Worship in Jubilees and Enochmother, love one another, and keep themselves from fornication, unclean-
ness, and from all injustice." This passage indicates that blessing God was as
incumbent on humanity after the flood as covering one's body and honoring
father and mother. A universal responsibility.
Genesis reveals more of Abraham's worship than of any other charac
ter. The activity most commonly attributed to him is sacrifice. There are six
instances where Abraham offers sacrifice in Genesis and seven in Jubilees:
Genesis Jubilees Location
12:7 13H Shechem
12:8 137-9 Bethel
13:3-4 13:15-16 Bethel
13:18 Hebron
15:7-21 14:7-20 Hebron
15:1-2 Weeks Hebron
16:20-31 Tabernacles Beersheba
22:13 18:12 Passover Mountain in MoriahJust as was the case with Noah, Abraham too keeps the Feast of Weeks. But
with Noah the text of Genesis provided a nice lead-in regarding the date
with its statement that the flood had subsided and the earth was dry at the
end of the second month. The covenant of Gen 8:20 could therefore be
placed at the beginning of the third month and understood as the Feast of
Weeks. For Abraham, Jubilees manufactures an entirely new occasion,
though coming close on the heels of the covenant ceremony described in
Gen 15:7-21 (= Jub 14:7-20).
A new feast instituted by Abraham is the Feast of Tabernacles. The
event is given only the slightest connection to the text of Genesis in that it
takes place when Abraham and Sarah are rejoicing at the imminent birth of
Isaac. The feast is celebrated in Beersheba, and Jubilees tells us that Abraham
built an altar there, though no mention of this is found in Genesis. But for
the feast to be observed properly the author needs an altar, and since Isaac
was known to have built one there later (Gen 26:25), it was easy enough to
assume that Abraham built one too (cf. Jub 24:23).^13 Beersheba was also the
- Also Gen 21:33, a verse not used in Jubilees, does associate Abraham with worship
in Beersheba in that he planted a tamarisk tree and called upon the name of the Lord there.
Since the latter activity is often connected with building an altar, it would be easy enough to
imagine that an altar was built in this instance as well.