Jubilees, Sirach, and Sapiential Traditionwith Enoch, "the first who learned writing and knowledge and wisdom," con
tinuing to Noah and extending up to Moses, the putative author of Jubilees,
the main figures of Israelite history preserve and transmit texts, which con
tain many topics central to Jubilees. Thus, Enoch writes a book that contains
"the signs of the heaven according to the order of their months," i.e.,
calendrical matters (4:17). After Moses, perhaps the most interesting writer in
Jubilees is Abraham. In 12:25 God commands the angel of the presence to en
able Abraham to hear and speak Hebrew, "the language of creation." Abra
ham takes his father's books, which are in Hebrew. He copies them; then he
studies them. In the process of study the angel causes him "to know every
thing which he was unable to understand" (12:27). Presumably Terah's books
reflect the heavenly tablets, and throughout the narrative Abraham faithfully
keeps various ritual laws and observances, such as circumcision and the feasts
of Sukkoth and Shavuoth, which one suspects were ordained in the books
Abraham inherited. In his long farewell, Abraham enjoins first his children,
then Isaac, and then Jacob to do justice and righteousness, actions that he
amplifies at great length and with much halakic detail.
The figures in Jubilees who engage in writing form an authoritative and
trustworthy chain of transmission of material from the heavenly tablets,
which culminates in the revelation to Moses. In these instances, a synergistic
relationship obtains between the characters in Jubilees and their worthiness
to receive laws derived from the heavenly tablets and then to transmit them.
That they are deemed worthy of the heavenly tablets and that they faithfully
keep the laws contained therein makes them exemplars for anyone reading
the book. They also serve as exemplars in another way. In Jubilees, the act of
writing certifies faithful copying and transmission as much as it signals com
position. That is, writing functions as a means of accurately preserving
through the generations the contents of the heavenly tablets. So Noah can ap
peal to what Enoch commanded Methuselah, and Methuselah, Lamech, and
Lamech, Noah (8:38-39). Abraham discovers sacrificial law "written in the
books of my forefathers in the words of Enoch and in the words of Noah"
(21:11). Moses takes dictation; Abraham copies Terah's books; Jacob copies
down everything he reads (on the angelic seven tablets) and hears in a dream
(32:26); he also gives "all of his books and his fathers' books" to Levi in order
that Levi can "preserve them and renew them" (45:15). These people represent
ideal scribes who accurately preserve and transmit the contents of the heav
enly tablets; they are the proper guardians of the sacred authoritative texts.
The author of Jubilees makes a kind of twofold claim then. First, scribal
activity as undertaken by the exemplars in the book has preserved unsullied