Enoch and the Mosaic Torah- The Evidence of Jubilees

William K. Gilders

loyalty. It is simply the expression within the world of that loyalty and of the

divine desire for a responding human faithfulness.

IV. The Reestablishment of the Covenant

The narrative sets out the process of human failure. Then it describes the res­
toration of the covenantal relationship. First, Abram shows himself to be a
worthy heir to Noah. From childhood he recognizes that humanity has gone
astray, and he reaches out to God in his youth (Jub 11:16-17). Finally, Abram
calls out to God for guidance (Jub 12:16-21), and God responds (12:22-24).
God's call to Abram begins more or less as it does in Genesis (12:1-3). But then
Jubilees makes a crucial addition. God announces that he will have a special
relationship with Abram and his descendants: "I will become God for you,
your son, your grandson, and all your descendants.... From now until all the
generations of the earth I am your God" (Jub 12:24). Here, crucially, God
shares his primordial decision with its object and announces the relationship.
The relationship now exists in human reality, and it exists apart from any for­
mal enactment of the covenant. That formal enactment will come later.
Jub 14:1-20 is based on Gen 15:1-21 and describes the formal covenant
renewal, which confirms and affirms the relationship for Abram and his de­
scendants. The additions and modifications made to the biblical source re­
flect Jubilees' view of covenant. First, Jubilees gives a date for the covenant
event, the middle of the third month (14:10), and makes it clear that this date
is significant; the covenant is made with Abram on the same date as the cov­
enant was made with Noah (14:20). The result is that Abram renews the
lapsed covenant festival (14:20a). Indeed, Jubilees may declare that Abram's
action renewed the covenant itself (14:20b).^12
Following Noah's example, and anticipating the actions of Moses,
Abram sets the stage for the renewal of the covenant by offering sacrifice,
guided in this activity by God. Jubilees takes the ambiguously sacrificial rit­
ual of Genesis and makes it unambiguously sacrificial. Abram builds an al­
tar, and when he slaughters the specified victims he applies their blood to
the altar (Jub 14:11), and at the culmination of the ritual process he offers the

12. The Ethiopic version, as translated by VanderKam, says that Abram "renewed the
    festival (fliA) and the ordinance {/"Ch't) for himself forever." Wintermute also renders
    /"C^-r as "ordinance," and Berger has "Ordnung." However, it is certainly possible to trans­
    late "covenant" here and to assume that the original Hebrew had n^TD. For further discus­
    sion of this point, see the appendix to this essay.