Enoch and the Mosaic Torah- The Evidence of Jubilees

The Book of Jubilees and the Origin of Evil

Another area in which Jubilees distinguishes between good and bad
instruction reflects a departure from the early Enoch tradition: knowledge
about the use of herbs as medicines. Jubilees not only has the angels instruct
Enoch regarding the calendar (4:17; cf. 1 En 72-82), but also has one of them
instruct Noah on the medicinal properties of herbs (10:10, 13), a teaching
that comes in response to Noah's petition that God deliver his offspring
from the evil spirits who have been corrupting them after the flood (10:1-
6).^24 The use of herbs to combat the damage caused by those spirits permit­
ted to afflict humans (thanks to Mastema's request) contrasts markedly from
the Enoch tradition. In the Book of the Watchers at 1 En 8:3, the "cutting of
roots" (Greek Codex Panopolitanus) is unequivocally rejected as a practice
ascribed to the fallen angels. Thus, while Jubilees takes over from Enoch tra­
dition the attribution of good and bad knowledge to good and bad angels,
respectively, the content of what is good and bad is not entirely the same.
Whereas the Book of the Watchers has condemned the use of medicines by
attributing them to the fallen angels who have eventually generated the gi­
ants that became oppressive evil spirits (1 En 8:3; 15:8-11), in Jubilees such
knowledge is revealed by good angels in order to combat the attacks of the
evil spirits that originated from the giants.^25

We may summarize how the fallen angels tradition in Jubilees relates
to the beginnings of evil as follows: In adapting the myth from received tra­
ditions, the writer of Jubilees is not actually deliberating about the origin of
evil per se. Instead the tradition about rebellious angels serves to underline
two main points. First, it functions to explain "why things are the way they
are experienced and perceived" in the author's and his readers' world. Sec­
ond, as in the Book of the Watchers, if the story line provides assurance that,
to the extent they are caused by the tenth of Mastema's cohort of disembod­
ied spirits, present afflictions and sins are temporary, the evil powers are, in
effect, already defeated. Unlike the Book of the Watchers, however, the writer
of Jubilees goes to greater lengths to avoid any inference that demonic cau­
sality undermines human, especially Israel's, responsibility. This is achieved

24. On Noah's prayer in the context of Jubilees, see Stuckenbruck, "Deliverance
    Prayers and Hymns in Early Jewish Documents," in The Changing Face of Judaism and Chris­
    tianity, ed. G. S. Oegema and I. Henderson (Gutersloh: Gerd Mohn, 2005), 146-65.


25. On this contrast, see B. Kollmann, "Gottliche Offenbarung magisch-
    pharmakologischer Heilkunst im Buch Tobit," ZAW 106 (1994): 289-99 (esP-^2 98~99). The
    book of Tobit, especially the longer recension, reflects a positive attitude toward "pharmaco­
    logical" means applied against demonic and physical afflictions, especially as this is revealed
    by God's angel (so, e.g., Codex Sinaiticus to 6:1-9; 11:7-12).