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Annette Yoshiko Reed
According to Jubilees, heavenly angels even instructed humans in gardening
(Jub 3:15), medicine (10:10-14), and the Hebrew language (12:26-27); fallen
angels taught only divination (8:3-4).
If their influence is so diminished, why are fallen angels even included
in Jubilees? What part do they play in its angelology, demonology, cosmology,
and covenantal theology? To answer these questions, it might prove helpful to
look to the literary function of these figures. In the Book of the Watchers, for
instance, fallen angels function as foils for the elevation of Enoch.^21 Whereas
they abandon heaven for earth and catalyze earthly corruption through their
teachings, he is taken from earth to heaven and, as a result, can teach salvific
knowledge that inspires righteous deeds among his sons. In the Book of the
Watchers, Enoch is thus presented as a paradigm for the proper
epistemological process, whereas the fallen angels emblematize knowledge
falsely gained and improperly transmitted. Inasmuch as Jubilees downplays
the teachings of the fallen angels, this particular dichotomy is here not oper
ant. In its place, however, we may find a related function, rooted instead in the
Israel-angels/Gentiles-demons typology so central to the rest of Jubilees.
Fallen angels are atypical of Jubilees' overarching angelology and de
monology: they are the only spirits depicted as transgressing the boundaries
of their divinely ordained role in the cosmos. This, however, may be pre
cisely the reason for their significance. Betsy Halpern-Amaru has demon
strated that Jubilees uses the Watchers both as narrative exemplars of the
dangers of exogamy and as literary markers that draw the reader's attention
to human genealogies marred by improper marriages.^22 We might take her
insight even further, suggesting that the fallen angels serve both as prece
dents for intermarriage and as paradigms for the Jewish adoption of Gentile
practices more broadly.
Intermarriage is a central concern of Jubilees (20:4; 22:20-22; 30:7-17).
The practice is here presented as defiling, not just for the individual and de
scendants, but also for the whole nation, the divine name, and the sanctuary
(30:10,15-16).^23 Like incest and the abandonment of circumcision (15:33-34;
21. A. Y. Reed, "Heavenly Ascent, Angelic Descent, and the Transmission of Knowl
edge in 1 Enoch 6-16," in Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions, ed.
R. S. Abusch and A. Y. Reed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 47-66.
22. B. Halpern-Amaru, The Empowerment of Women in the Book of Jubilees, JSJSup 60
(Leiden: Brill, 1999), 20-28; see also Kvanvig, "Jubilees," 249-50, and Luca Arcari, "The Myth
of the Watchers and the Problem of Intermarriage in Jubilees!' Hen 31, no. 1 (2009).
23. C. Werman, "Jubilees 30: Building a Paradigm for the Ban on Intermarriage,"
HTR 90 (1997): 12-15; Himmelfarb, A Kingdom of Priests, 69-72.
