David R. Jackson
burg has observed that Jubilees "may be the earliest attestation of the Enoch
traditions apart from the Enochic corpus itself."^4 As such, it offers a signifi
cant starting point from which to begin to investigate the development of
this tradition.
The Enochic Paradigm and Exemplars
l En 1-5 functions as an introduction to the BW. From the opening chapter,
the author presents a parenesis making the exclusive claim that only those
who follow the teaching of this book, out of all humanity, will be saved on
"the day of tribulation" (1:1-2, 8-9).^5 The rest are deemed to have "gone
astray" (5:4-9) and thus to incur destruction.^6
The paradigm^7 enunciated in 1 En 2-5 presents an extreme understand
ing of the character of God as essentially and necessarily regular, orderly, and
consistent involving absolute reliability, predictability, and symmetry in all
his works and requirements. Scott makes the observation that this tradition
assumes something of "a rudimentary 'unified field theory,' the ancient
equivalent of the quest of modern physics to find an underlying beauty of
mathematical symmetry and harmony in the order of the universe."^8 The
writer of Jubilees may fairly be said to have applied this paradigm with obses
sive rigor in an attempt to integrate it with the narrative of the Torah.^9 In do
ing so, he made a substantial contribution to an exponential agenda address
ing other works that came to constitute the Tanakh, producing Testaments,
halakic studies (e.g., 11QT), pesherim, and other works that, like Jubilees, at
tempted to integrate this perspective with narrative sections of the Tanakh.^10
- Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 72.
- All citations of 1 Enoch are taken from G. W. E. Nickelsburg and J. C. VanderKam,
1 Enoch: A New Translation Based on the Hermeneia Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress,
2004). - Cf. also 22:9-14; 80:4-10; 82:4-8; 83:8-10; 84:4-6; 90:26-27, 30-37; 91:4, 18-19; 9 2:1;
93:1-2, 9-10, 12; 94:1-5, 11; 95:2-3; 95:7-96:4; 96:8-97:6; 98:1-99:3, 10, 14; 100:5, 9; 102:10-11;
103:14-15; 104:6, 10-13;^107 :l; 108:6. - See discussion in D. R. Jackson, Enochic Judaism: Three Defining Paradigm Exem
plars (London: T. & T. Clark, 2004), 15-28. - J. M. Scott, On Earth as in Heaven: The Restoration of Sacred Time and Sacred Space
in the Book of Jubilees (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 222. - Cf. the discussion in Karoly Dobos, "The Consolation of History," Hen 31, no. 1
- He was not alone in doing so (cf. Genesis Apocryphon; Aramaic Levi; Cairo
(2009).