Lamech’s Change of Mind: The Hellenistic Philosophy behind the Use of שנא in the Genesis Apocryphon and the Book of Daniel

Abstract

This article seeks to establish that the ‘strong’ meaning of the verbal forms derived from שנא in the Genesis Apocryphon and the book of Daniel is of a dramatic, even violent, change; when used to denote a ‘change’ in mind or countenance, this refers to mental anguish, and so opens up a hitherto overlooked connection between this Jewish literature and the Hellenistic science of physiognomy. The semantic input of this Hellenistic context is important for a better understanding of the range of this Aramaic lexeme, and of the other lexeme employed to denote a ‘change’ by these two early Jewish texts, חלף. Thus this article will attempt to demonstrate the importance of the wider cultural context in which lexemes articulate their meaning.