Noah's wife is one of the four wives aboard Noah's Ark. While nameless in the Bible (Genesis 4:22; Gen. 7:7), apocryphal literature lists 103 variations of her name and personality.[1]

Some apocryphal literature identified her with Naamah, the daughter of Lamech,[citation needed] and thus a descendant of Cain, but the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit states that Noah's wife was one of his "own kindred" (Tobit 4:12). In the Dead Sea Scrolls, she is named Emzara.[2]

In Mandaeism

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The Book of Kings, the final book of the Mandaean Right Ginza,[3] refers to Noah's (or Shem's)[4] wife by the name Nuraita (or Nhuraitha, Anhuraita, among various other spellings).[5] There is some contradiction between texts, and some textual ambiguity, regarding which patriarch is married to Nuraita; additionally, Anhuraita appears to be a portmanteau of Nuraita and Anhar, the wives of Noah and Shem.[6]

References

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  1. ^ Utley, Francis Lee (1941). "The One Hundred and Three Names of Noah's Wife". Speculum. 16 (4): 426–452. doi:10.2307/2852842. JSTOR 2852842. S2CID 163797953.
  2. ^ Schuller, Eileen (2009). "Women in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Some Observations from a Dictionary". Revue de Qumrân. 24 (93): 49–59. JSTOR 24663086.
  3. ^ Häberl, Charles (2022). The Book of Kings and the Explanations of This World: A Universal History from the Late Sasanian Empire. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. doi:10.3828/9781800856271 (inactive 1 November 2024). ISBN 978-1-80085-627-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)
  4. ^ "Book Nineteen: The Deluge". Ginza Rabba. Vol. Right Volume. Translated by Al-Saadi, Qais; Al-Saadi, Hamed (2nd ed.). Germany: Drabsha. 2019. pp. 203–204. [Note: this book, or a larger text containing it, is numbered book 18 in some other editions.]
  5. ^ Gelbert, Carlos (2011). Ginza Rba. Sydney: Living Water Books. ISBN 9780958034630.
  6. ^ Lupieri, Edmondo (2008). "The Mandaeans and the Myth of Their Origins". In Macuch, Rudolf (ed.). Und das Leben ist siegreich! / And Life is Victorious. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 127–144. ISBN 978-3-447-05178-1.

Bibliography

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