In the Book of Exodus, Amram (; ) is the husband of Jochebed and father of Aaron, Moses and Miriam.
Textual scholars attribute the biblical genealogy to the Book of Generations, a hypothetically reconstructed document theorized to originate from a similar group and date to the priestly source.Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote The Bible? According to critical scholars, the Torah's genealogy for Levi's descendants, is actually an aetiology myth reflecting the fact that there were four different groups among the Levites – the Gershonites, Kohathites, Merarites, and Kohen; Peake's Commentary on the Bible Aaron – the eponymous ancestor of the Aaronids – could not be portrayed as a brother to Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, as the narrative about the birth of Moses (brother of Aaron), which textual scholars attribute to the earlier Elohist source, mentions only that both his parents were Levites (without identifying their names). Critical scholars suspect that the Elohist account offers both matrilineal and patrilineal descent from Levites in order to magnify the religious credentials of Moses.
Despite the legend of his divorce and remarriage, Amram was also held to have been entirely sinless throughout his life and was rewarded for this by his corpse remaining without any signs of decay.Baba Batra 17a The other three ancient Israelites who died without sin, being Benjamin, Jesse and Chileab.
According to the Book of Jubilees, Amram was among the Israelites who took the bones of Jacob's sons (excluding those of Joseph) to Canaan for burial in the cave of Machpelah.Jubilees 46:11 Most of the Israelites then returned to Egypt but some remained in Canaan. Those who remained included Amram, who only returned somewhere up to forty years later.
One of the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q544, Manuscript B) is written from Amram's point of view, and hence has been dubbed the Visions of Amram. The document is dated to the 2nd century BC and, in the form of a vision, briefly discusses dualism and the Watchers:
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