This paper considers whether biblical narrative was used as part of a technology of the self in Jewish antiquity. Many have seen the assumption that Israel’s ancestors were perfect and, hence, worthy of imitation as essential to the Bible’s identity as Scripture around the turn of the Common Era. Recently several scholars have detailed the specific dynamics of exemplarity among certain readers of the Bible, such as Philo, particularly in light of Hellenistic and Roman models. Such work draws attention to the relative lack of explicit attestation for such a practice in much of ancient Jewish literature. As a next step, we need to further delineate what constitutes a literary practice of exemplarity and explore alternatives or additions to it, such as memorialization. To do so, this paper examines a range of texts, including the Genesis Apocryphon, the Book of Jubilees, Ben Sira, Philo, Josephus, and the rabbinic collection, Genesis Rabbah.

本文考虑了圣经叙事是否在犹太古代被用作自我技术的一部分。许多人已经看到这样一种假设，即以色列的祖先是完美的，因此，在公共时代之交，对圣经的身份认同至关重要，因此值得效仿。最近，几位学者详细阐述了某些圣经读者（例如斐罗）中榜样的具体动态，特别是根据希腊化和罗马模式。这样的工作引起人们的注意，在许多古代犹太文学中，这种做法相对缺乏明确的证明。下一步，我们需要进一步界定什么构成了示范性文学实践，并探索了它的替代品或补充品，例如纪念。为此，本文考察了一系列文本，包括创世记外抄本、