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Abstract The Visions of Amram (4Q543-549) and Four Kingdoms (4Q552-553) are two Aramaic compositions from Qumran that have been recognized to contain apocalyptic dream-visions. In this article I propose some special connections between the dream-visions in these two works, centered on similar dialogues that take place between the seers in each text and characters seen in the dreams. These connections suggest that the Visions of Amram and Four Kingdoms emerged from a shared or closely related authorial setting. I also suggest that the connections discussed in this article are indicative of other literary affinities exhibited more generally among the Qumran Aramaic corpus, affinities that point toward a broader literary movement of which the Visions of Amram and Four Kingdoms were part.

Abstract The contents of 4Q542 and 4Q547 have been treated in previous scholarship as representing two, independent Jewish literary compositions dating to the Hellenistic period, the Testament of Qahat and the Visions of Amram. However, paleographic, scribal, and other manuscript features strongly suggest that 4Q542 and 4Q547 are, in fact, parts of one and the same scroll. Consequently, in this article I reconsider the relationship of the contents of 4Q542/547. It may be that two independent works were copied on the same scroll, as we find elsewhere among the Qumran manuscripts (e.g., 4Q203-204). Another possibility is that what scholars have considered to be an independent composition in the Testament of Qahat is actually a sub-section of the Visions of Amram. The latter option gains strong support from a contextual assessment of other Aramaic writings found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, especially the Isaac section of the Aramaic Levi Document.

Abstract This paper evaluates the attitudes toward the contemporary Jerusalem priesthood and cult on evidence in the Visions of Amram. To the extent that this issue has been treated, scholars have generally argued that the Visions of Amram originated among groups that were hostile to the Aaronid priesthood. Such treatments, however, have left some of the most germane fragments unexamined, several of which deal directly with matters pertaining to the cult, Aaron, and his offspring (4Q547 5 1-3; 8 2-4; 9 5-7; 4Q545 4 16-19). My study incorporates these fragments into the larger discussion, and in so doing demonstrates that many of the views expressed in the secondary literature require revision. My analysis shows that, though the social location of the Visions of Amram is difficult to determine, we should not be too quick to dismiss the possibility that the writer was a supporter of the contemporary status quo in the temple, given the elevated status afforded to both Aaron and his eternal posterity throughout the text.

This essay revisits testamentary texts and traditions from the Second Temple period in relation to themes of death, memory, and writing. Rather than debating the classification or morphology of the parabiblical testament, it focuses upon its determinative feature—the framing of texts as the first-person teachings of ancient biblical heroes near death. It traces some precedents for this literary choice, and speculates about the cultural worlds in which such a choice made sense. To do so, it surveys the representation and modeling of the written word as a technology of memory, first within Aramaic works with testamentary features from the Hellenistic period (esp., Aramaic Levi, Testament of Qahat, Visions of Amram) and then within some of full-fledged testaments preserved in Greek from the early Roman period (esp., Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs, Testament of Job). In both sets of works, the narrative setting of near-death teaching is used to address challenges of continuity and succession. Representations of textual practices, however, differ; in some, writing and reading are presented as necessary complement to remembered speech and ethical emulation, while in others, books function as safeguard or stand-in. In each, moreover, the intersections of death, memory, and writing are articulated in distinctive ways, often resonating with broader cultural concerns—ranging from Hellenistic ideals of “authorship” to the early Roman interest in wills.

The present paper explores the ways in which the authors of the Hebrew Book of Jubilees and the Aramaic Visions of Amram used the motif of a Canaanite-Egyptian war as they labored with the issues raised by the accounts at the end of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus. There is no clear indication that either writer used the work of the other; rather the war in question seems to have been a motif that was available to both when they composed their works and that each adopted and adapted independently.