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Wednesday, March 25, 2015

The BBC, Jubilees, and Noah's wife

OLD TESTAMENT PSEUDEPIGRAPHA WATCH: David Threlfall's Noah Begs Modern Questions (Jonathan Romain, Huffington Post). It seems the BBC has a documentary about Noah airing on 30 March and those responsible have been reading their pseudepigrapha.
The first [novelty about the documentary] is that it answers one of the great mysteries about the Noah story. We know who was in the ark; Noah and his wife, along with his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japhet and their wives...so, the names of all the men, but what was Noah's wife called? If Mrs Noah was one of the few people righteous enough to be saved in an otherwise wicked world, then surely she is important enough to have a name?

The BBC have come up with an answer, based on the Book of Jubilees (4.33) in the Apocrypha - a collection of books from the biblical period that were not included in the Bible itself, and so are regarded as interesting but not sacred. Apparently, her name was Emzara, which - in husband and wife shorthand - becomes 'Emmy' and so along with other famous biblical couples such as Adam and Eve, Samson and Delilah, we can now add Noah and Emmy.
Emmy.