Annette Yoshiko Reed
edge have been revealed to certain human scribes, such that heavenly knowl
edge — including information from the heavenly tablets^29 — now circulates
on earth in written forms.
Inasmuch as angels mediate access to such knowledge, its transmission
from heaven to earth is limited to the chosen line of Israel. Once on earth,
the books containing heavenly knowledge seem to be transmitted in a single
line: Enoch's books pass to Noah, and Noah's library passes to Shem, just as
Abraham, Jacob, and Levi inherit the library, as expanded by additional
writings, each upon the death of its previous guardian. The assurance of the
angel of the presence to Moses that Levi's descendants possess and renew
this trove of writings "until this day" (45:16) serves to trace the line of trans
mission to Moses' own time.^30
Insofar as this model of textual transmission grants heavenly pedigrees
to all books in this line, Jubilees' epistemology appears to presuppose the wide
spread practice of biblical pseudepigraphy. Interestingly, it also explains and
defends it. Lest anyone doubt the antiquity and authenticity of Enochic litera
ture, for instance, Jubilees purports to record evidence for Enoch's acts of au
thorship as well as evidence for the trustworthy transmission of his books.
This evidence, moreover, is attributed to no less a figure than the angel of the
presence, who has seen everything that happened on earth from the beginning
of history! Enochic books are additionally verified and vouchsafed by descrip
tions of their use by righteous men of the past, such as Noah and Abraham.
Furthermore, the books of Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Moses
are presented as harmonious insofar as they stand in the same tradition of
transmission (patriarchal and priestly) and inasmuch as they derive from
the same ultimate source (angelic revelation and/or heavenly tablets). In ef
fect, Jubilees takes the self-authorizing claims of earlier books like the Astro
nomical Book and the Book of the Watchers and situates them within the
history of Israel up to the time of Moses.
Just as Jubilees accepts and extends Enochic models of textual author-
- On the heavenly tablets, see, e.g., M. Himmelfarb, "Torah, Testimony, and Heav
enly Tablets: The Claim to Authority of the Book of Jubilees," in A Multiform Heritage:
Studies on Early Judaism and Early Christianity in Honor of Robert A. Kraft, ed. B. G. Wright
(Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 19-29, here 27; F. Garcia Martinez, "The Heavenly Tablets in
the Book of Jubilees," in Studies in the Book of Jubilees, ed. M. Albani et al., TSAJ 65
(Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 243-60; Najman, "Interpretation as Primordial Writing,"
389-400; Boccaccini in this volume. - Cf. E. Tigchelaar, "Jubilees and 1 Enoch and the Issue of Transmission," in Enoch
and Qumran Origins, 100.