Texts in conversation

Compare 4Q180 2–4 ii 4 and Genesis Rabbah 50:2

Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Interpretation · Rabbinic

Summary

In 4Q180 from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Abraham’s three visitors are identified as angels. Rabbinic tradition in Genesis Rabbah explains their human appearance by Abraham’s greater strength, while the same beings appear to Lot as angels.

Passages

4Q180 2–4 ii 4

Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Interpretation · The Ages of the Creation

1 which … […] … it is that which dwelt … […] … […] 2 I know … […] … beautiful … […] … […] 3 … […] the three men […] 4 […] … from the oaks of Mamre, they are angels […] 5 […] he will stand … […] their sin … […]

160–60 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 4Q180

Genesis Rabbah 50:2

Rabbinic · Aggadah

“The two angels came to Sodom” – here it says “angels,” but elsewhere, it characterizes them as “people” (Genesis 18:2). The explanation is that there, when the Divine Presence was over them, they were characterized as “people.” Once the Divine Presence departed from over them, they assumed the manifestation of angels. Rabbi Tanḥuma said that Rabbi Levi said: To Abraham, whose power was great, they appeared in the image of men; to Lot, whose strength was inferior, they appeared in the image of angels.

500 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis Rabbah

References

“... The targumim also left no doubts as to the nature of the three "men" of the biblical text. As expected, they are identified as angels, an identification most probably prompted by the biblical text itself, which (in Gen 18:22) asserts that the "men" went towards Sodom and that that "two angels" came to Sodom in the evening (on Gen 19:1).7 [...] One of the manuscripts from Qumran cave 4, 4Q180, makes the same identification explicit. In frag. 2 ii 3-4 it is flatly asserted: "The three men [who] appear[ed to Abraha]m at the oak of Mamre are angels". Cf. DSSSE, 372-3, and the contribution by Tigchelaar in this volume, above, esp. 52-7. [...] Gen. Rab. 50:2 explains the reason for calling them both angels and men: "[And the two angels came to Sodom.] Here you call them angels, whereas earlier they were termed men? Earlier, when the Shechinah was above them, they were men; but as soon as the Shechinah departed from them they assumed the form of angels. R. Levi said: To Abraham, whose [religious] strength was great, they looked like men; but to Lot they appeared as angels, because his strength was feeble. ...”

Florentino García Martínez, “Sodom and Gomorrah in the Targumim,” in Sodom’s Sin: Genesis 18-19 and Its Interpretations, ed. Ed Noort and Eibert Tigchelaar (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 85.

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Fragments 2-4 ii

4Q1804 chapters

Compare 4Q180 2–4 ii 4 and Genesis Rabbah 50:2

Summary

Passages

4Q180 2–4 ii 4

Genesis Rabbah 50:2

References

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