Jubilees, Sirach, and Sapiential Traditiontransmission of teaching from fathers to sons, and the text thus constructs
the reader as a descendant of the narrative father. What perhaps creates the
highest degree of obligation in the reader to adopt the values of the narrative
father is the father handing writings to his sons that must be transmitted to
subsequent generations, since the reader, who is presumably reading or lis
tening to that book, has a palpable connection to the instruction being
handed down.^6
In the testamentary speeches of fathers to their sons in Jubilees, we see
something of this same device at work, although it is not foregrounded here
as in l Enoch or the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. In Jubilees these
speeches contain quite a number of important halakic matters, observance
of which the father-son testamentary speech reinforces. Two mechanisms
operate in the Jubilees speeches. First, the context, like both second- and
third-person father-son constructs, is one of instruction where the father ex
plicitly notes that the teaching is not only for his immediate progeny but also
for subsequent generations. Thus, the reader, who almost certainly identifies
himself/herself as a descendant of the narrative figure, becomes one of the
children of the text and is thus obligated to obey the father's teaching. Sec
ond, Jubilees notes in at least one case that a patriarch's books were intended
to be transmitted to subsequent generations.
Two examples show how the context of Jubilees puts readers in the po
sition of the patriarch's children. Noah's final speech to his children begins
in 7:20 with a narrative review of the causes of the flood, which God
wrought "on account of the blood that they poured out in the midst of the
land" (7:25). The text then switches to Noah speaking in the first person. He
tells his sons that he has observed their deeds, and he fears that when he dies
"you will pour out the blood of men upon the earth. And you will be blotted
out from the surface of the earth" (7:27). Jub 7:29-33 contains a series of com
mands in both third person ("no man who.. .") and second person ("you
shall not be like.. ."), and 7:31 continues, "Cover the blood, because I was
commanded to testify to you and to your children together with all flesh? So,
in 7:34 when Noah addresses "my children," although it is parallel to the ad
dress in 7:26, the intervening v. 31 has created ambiguity about whether
Noah is addressing his narrative children only or whether his descendants,
the book's readers, are also included. Noah commands that his children "do
justice and righteousness so that you may be planted in righteousness on the
surface of the whole earth." Laws about firstfruits, which are to be offered
- Wright, "From Generation to Generation," 327-31.