nora
(Nora)
#1
Loren T. Stuckenbruck
has a renewal of humanity as its positive consequence, Jubilees explains the
ongoing reality of human wrongdoing and suffering after the flood in terms
of residual effects left by the antediluvian evils. The explanation for such suf
fering relates to what might conveniendy be called "the origin of demons."
The way Jubilees accounts for the origin of evil spirits is similar to the view
in both the Book of the Watchers and Book of the Giants that identifies such
spirits with the spirits or souls of the dead giants (compare Jub 10:5 with 1 En
15:8-11). Another similarity is that, ultimately, the demonic forces behind evil
in the world are regarded, in effect, as powers whose judgment is assured; in
other words, they are already defeated beings whose complete destruction is
only a matter of time (until the day of judgment; cf. Jub 10:7, 8,11).
Though Jubilees seems to depart from the Enoch traditions in having
the giants killed through intramural violence alone, the author adapts the
latter's etiology of demons based on the continued existence of giants in
some form after the deluge. Both traditions share the view that the giants be
come disembodied spirits as a consequence of their destruction of one an
other (1 En 15:9; 11-16:1; inferred from Jub 5:8-9 and 10:1-6); they perhaps
even imply that the giants' disembodied spirits could already have been ac
tive before the deluge.^19 But there are smaller differences. The Jubilees ac
count differs from the Enochic traditions in that the nature of demonic evil
is not articulated in anthropological terms (cf. 1 En IS^-IO),^20 that is, in Jubi
lees the impurity of the giants as mixtures between rebellious angels and
earthly women is not expressed as an inherent characteristic. Though it is
possible that the etiology of demons in 1 En 15 is presupposed by Jubilees —
after all, the union between the watchers and human daughters is considered
a form of "pollution" (4:22; cf. 7:21) — it is not clear that they are described
as evil per se. In effect, this strengthens the analogy between the giants' re
sponsibility for their deeds and the responsibility humans carry when they
disobey in similar fashion. Punishment comes not because of what one is or
has become by nature, but is the result of willful disobedience.
In terms of how demons contribute to the postdiluvian suffering of
humans, Jubilees goes into the kind of detail of which there is no trace in the
Enoch traditions. The demonic spirits that bring affliction to humanity after
the flood are but a tenth of their original number. Nine-tenths are com-
19. While the Book of the Watchers is silent on this point, Noah's prayer in Jub 10:5
implies that the giants' spirits, alongside the watchers, were active before the flood.
zo. Cf. also Philo, Quaestiones etsolutiones in Genesin 1.92, in which the offspring of
the angels and humans are regarded as inappropriate joining of "spiritual" and "somatic"
realms that should be kept separate.
