nora
(Nora)
#1
Loren T. Stuckenbruck
4'9> 31-32), (3) the fallen angels tradition (5:1-19; 7:20-39; 8:1-4; 10:1-14),
(4) Noah's nakedness and the cursing of Canaan (7:7-15; cf. 8:8-9:15), and
(5) the tower of Babel (10:18-11:6). Limits of space require the discussion to
focus on identifying the act of wrongdoing narrated in each episode, de
scribing the impact of this deed in the text, and, finally, reflecting on what
sort of "beginning" the episode signifies. While the discussion will center on
Jubilees itself, comparisons with Enochic traditions probably presupposed
by the text will throw light on at least one tradition-historical context within
which the ideas in Jubilees were taking shape.
A. The First Woman, Adam, and the Serpent (3:8-31)
At the outset, the arrival times of Adam and his wife at the Garden of Eden
— distinguished as forty and eighty days after they were created — are ex
plained on the basis of halakah recorded in the heavenly tablets (3:10-14).
During their first seven years in the Garden, Adam and his wife's activities,
guided by the instruction of angels, involved tilling the Garden and guarding
it against "birds, animals, and cattle."^11 This period is one of purity that was
maintained by a vegetarian diet.
The text states that exactly seven years after their arrival in the Garden,
the serpent approaches the woman. As in the biblical tradition (Gen 3:1,13-
15), Jubilees does not speculate about the origin of the serpent. The serpent's
success in persuading the woman to eat fruit from the forbidden tree in the
middle of the Garden results immediately in her shame at being naked; un
like Genesis, in which clothing is made by Adam and Eve after their disobe
dience (Gen 3:7), here the woman clothes herself with fig leaves before she
gives the fruit to Adam (Jub 3:21). Once Adam takes the fruit, he too clothes
himself with an apron made from fig leaves (3:22).^12
The writer of Jubilees identifies several consequences of the first cou
ple's forbidden consumption of fruit. After narrating their exclusion from
the Garden, the text notes that until this point all the animals ("the cattle,
the birds, everything that walks and everything that moves about") could
speak (as humans) and that their language was unified (3:28-29),^13 a detail
11. Citations of Jubilees are taken from the English translation by J. C. VanderKam,
The Book of Jubilees, CSCO 511, Scriptores Aethiopici 88 (Louvain: Peeters, 1989).
12. Jubilees follows Genesis in later having God make clothing for the couple just be
fore they are dismissed from the Garden; cp. Jub 3:26 and Gen 3:21.
13. The preserved text is inconsistent on whether the animals had been outside the
