Batenosh, Wife of Lamech, in Extrabiblical Literature

Genesis 4 and 5 preserve two genealogies that likely reflect two different traditions that the text attempts to harmonize. While Genesis 4 recounts that Lamech had two wives named Ada and Zilla, who had children named Jabal, Jubal, Tubal-cain, and Naamah (Genesis 4:19–23), Genesis 5 says that Lamech is the father of Noah (Genesis 5:28–29) and does not name any wives. The book of Jubilees and the Genesis Apocryphon, an Aramaic retelling of narratives from Genesis found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, address this discrepancy by giving Lamech a wife named Batenosh (literally, “daughter of man,” sometimes spelled Betenos or Betanosh), who is Noah’s mother. Jubilees echoes the explanation of Noah’s name as deriving from the word for consolation found in Genesis 5:29. Expanding on a reference to divine beings taking human wives in Genesis 6:4, the Genesis Apocryphon has Lamech accuse Batenosh of adultery with a heavenly being when she becomes pregnant with Noah.