nora
(Nora)
#1
Enochic and Mosaic Traditions in Jubilees
dinating them to a theodicy more in line with the Deuteronomistic princi
ple, and its depiction of demons falls closer to Job's image of the satan and to
Deuteronomistic and prophetic views of the role of "the nations" in the his
tory of Israel. Arguments for the superiority of one can readily be matched
by arguments for the superiority of the other.
If it is difficult to determine Jubilees' assessment of the relative worth
of Enochic and Mosaic texts, this is perhaps not accidental. The task of
weighing the relative worth of the constitutive elements of Israel's literary
heritage does not seem particularly central for the text itself. Rather, the
main function of Jubilees' epistemology — aside, of course, from asserting
its own authority^38 — may be to argue that the Jewish people actually pos
sessed a literary heritage that predated the life of Moses.
Indeed, perhaps the most striking element of Jubilees' presentation of
earthly knowledge is the categorical exclusion of all non-Jews from any
claim to wisdom. True knowledge is here presented, always and everywhere,
as a prerogative of the chosen people.^39 The trope of angelic revealers and
narrators serves to render the human practice of composing true writings
inseparable from the heavenly practice of selecting worthy scribes. Likewise,
the transmission of books on earth is shaped by decisions about the righ
teousness of potential tradents. Noah, for instance, chooses to give the books
that protect humankind from demons to Shem alone, thereby dooming
Japheth and Ham to demonic destruction (10:14). Later, Jacob selects the
righteous Levi (45:16).
Jubilees thus asserts that Israel's ancestors were privy to angelic revela
tions, which were regularly renewed and faithfully transmitted by the most
worthy among them. By contrast, the closest thing that Gentiles have to re
vealed wisdom is the corrupting knowledge about divination spread by
fallen angels (8:3-4; n:9).^40 Within Jubilees, knowledge and chosenness are
coterminous categories, and Gentiles are excluded from both. Tacit is the
suggestion that Jews have no need for the books or learning of Gentiles,
whether philosophical, religious, or "scientific"; their own literary heritage
includes information — directly from heaven — about astronomy, medi-
38. Najman, "Interpretation as Primordial Writing," 379-410.
39. For an elegant assessment of the broader cultural context of this concern, see
Stuckenbruck in this volume.
40. This raises another possible reason that the teachings of the Watchers are here
limited to divination — perhaps it was important for Jubilees to associate illicit angelic in
struction with something that good Jews do «of practice; contrast, e.g., the association of the
Watchers with metalworking in the Book of the Watchers (1 En 8:1).
