Loren T. Stuckenbruck
watchers transgress the purpose of their mission, the author distinguishes
sharply between two tracks of learning that are subsequently kept distinct:
(l) the wrong astrological knowledge introduced by the wayward angels and
conveyed through Kainan down to Noah's descendants and, in stark con
trast, (2) the correct knowledge about the movements of heavenly bodies
from which agricultural cycles and calendrical reckonings are to be derived.
This latter, divinely revealed knowledge, is traced back to instruction given
to Enoch by the heavenly angels (cf. 4:18, 21) and is bound up with the 364-
day solar calendar uncompromisingly supported by the writer throughout
the work. From Enoch, it was transmitted through Noah and his family who
escaped the flood and then finally reemerged as a component of the piety at
tributed to Abraham (12:16) and his descendants through the line of Jacob.
The separation of diametrically opposed traditions of learning in Jubi
lees is best seen against the background of euhemeristic traditions such as
come to us through the "Pseudo-Eupolemos" fragments cited by Eusebius in
his Praparatio evangelica frg. 1 (9.17.1-9). In Pseudo-Eupolemos, the figure of
Enoch is likewise said to have been taught by "the angels" whose instruction
also centered on astrological knowledge (9.17.8-9). This knowledge is also at
tributed to Abraham (9.17.3), who, in turn, is said to have passed it on to the
Phoenicians. As we have seen, Jubilees shares the view that the knowledge re
vealed to Enoch eventually comes down to Abraham. There is, however, a big
difference. In Pseudo-Eupolemos, the lineage of a Noachic figure (9.17.2)
and Abraham (9.18.3, if this second fragment belongs to the same work) is
associated with "the giants" who escaped the destruction of the flood and
built a tower (9.17.2; cf. 9.18.2, where only one "giant" called Belos is in view).
Furthermore, the Pseudo-Eupolemos text makes no effort to specify
whether the angels who revealed astrological knowledge to Enoch were good
or bad. The resulting picture — which blends the traditions of giants, learn
ing given to Enoch, and the figures of Abraham and Noah — is one that in
Jubilees is bifurcated into the two streams of tradition referred to above (see
the previous paragraph). In doing this, Jubilees is following the path already
set in the Book of the Watchers and especially the Book of the Giants, where
the strict distinction between Enoch and Noah, on the one hand, and the
angels-giants, on the other, is maintained.^23
- For the similar insistence that denies Noah's identity as an offspring of the watch
ers, see Genesis Apocryphon (lQapGen ii-v) and Birth of Noah in 1 En 106-107. See "The
'Angels' and 'Giants' of Genesis 6:1-4 in Second and Third Century BCE Jewish Interpreta
tion," DSD 7 (2000): 354-77 (here 360 n. 16), and my treatment of Birth of Noah in 1 Enoch
91-108, CEJL (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 2007), general comment on 1 En 106:4-7.