The Aramaic Levi Document, the Genesis Apocryphon, and Jubileesin the Genesis Apocryphon has not survived, the disposition of these islands
was clearly not appended to Tiras's portion there.
Notwithstanding these differences, the parallels between the Genesis
Apocryphon and Jubilees are significant, raising the question of the rela
tionship between the two sources. Some scholars suggest that the author of
Jubilees utilized and adapted the Genesis Apocryphon to his needs, or that
both authors used a common source.^19 I argue that the distinct development
of the world division in each work emerges more strongly from the differ
ences than from the similarities between the texts. The Genesis Apocryphon
is the older source, in which the original Ionic map can still be traced. This
text was later used by the author of Jubilees, which he converted to fit his
Jewish perspective, awarding Shem the major portion and function — as he
received all of Asia Minor, together with Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine —
and placing Jerusalem at the center of the world. Thus, both the identifica
tion of mistakes and a conceptual shift in the nature of the mapa mundi in
dicate that the Genesis Apocryphon served as a source for Jubilees.
B. The Two-Ways ImageryI conclude with a preliminary attempt to trace the motif of the two ways in
the works under consideration. In this examination of different aspects of a
shared tradition, it is more difficult to show direct influence. Therefore the
discussion aims simply to chart the uses of the tradition of the two paths in
these roughly contemporaneous texts.
The concept of walking in "the path of truth" has its roots in the bibli
cal nQX ("way of truth") mentioned in Gen 24:48. The metaphor of the
two ways, of the paths of good and of evil, first appears in Deut 30:15-20,
where the ways of life and of death are related to obedience or disobedience
of divine commandments. This metaphor also "runs like a thread through
Prov 1-8."^20 These ancient texts (as well as Jer 21:8, which interprets Deut
30:15 in an ironic exegesis)^21 "appear to employ the two ways as a construct
- See J. T. van Ruiten, "The Division of the Earth," in Primaeval History Interpreted:
The Rewriting of Genesis 1-11 in the Book of Jubilees, JSJSup 66 (Leiden, Boston, and Cologne:
Brill, 2000), 307ff. - G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1-
36, 81-108 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 455. - See W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah
Chapters 1-25, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1986), 573-74.