David W. Suter
marriages to Gentiles. The book takes several occasions to warn against such
marriages, and at one point marriage to a non-Israelite is described as having
the potential to pollute the sanctuary (Jub 30:15-16). Levi is approved as priest
in Jubilees because of his zeal and violence in acting to prevent the marriage
of his sister Dinah to the Canaanite Shechem (Jub 30:18-20), a development
in sharp contrast to Genesis, which has no such ordination scene, and which
condemns Levi and Simeon for their violent act (see Gen 34:30 and 49:5-7).
While there are differences between Jubilees and the early Enoch literature
over interest in the sacrificial cultus of the temple and in approach to the con
cept of sanctuaries, the two bodies of literature seem to share a concern with
improper marriages if the myth of the fallen angels in the Book of the
Watchers is seen as a polemic directed toward priestly marriages.
In this context we should note that Lutz Doering's contribution to the
present volume deals in significant detail with the complexity of the issue of
purity and impurity in Jubilees, emphasizing the ascendancy of what he
terms "moral" purity over "ritual" purity in that book.^29 He concludes quite
correctly (judging by my conclusion that the priestly portrait of Enoch in
Jub 4 is not derived from the Enoch tradition) that "The links with Enochic
tradition are more limited in range, relating to the field of 'moral' impurity:
the adoption of Watcher myth, dealing with sexual transgression, blood
shed, and idolatry; and similarities in the expectation of an earth cleansed of
impurity (Jub 50:5; 1 En 10:20, 22)."^30
In the final analysis, Ravid's argument regarding the laws of purity in
Jubilees is not so easily dismissed. What she demonstrates is not the absence
of the laws of impurity but the presence of a fairly robust system of sanctifi
cation based upon the laws written in the heavenly tablets. Key to this system
is the concept of metaphysical impurity in Jubilees, which involves not just
the mixture of Jew and Gentile through intermarriage but the confusion of
Jewish and Greek civilization, a sin of which the author seems to hold the
Zadokites guilty. Instead of rituals of purification by bathing, Ravid finds in
Jubilees processes of sanctification involved in approaching and leaving an
altar or holy place (cf. Jub 21:16). This system and these laws hold sway as
much for the patriarchs as for later generations. The absence of certain clas
sifications of purity laws and her argument for a critique in Jubilees not of
- Doering's categories are based upon J. Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Juda
ism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). - Doering, "Purity and Impurity in the Book of Jubilees." Compare Loader, "Jubi
lees and Sexual Transgression."