Enoch and the Mosaic Torah- The Evidence of Jubilees

Reconsidering Jubilees: Prophecy and Exemplarity

founders, such as Enoch, Moses, or Ezra. This is surely not a catchall for second
temple Jewish texts or, even more broadly, traditions in antiquity. However, the
consideration of the exemplar is a way of organizing specific groups of materi­
als. By attributing this "new" discourse to a founder of old, the new texts
achieve a kind of continuity with the old. And yet, many additional traditions
are part of the "new" discourse and can transform the earlier traditions.
The text of Jubilees understands itself to stand in the long line of pro­
phetic traditions associated with Moses. And, just as traditions associated
with Daniel and Jeremiah continue to grow during the period of Jubilees
and later, so too can traditions associated with Moses continue to be part of
Mosaic prophecy — not pseudoprophecy, but texts and traditions as au­
thentic as the very words of the prophets of old. The textual evidence shows
us that when we try to classify these nonbiblical but authoritative texts from
second temple times, they turn out to be almost indistinguishable from bib­
lical traditions of that time. When we stop thinking in terms of later theo­
logical and canonical divides, what we find are texts like Jubilees — texts that
easily move back and forth between the Enochic and the Mosaic, between
the heavenly and the earthly, and between the esoteric and the accessible.