Jubilees and Enochic Judaism
David R. Jackson
Jubilees (ca. 160-150 B.C.E.) refers to and uses writings attributed to Enoch
(including BW, AB, BD, and EE)^1 as authentic and authoritative divine reve
lations.^2 The Damascus Document (CD-A 16:1-6), in turn, refers to and uses
Jubilees as a work having divine authority and authenticity.^3 These two doc
uments create a direct chain of authority and declare their allegiances to
these Enoch texts, which gives us, at least in skeletal form, an observable his
torical entity to which the label of Enochic Judaism has been applied. The
data that identifies the Damascus Document as belonging to the Qumran
sectarian texts gives us in turn a prima facie basis on which to attempt to
"connect the dots."
Immediately we face the difficulty that in this chain of texts we are also
dealing with significant diversity within second temple Judaism. Nickles-
- Respectively, the Book of the Watchers; the Astronomical Book, being 1 En 72-82,
noting that the Aramaic texts (4Q208-211) represent a more extensive body of work; the
Book of Dreams; and the Epistle of Enoch. - J. C. VanderKam, "Enoch Traditions in Jubilees and Other Second-Century
Sources," in SBLSP1 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1978), 229-51, found that Jubilees used elements
of BW (including 1 En 1-5), the AB, the BD, and the EE as well as other sources. G. W. E.
Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1-36; 81-108 (Minne
apolis: Fortress, 2001), 72-73, concluded that Jubilees used BW, BD (at least the Animal
Apocalypse [AA]), AW (Apocalypse of Weeks), and AB, including particularly 81:1-82:4. - See Shemesh's discussion of the significance of 4Q265 for Jubilees' canonical status
at Qumran. Aharon Shemesh, "4Q265 and the Authoritative Status of Jubilees at Qumran,"
in this volume.