Amplified Roles, Idealized Depictions:
Women in the Book of lubilees
Kelley Coblentz Bautch
One contribution of contemporary scholarship to the study of Judaism and
Christianity in antiquity has been a focus on matters related to gender and
sexuality. This interest is reflected in several fine studies of the book of Jubi
lees undertaken in the last decade that have concentrated on the depiction of
women and sexuality. Two of the most comprehensive works that deserve
mention are Betsy Halpern-Amaru's Empowerment of Women in the Book of
Jubilees (Brill, 1999) and most recently William Loader's Enoch, Levi, and Ju
bilees on Sexuality: Attitudes towards Sexuality in the Early Enoch Literature,
the Aramaic Levi Document, and the Book of Jubilees (Eerdmans, 2007). Since
Maxine Grossman has recently examined masculinity in the book of Jubi
lees,^1 I will direct my comments especially to the depiction of women in Ju
bilees and how these representations relate to those of women in the
Enochic corpus. There is good reason to compare Jubilees with these texts
associated with Enoch as Jubilees draws upon many Enochic traditions and
perhaps texts in its rewriting of Genesis and Exodus.^2
- "Affective Masculinity: The Gender of the Patriarchs in Jubilees," Hen 31, no. 1
(2009). - On Jubilees' use of Enochic works, see, for example, J. C. VanderKam, "Enoch Tra
ditions in Jubilees and Other Second-Century Sources," in SBLSP 18, ed. P. Achtemeier
(Missoula: Scholars Press, 1978), 1:229-51; also in From Revelation to Canon: Studies in He-
I would like to acknowledge St. Edward's University and its Presidential Excellence Award
which allowed me to undertake the research for this paper. — KCB