Enoch and the Mosaic Torah- The Evidence of Jubilees

Jubilees, the Temple, and the

Aaronite Priesthood

David W. Suter

Now the author of Jubilees sought to do for Genesis what the

Chronicler had done for Samuel and Kings, and so he rewrote it in

such a way as to show that the law was rigorously observed even by

the Patriarchs.... Our author's procedure is of course in direct

antagonism with the presuppositions of the Priests' Code in Gene­

sis, for according to this code "Noah may build no altar, Abraham

offer no sacrifice, Jacob erect no sacred pillar. No offering is re­

corded till Aaron and his sons are ready" (Carpenter, The Hexa-

teuch, 1.124). This fact seems to emphasize in the strongest man­

ner how freely our author reinterpreted his authorities for the

past.

R. H. CHARLES^1

The above epigram is the seed of my argument in a recent article examining
the place of the temple in the early Enoch tradition.^2 Specifically, I argued

1. From R. H. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 2,
   Pseudepigrapha (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), 7. The reference to Carpenter, The Hexateuch,
   would appear to be to J. E. Carpenter and G. Harford-Battersby, The Hexateuch according to
   the Revised Version (London and New York: Longmans, Green, 1900).


2. D. W. Suter, "Temples and the Temple in the Early Enoch Tradition: Memory, Vi­
   sion, and Expectation," in The Early Enoch Literature, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini and John J.
   Collins (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 195-218.