Enoch and the Mosaic Torah- The Evidence of Jubilees

James C. VanderKam

ones corresponded very closely. Oddly enough, there are even cases where
the Hebrew is defective and the Ethiopic has preserved the correct reading.
Though the Hebrew base of that comparison was small, it provided evidence
that the Ethiopic text of Jubilees is a careful rendering of the original text
(via a Greek translation). Work with the Cave 4 copies that became available
later has reinforced the conclusions drawn in that study, although there are
indeed differences between the Hebrew and Ethiopic readings in a number
of details. Another factor supporting the reliability of the Ethiopic version of
Jubilees is the fact that the citations from Genesis and Exodus in the book
have the characteristics of what Frank Cross called the Palestinian text-type
of the Pentateuch or what we could call a text closely related to the type that
lies at the base of the Samaritan recension.

II. Syriac

There may have been a Syriac translation of the book of Jubilees, possibly
made from a Hebrew base. The evidence for a Syriac version is much like
that for a Greek version: we have indirect evidence pointing toward such a
conclusion but no manuscript of a Syriac translation. The surviving evi­
dence is as follows:

1. The first text that raised the possibility that Jubilees had been trans­
   lated into Syriac was BM Additional 12.154, folio 180 published by Antonio
   Maria Ceriani in 1861.^24 Because Jubilees' list of the names of the matriarchs
   seems to have been of such widespread interest, the text, which begins: "The
   names of the wives of the patriarchs according to the book which is called
   Jubilees among the Hebrews," is reproduced here:

The name of Adam's wife was Eve;

of the wife of Cain was 'Asawa.

The name of Seth's wife was 'Azura, his sister,

and of the wife of Enosh was Na'um, his sister;

of Cainan Mahalalut, his sister;

of Mahalala'el Dina, the daughter of his uncle;

of Ya'ar [= Jared] Baraka, the daughter of his uncle;

of Enoch 'Edni, the daughter of his uncle;

24. A. M. Ceriani, Monumenta Sacra etProfana, 2 vols. (Milan: Bibliotheca Ambrosi-
    ana, 1861), 2:ix-x.