This investigation attempts to catch a glimpse of the social process of writing the Genesis Apocryphon, and to ponder which kind of authoritativeness was attributed to the textual traditions behind it – biblical and pseudepigraphical alike. The document is seen metaphorically as a palimpsest, and the different sources and perspectives are interpreted as principally equal in weight and importance. The output is a reading eliciting multiple voices and perspectives within the text, and suggesting that the production and use of the Genesis Apocryphon did not take place simply to carry on authoritative traditions, but to question, debate and negotiate their meaning in life.