Deal not arrogantly (Ps. Lxxv, 5). ‘Laholelim’ means ‘to those who create confusion’, those whose heart is full of evil intrigues. R. Levi used to call them ‘woe-makers’ because they bring woe into the world. And to the wicked: Lift not up the horn (Ps. loc. cit.). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to the wicked: ‘The righteous were never happy in this world of Mine and you seek to be happy!’ Resh Lakish, in the name of R. Simeon the son of Menasya, said: The apple of Adam’s heel outshone the globe of the sun; how much more so the brightness of his face! Nor need you wonder. In the ordinary way if a person makes salvers, one for himself and one for his household, whose will he make more beautiful? Not his own? Similarly, Adam was created for the service of the Holy One, blessed be He, and the globe of the sun for the service of mankind.
Date: 500 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Notes and References
"... In the group of the Dead Sea Scrolls fragments known under the title Words of the Luminaries (4Q504), the following passage about the glory of Adam in the Garden can be found ... Later in 4Q504, this tradition about Adam's former glory follow with a reference to the luminosity bestowed upon another human body - the glorious face of Moses at his encounter with the Lord at Sinai ... it is also remarkable that alter Rabbinic materials often speak of the luminosity of Adam's face, the feature that might point to the influence of the Adam-Moses connection. Thus, as an example, In Leviticus Rabbah 20.2, the following passage can be found ..."
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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