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Testament of Naphtali
I have a question I would like to address to members of the
Orion net.
In the course of editing the 4Q Testament of Naphtali fragments
the following issue arose in my mind.
These fragments present a geneology of Bilhah, which is related
in the first person by her younger son Naphthali. They seem to
be part of a larger document dealing with Naphtali which may
have been known, in some form or another, to R. Moshe ha-
Darshan (Narbonne, eleventh century).
The point of the geneology is to show that Bilhah is of Aramean
stock on both paternal and maternal sides.
There exists a medieval Hebrew Testament of Naphtali,
embedded in ms Oxford Hebrew d 11 (The Chronicles of
Jerahmeel). There is no overlap between 4Q Napht and the
medieval Hebrew apocalypse.
My question is: Why Naphtali? He seems to have had some
importance, since Tobit was also said to be of that tribe (1:1, 4, 7
and 7:3).
Does anybody have any suggestions as to why this document
should have been devoted to Naphtali in antiquity, and also
why Naphtali should have played an important enough role
for a medieval Hebrew work to have been devoted to him.
Michael Stone