David R. Jackson
As Jubilees developed this concept, the author perceived this exemplar
replicated even before the Watchers' sin. Adam and Eve violated the bound
aries established by God in accepting the deceptive advice of the serpent in
order to learn a forbidden secret (Jub 3:19). The result was sexual shame, fol
lowed by violence as the next generation turned to murder, requiring man
datory separation and a new beginning with Seth. Once again, to conform to
the exemplar, only the elect remnant could be saved. Adam and Eve therefore
were permitted to cover their shame, but the animals were not (3:30).
Jubilees also extended paradigm consistency (Jub 13:26) by having the
languages of heaven and earth brought back into regularity (12:25-27). These
texts traced back to Enoch were in Hebrew (21:10; cf. 19:27). This presents us
with an obvious difficulty given that the Enoch texts in our possession are in
Aramaic, as are several other works purporting to reflect prediluvian or pa
triarchal narratives of this tradition.^28 A Hebrew original is nevertheless a
logical necessity if the Enochic agenda was the restoration and defense of a
distinctive Israeli identity under Gentile domination. It is also notable that
the vast bulk of the non-Tanakh texts found in the Qumran library were
written in Hebrew and written after Jubilees. Abegg notes that comments in
iQHa 10:19,12:16,15:10, and CD 5:11-12 indicate that the sect used Hebrew as a
matter of principle.^29 The close association of Jubilees with Aramaic texts
such as the Genesis Apocryphon, and the Aramaic Levi Document, taken
with its dependence on what we have of the books of Enoch, might indicate
that Jubilees effected a language shift in future adaptations of the paradigm.
Whatever the case, we are left to wonder why, unlike Tobit, we have no trans
lation of these works into Hebrew and why they were still being copied in
Aramaic over a century later.
The fact that the second canon claimed to be the product of angelic
dictation did not prevent later writers (e.g., 4Q252) from adapting it or even
correcting internal irregularities, just as the author of Jubilees treated "the
first law." This is consistent with the apparent lack of concern for a consistent
textual tradition among the Qumran Tanakh manuscripts. Over time one
would expect two developments to arise from this process. Firstly, the first
canon would be dominated by the second. Secondly, works dealing more di
rectly with the particulars of the target audience's day would dominate those
- See Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 177, on the reference to Jared as a Hebrew pun in 1 En
6:5. - Martin G. Abegg, Jr., "Hebrew Language," in Dictionary of New Testament Back
ground, ed. Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter (Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity, 2000),
459-63-