The Book of Jubilees and the Midrash on the Early Chapters of Genesis

Dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Yaakov Mordechai.

The Book of Jubilees is a retelling of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus in the form of an angel speaking to Moses. It was written by a Jew in Hebrew some time around the early second century BCE, perhaps even earlier. The original Hebrew is lost to us today; our translations are based primarily on Ethiopic texts. The main focus of the work is to demonstrate that the narratives in the early part of the Bible contain legal instruction, although the legal elements are hidden in the biblical narrative.¹ Jubilees often supplements the biblical narratives with additional information, in much the same way as the Midrash; at other times Jubilees provides a resolution to a difficulty in the biblical text, another concern of the Midrash. As such, the Book of Jubilees may be categorized as an early form of midrashic literature.² Some of the interpretations in Jubilees are, in fact, preserved in later midrashic literature. The title “Book of Jubilees” reflects the author’s particular way of viewing the chronology of the world as a series of forty-nine year cycles, but it was also sometimes referred to as “The Little Genesis” (Bereshit Zuta in Aramaic),³ since it is an abbreviated retelling of Genesis.⁴ Jubilees was not incorporated into rabbinic literature, as it differs in some very fundamental legal points, most famously its insistence on a purely solar calendar, as opposed to the rabbinic lunar/solar model,⁵ and stringencies regarding Shabbat observance.⁶ In this article we will show how Jubilees dealt with various difficulties in the text of Genesis in ways sometimes similar to and sometimes very different from the later rabbinic midrashic literature. We will focus on the first portion of Genesis, from chapter 1 to 6:8, and on aggadic rather than halakhic matters.

Day and Night Before the Creation of the Sun and Moon

The Bible begins counting days even before the creation of the sun and moon on the fourth day, leading to the well-known question as to how the terms first, second and third day and night can apply before the sun and moon came into existence. Jubilees, in recording what God created on the first day, states: He created the abysses and darkness – both evening and night – and light – both dawn and daylight (Jub. 2:2). Thus, daylight existed before the sun, as did the darkness of night, so that actual 24-hour days could be counted even without the sun.⁷

TB Hagigah 12a offers a few approaches to this question. R. Eliezer explains that “with the light that God created on the first day one could see from one end of the world to the other,” meaning that the Bible in the first three days refers to a special light having nothing to do with the sun. This light is set aside for the righteous to enjoy in the future. The Sages, however, explain that in fact the sun and moon were created on the first day and gave light, but they were fixed in their places only on the fourth day. This is the view followed by Ibn Ezra in his commentary to Genesis 1:5, and by Maimonides in his Guide for the Perplexed (2:30).⁸ Alternatively, Genesis Rabbah (3:7) suggests that this indicates that the concept of time (seder zemannim) had already come into existence before – a view rejected by Maimonides, since he associates it with the theory that the universe always existed.

In Jubilees, solar chronology is a central concern, so it makes sense that daylight should be created on the first day. The rabbis were less concerned with the particulars of timekeeping, and could offer an approach that the light in this passage is not sunlight, or that timekeeping began even before creation, ideas that are anathema to Jubilees.

Adam Before Entering Eden

Genesis 2:8 and 2:15 both state that God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden. The Lord God planted a Garden in Eden, to the east, and placed there the man whom He had formed (Gen. 2:8) implies that Adam was brought to Eden from somewhere else. After a short geographical account of its location, the narrative recaps, The Lord God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden, to work it and to guard it (Gen. 2:15). This further indicates that Adam was taken from somewhere and brought to Eden. Why wasn’t Adam simply created in Eden in the first place? In Jubilees the angel explains: And after forty days were completed for Adam in the land where he was created, we brought him into the Garden of Eden so that he might work it and guard it (Jub. 3:9). The forty-day period is explained in Jubilees as prefiguring the biblical laws of impurity after a woman gives birth to a boy, when she may not touch anything sacred and she may not enter the Sanctuary (Lev. 12:4). Jubilees reports that Eve was only brought into the Garden after eighty days, because it is more holy than any land (Jub. 3:12). This period of purification mirrors that of a woman after giving birth to a girl (Lev. 12:5). Both Adam and Eve had to undergo a period of purification before entering the Garden of Eden.

Rabbinic tradition also understands that Adam was not created in Eden, as the verse clearly states that he was brought there from somewhere else. Genesis Rabbah (14:8) teaches that Adam was created from the earth at Mount Moriah. Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer states that the entrance to the Garden of Eden was right next to Mount Moriah. There is no mention of the need for a forty-day purification period. In fact, Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer explicitly points out that Adam was created using earth from a holy and pure place.⁹ Hizkuni explains that the reason for Adam being created outside the Garden was so that he could appreciate how wonderful Eden was after seeing the thorns and thistles of the outside world. This seems to contradict Genesis 3:18, Thorns and thistles shall it sprout [tatzmi’ah] for you, implying that before Adam sinned, thorns did not grow from the ground. However, Hizkuni understands the word tatzmi’ah in that verse to mean you will plant, indicating that man will now have to plant thorns and thistles around his gardens to protect the produce from animals which, after Adam’s sin, no longer fear man.

Another approach found in Genesis Rabbah (15:4) is that the term va-yasem (“He put,” Gen. 3:8) does not refer to physical placement, but rather to an appointment, as in You shall surely set over (tasim) yourself a king (Deut. 17:15). According to this view, the verse is telling us that God appointed Adam as ruler of the Garden of Eden, but that he was there all along.

Rabbinic tradition generally disregards the approach of Jubilees, based on the idea in TB Shabbat 135a that the concept of forty days of impurity following childbirth only came into existence after the Torah was given. However, Midrash Tadshe, also known as the Baraita of Pinhas ben Ya’ir, does state that the forty days of impurity after childbirth correspond to the forty days Adam waited before entering the Garden of Eden.¹⁰ Midrash Tadshe, written in the early eleventh century and based on earlier material, is one of the few rabbinic works that incorporate material from Jubilees, although it is by no means viewed as a canonical midrash.¹¹

Time in the Garden of Eden Before the Sin

The Bible does not indicate how long Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden before they sinned and were expelled. According to Jubilees 3:15, Adam and his wife had been in the Garden of Eden for seven years tilling and guarding it, then At the end of seven years which he completed there, seven years exactly, in the second month on the seventeenth day, the serpent came and drew near to the woman (Jub. 3:17). The idea that Adam and Eve lived blissfully for seven years fits into the general view of Jubilees that history works in units of forty-nine year jubilee periods which are subdivided into “weeks,” i.e., seven-year periods.¹²

Rabbinic tradition considerably shortens the length of time that Adam lived in the Garden of Eden. TB Sanhedrin 38b states that Adam and Eve sinned in the tenth hour of the first day, were judged in the eleventh, and exiled in the twelfth hour. Genesis Rabbah (18:6) shortens the time still further and explains that the blissful time did not even last for six hours. These approaches view Adam’s stay as an extremely brief period of time, expressed as either one day (the rabbinic period of daylight being 12 hours) or half a day.

R. David Tzvi Hoffmann (1843-1921) explains that the rabbis felt that a shorter amount of time makes sense, because it is unreasonable to assume that man would be left for as long as seven years with only one commandment to perform, and a negative one at that.¹³

Animals Speaking

The Bible records that the serpent spoke to Eve, yet we are not explicitly told when it was deprived of this power of speech. Jubilees (3:28) explains that on the day Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, the mouth of all the beasts and cattle and birds and whatever walked or moved was stopped from speaking because all of them used to speak with one another with one speech and one language. Prior to Adam’s sin, the serpent and all other creatures were able to speak, but afterwards they lost this ability.

There are many different approaches to the question of the serpent’s speech in rabbinic literature. It is not even clear if, at the time, all snakes could speak or only this one.¹⁴ Saadiah Gaon explains that an angel spoke through the serpent, which is similar to his understanding of the episode of Balaam’s ass, where the animal was not given intelligence but an angel spoke and the ass only appeared to be talking. Ibn Ezra records the approaches according to which Eve understood the language of snakes, or the snake communicated using signs which Eve interpreted, or else the serpent was actually Satan in the form of a snake. Ibn Ezra himself declares that it seems reasonable to him that the serpent actually spoke and was an intelligent creature that used to walk upright.¹⁵ This approach is also found in the early commentary Midrash Lekah Tov, which further states that the serpent was speaking Hebrew.¹⁶ Radak strongly disagrees, opining that if the serpent was intelligent and could actually speak, the removal of these attributes would surely have been mentioned in the curse God placed on him, a deprivation far more significant than losing the ability to walk upright. Furthermore, if the snake was intelligent, he should have been singled out in the biblical account of the creation of beasts. Radak concludes, like Saadiah, that the serpent’s speech was a miraculous occurrence.¹⁷ However, there are rabbinic sources, such as Avot de-Rabbi Natan (chapter 42), where the inability to speak is in fact listed as one of the curses imposed on the serpent. Rabbenu Bahya (Gen. 3:14) explains that an inability to speak is a curse so severe and obvious that it did not have to be stated explicitly in the Bible.

Whichever way the speech of the serpent is understood, there are no rabbinic sources which claim that before Adam’s sin all animals could speak.¹⁸ However, this idea is found in other early non-rabbinic Jewish sources such as Josephus¹⁹ and Philo,²⁰ indicating that it was a common belief at one time, rejected by the rabbis. From the rabbinic perspective, the fact that the serpent spoke was unique and remarkable; it was also hard to explain, because the power of speech could not be seen as shared by the rest of the animal kingdom. The basic reason for the rabbinic rejection of animal speech seems to be that it would blur the distinction between man and animals, speech being regarded as a uniquely human ability.²¹

Wives of Cain and Abel

The Bible does not record who Cain and Abel married, nor does it indicate whether any women were available as marriage partners. However, the Book of Jubilees (4:1, 4:9) explains that Eve had a daughter, Awan, whom Cain took as a wife. Similarly, Seth took a sister, Azura, as his wife (Jub. 4:11) and his son, Enos, married his sister Noam (Jub. 4:13). This trend continued with his son Kenan, who married his sister Mu’aleleth (Jub. 4:14). The first recorded union of an offspring of Adam with someone other than a sister is that of Kenan’s son, Mahalalel, who married Dinah, his cousin’s daughter (Jub. 4:15). From this point onward there were no further marriages with sisters.

Rabbinic tradition states that sisters were born with Cain and Abel. According to TB Yevamot 62a, each boy was born with a twin sister, whereas Genesis Rabbah (22:3) relates that Cain had a twin sister and that Abel was a triplet, two sisters having been born with him. According to TB Sanhedrin 58b and many other rabbinic sources, Cain and Abel married their sisters.²² Genesis Rabbah (22:7) explains that a fight between Cain and Abel over the third (“extra”) sister led to Abel’s murder.

In this case Jubilees and rabbinic tradition agree that Cain married his sister, as no other option was available. However, Jubilees continues this trend for further generations, something not found in rabbinic tradition. Such unions were understood to be limited to the children of Adam, when there was no alternative. In Jubilees this form of marriage lasts until the time of the Nephilim.²³ It is not unusual for the birth of daughters to go unmentioned in the Bible, and for wives not to be named. For the most part, biblical genealogical lists include only males. It is also not unusual for Jubilees to name the wives of these biblical personalities; one characteristic of Jubilees being the large number of proper names it supplies, particularly of women.²⁴

Death After Eating from the Tree of Knowledge

God warns Adam not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, for on the day you eat of it, you shall surely die (Gen. 2:17). The fact that Adam and Eve do not die instantaneously upon eating the forbidden fruit led to various interpretations of the death penalty mentioned by God. Jubilees explains that Adam died at the age of 930, and he lacked seventy years from one thousand years, for a thousand years are like one day in the testimony of heaven and therefore it was written concerning the Tree of Knowledge, ‘In the day you eat from it you will die.’ Therefore he did not complete the years of this day because he died in it (Jub. 4:30).

The idea that a day is a thousand years from the perspective of God is rooted in Psalm 90:4: A thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday. That the punishment of death meant that Adam would not live a full thousand-year “day” is also found in Genesis Rabbah (19:8).

However, another opinion in Genesis Rabbah (16:6) offers the approach that now, for the first time, man became mortal. Rabbenu Bahya adds the view of “scientists” that until Adam sinned man would only die a natural death; thereafter, as a result, the concept of an untimely death came into being.²⁵ Other rabbinic approaches include the view expressed in Toledot Yitzhak, that the punishment was indeed supposed to be instantaneous death, which was, however, averted when Adam repented.²⁶

In this instance, the view of Jubilees did not contain anything unreasonable as far as the Sages were concerned. It dovetailed with the biblical statements that Adam lived to 930 and that a day can be considered as lasting a thousand years. The same explanation may thus be found in Jubilees and in rabbinic literature.

Death of Cain

The Bible does not tell us how Cain died, but Jubilees records: His house fell upon him, and he died in the midst of his house. And he was killed by its stones because he killed Abel with a stone, and with a stone he was killed by righteous judgment. Therefore it is ordained in the heavenly tablets,²⁷ ‘With the weapons with which a man kills his fellow he shall be killed, just as he wounded him, thus shall they do to him’ (Jub. 4:31-32).

This is at variance with rabbinic teachings. TJ Sanhedrin 7:3 specifically asks, “Can it be that if the murder was committed by sword, he is punished by sword and if with a rod, he is punished by a rod?”, and then proceeds to reject this view. TB Sanhedrin 52b also states that all murderers are punished by the sword. There is no concept that the murderer should be put to death in the same way he committed his crime.²⁸ However, the idea that Cain killed Abel with a stone is found in the Midrash. Genesis Rabbah (22:8) records a dispute between R. Shim’on ben Gamliel and the Sages as to the type of weapon Cain used against his brother; the former says it was a reed, the latter say it was a stone.²⁹ Still, the rabbis do not have the tradition that Cain was killed with a stone, i.e., measure for measure, or that murderers in general should be punished in this way. According to rabbinic tradition, Cain was accidentally killed by his descendant Lemech while hunting with a bow and arrow.³⁰

While the Bible does speak of measure-for-measure punishment, a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth… (Ex. 21:23-25), this was never understood to extend to the manner of dispensing justice, to punish in the same exact way that the offense was committed. For this reason, the approach of Jubilees – that we learn this principle from Cain’s death – is untenable in rabbinic thinking. However, the idea that Cain used a stone to kill Abel does not pose any halakhic problems and may seem reasonable, since they were fighting in the field (Gen. 4:8),³¹ and so it could be adopted by the rabbis as well.

The Disappearance of Enoch

The Bible tells us very little about Enoch, and what we are told is mysterious. Enoch walked with God, then he was no more, for God had taken him (Gen. 5:24). Why did God take him, and where? Jubilees has a long section on Enoch (Jub. 4:16-26). There it is explained that he was the first man who learned writing and knowledge and wisdom…and who wrote in a book the signs of the heaven according to the order of their months (Jub. 4:17), so that people could observe holidays in their proper time. He recorded history (Jub. 4:18) and had visions of the future (Jub. 4:19). The angels took him for six jubilees of years, and they showed him everything which is on earth and in the heavens, the dominion of the sun (Jub. 4:21), which he recorded in writing (Jub. 4:22). He was taken by angels to live in the Garden of Eden for greatness and honor, and behold he is there writing condemnation and judgment of the world, all of the evils of the children of men (Jub. 4:23). According to Jubilees, Enoch is a very significant figure, particularly since Jubilees is very concerned with the solar calendar and chronology. Enoch is the one who received this knowledge from the angels and taught it to man. He continues to record history as an eternal watcher, privileged to live in Eden.

The idea of Enoch as an Elijah-like figure, who never actually died and now functions as a heavenly scribe, is found in many Apocryphal works and in ancient non-rabbinic writings such as Philo and Josephus.³² Rabbinic literature tends to take a different view. In Genesis Rabbah (25:1) Enoch is described as a person who was sometimes righteous and sometimes not, so God decided to end his life while he was still in a state of righteousness. We find in the same midrash a few instances where sectarians (Judeo-Christians) and Gentiles claim that Enoch never died and became an immortal being, only to be refuted by rabbis who insist that Enoch did die. From this passage we can understand rabbinic opposition to the notion of Enoch becoming a supernatural entity and even being especially righteous. The idea of a person becoming an angel was considered dangerous, particularly in the context of debates with early Christians, and any verse that could be interpreted in a way that avoided this concept was given some different explanation.³³

Even so, the idea that Enoch lived in Eden and learned astronomy from the angels did find its way into the Midrash Aggadah, where Enoch is understood to have been transformed into the angel Metatron.³⁴ Both views of Enoch seem to be represented in rabbinic literature.³⁵ There are even two versions of the translation of this verse by Onkelos. One version translates it as and he was not, for the Lord had killed him, emphasizing that Enoch was not immortal and implying that he was not very righteous. The other version, and he still is, for he did not die, is the one accepted by Hizkuni and Rabbenu Bahya. Despite opposition in Genesis Rabbah, this idea managed to survive.

The “Sons of God”

One of the most cryptic passages in the Bible is the episode where the sons of God [benei ha-elohim] saw that the daughters of men were good, and they took themselves wives from whoever they chose (Gen. 6:2), thereby angering God. The meaning of the term benei ha-elohim, and therefore of this entire passage, is a matter of great debate. Jubilees views the benei ha-elohim as angels who copulated with human women to create the biblical Nephilim, giants (Jub. 5:1-2, 6-7; see Gen 6:4). This view is also found in the Septuagint, Philo, and Josephus, and can be seen as the older interpretation of this passage.³⁶

This interpretation was criticized in certain midrashim. While the Bible often refers to angels as benei ha-elohim (e.g., Job 1:6, 2:1; Dan. 3:25), in Genesis Rabbah (26:8) R. Shim’on bar Yohai states that the correct meaning of benei ha-elohim here is “sons of judges”, and curses anyone who explains that they are angels. The concept of “fallen angels” and the idea that angels can and did interbreed with humans is very strange, especially since angels are God’s messengers and are understood not to have an evil inclination, thus being incapable of sin. It is no wonder, then, that R. Shim’on vehemently opposed the idea found in Jubilees.³⁷ Similarly, Onkelos translates benei ha-elohim as human “sons of rulers” who took whichever woman they pleased.

Despite R. Shim’on’s curse, the idea that benei ha-elohim means angels is found in the Talmud and other rabbinic sources, showing that an officially suppressed notion may still occasionally pop up again in rabbinic literature. These angels are even identified by name, Uzza and Azael.³⁸ The idea is noted as a possible approach by Rashi (on Gen. 6:2), and it is accepted by Ramban (Gen. 6:4) and others.³⁹ Certain midrashim explain that these angels were sent to earth and instilled with an evil inclination as a test, which they failed.⁴⁰ Clearly, the early angelic interpretation in non-rabbinic literature, such as the Book of Jubilees, managed to survive and find its way into rabbinic thought, despite some serious opposition. Not surprisingly, the insertion of angels into the biblical stories is one of the characteristics of Jubilees: the creation of angels on the first day (Jub. 2:2), angels bringing Adam into the Garden of Eden and teaching him farming (Jub. 3:9, 12, 15), reporting man’s sins to God (Jub. 4:6), and teaching Enoch (Jub. 4:21) – among many other examples.⁴¹ The Book of Jubilees itself is said to have been dictated by an angel (Jub. 1:27, 2:1). Little wonder that anything in the biblical narrative which could lend itself to an “angelic” interpretation is explained that way in Jubilees.

120 Years

According to the Bible, God said: ‘My spirit shall not contend evermore concerning man for he is but flesh, his days shall be a hundred and twenty years’ (Gen. 6:3). This passage in Genesis could not be taken at face value, since after this verse many people live beyond 120 years. In Jubilees, this statement is understood to apply specifically to the offspring of the fallen angels and human women as part of the plan to eradicate them:

And against their children a word went forth from before His Presence so that He might smite them with the sword and remove them from under heaven. And He said ‘My spirit will not dwell upon man forever, for they are flesh, and their days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’ And He sent His sword among them so that each one might kill his fellow and they began to kill one another until they all fell on the sword and they were wiped out from the earth (Jub. 5:7-9).⁴²

The standard rabbinic view is that the verse means that humanity has 120 years to repent before it is destroyed by God in the Flood.⁴³ Although this verse is found in the context of the benei ha-elohim narrative, it was not taken to refer specifically to the offspring of the benei ha-elohim. This is part of the aforementioned rabbinic approach, which sought to emphasize that the benei ha-elohim and their offspring were regular humans, and so the verse must refer to mankind, not the children of angels.

We have seen that the Book of Jubilees deals with many of the same questions and ambiguities in the biblical text that concerned later rabbinic literature. Some of the interpretations found in Jubilees were accepted, some were rejected and others suppressed. The Book of Jubilees affords us a glimpse of how the Bible was interpreted in ancient times, centuries before the midrashic literature with which we are familiar today came to be written.

All translations of the Book of Jubilees are from O. S. Wintermute, Jubilees: A New Translation and Introduction, in James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1985).

Footnotes

1. James Kugel, The Bible As It Was (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1997) pp. 38-39. ↩

2. Wintermute, pp. 39-40. ↩

3. S. Herr and S. Shrira, Toledot ha-Sifrut ha-Talmudit (Tel Aviv: Haskalah La-Am, 1937) p. 247. ↩

4. Wintermute, p. 41. ↩

5. See A. Z. Aescoly, Sefer ha-Falashim (Jerusalem: Reuven Mass, 1943) pp. 29, 60; and Michael Stone, “Astronomy in the Apocrypha,” Mahanayim, vol. 125 (Tishrei 1971) p. 108 (Hebrew). ↩

6. See Jubilees 50:8, 12, and Avraham Goldberg, “Rabbinic and Biblical Shabbat Prohibitions,” Sinai, vol. 46 (Tishrei 1959) p. 183 (Hebrew). ↩

7. See also Yehuda Rosental, “Heresy In the Time of Saadia,” Horeb, vol. 9 (Nissan 1946) p. 34, note 107 (Hebrew). There is a view that the light and darkness in this biblical passage must refer to sunlight, based on the views of the surrounding cultures in the ancient Near East: see John H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2006) p. 180. ↩

8. Ibn Ezra explains that the terms “day” and “night” are dependent on the existence of heavenly bodies. See also Ramban to Genesis 1:5 and Abrabanel’s fifth question in Genesis chapter 1. ↩

9. Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, chapters 12 and 20. Radak similarly explains that Adam was created in close proximity to the Garden of Eden. ↩

10. J. D. Eisenstein, Otzar Midrashim (New York: 1915), vol. 2, p. 481, Pinhas ben Yair chapter 15. See Samuel Belkin, “Midrash Tadshe or Midrash de-Rav Pinhas ben Yair, an Ancient Hellenistic Midrash,” Horeb, vol. 11 (Nisan 1951) pp. 2-3. ↩

11. R. H. Charles, The Book of Jubilees (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1902) pp. lxxvi, 23, 24. See also Michael Segal, The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology and Theology (Leiden: Brill, 2007) pp. 47-58. ↩

12. For more examples, see J. D. Eisenstein, ed., Otzar Yisrael (New York, 1911), vol. 5, p. 93. Note that the Book of Jubilees considers 49 years to be a jubilee period rather than 50 years; this is the subject of a debate between R. Yehudah and the Sages in TB Nedarim 61a. ↩

13. David Tzvi Hoffmann, Commentary to Genesis (Bnei Berak: Netzah, 1969) p. 77 (Hebrew). ↩

14. Hai Gaon, quoted in Adin Steinzaltz, Bible Commentary in Responsa Literature (Jerusalem: Keter, 1978) p. 4 (Hebrew). ↩

15. Ibn Ezra to Genesis 3:1. ↩

16. Midrash Lekah Tov, Gen. 3:1. ↩

17. Radak to Gen. 3:1. ↩

18. Menahem Kasher, Torah Shelemah (Jerusalem: The Torah Shelemah Institute, 1992), vol. 1, p. 252, note 9. ↩

19. Antiquities, 1:4:46. ↩

20. Charles, p. 28. ↩

21. For example Targum Onkelos to Genesis 2:7 describes Adam as having a special “speaking soul” [ru’ah memalela]. See also Rashi, loc. cit., where the ability to speak makes Adam’s soul different to that of animals. ↩

22. Kasher, pp. 305-306, note 17. ↩

23. See Charles, p. 33. ↩

24. Charles, p. xiv. See also Meir Bar-Ilan, “Personal Names in Divrei Gad ha-Hozeh,” Sinai, vol. 114 (1994) p. 119, note 40. ↩

25. Rabbenu Bahya to Genesis 2:17. See also Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, 3:10. ↩

26. Toledot Yitzhak by R. Yitzhak Caro, uncle of R. Yosef Caro, Genesis 2:17. ↩

27. On “heavenly tablets,” see Florentina Garcia Martinez, “The Heavenly Tablets in the Book of Jubilees”, in Matthias Albani, ed., Studies in the Book of Jubilees (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), especially pp. 255-256. ↩

28. Maimonides (Hilkhot Rotze’ah 1:1) explicitly rules that a murderer is punished by the sword “whether he killed another with iron, or whether he burned him by fire.” See also the Kesef Mishneh commentary (loc. cit); Dov Revel, “Targum Jonathan on the Torah,” in Ner Ma’aravi, vol. 2 (New York: Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Yeshiva, 1925) p. 95; and J. T. A. G. M. van Ruiten, Primaeval History Interpreted: The Rewriting of Genesis 1-11 in the Book of Jubilees (Leiden: Brill, 2000) p. 178. ↩

29. Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, chapter 21, also states that Cain used a stone to kill Abel. ↩

30. Midrash Tanhuma, Bereshit, 11. See also Kasher, pp. 337-338. ↩

31. Kugel, p. 92. ↩

32. Kugel, pp. 100-106. ↩

33. See Oded Yisraeli, “The Ascent of Enoch and Elijah in the Kabbalah of the 13th Century,” Pe’amim, vol. 110 (Winter 2007), especially pp. 31-34 (Hebrew). ↩

34. See Kasher, pp. 357, 359. ↩

35. See Kasher, p. 358, note 60. ↩

36. Charles, pp. 33, 43, and Van Ruiten, pp. 188-190. ↩

37. See Bernard J. Bamberger, Fallen Angels (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1952) pp. 91, 274. ↩

38. See Rashi’s explanation of “ma’aseh Uzza” on TB Yoma 67b. ↩

39. See Hoffmann, p. 130, Kasher, p. 370. ↩

40. Pesikta Rabbati, chapter 34, Eisenstein, p. 368 (Midrash Petirat Moshe), Pitron Torah, Aharei Mot, p. 66. See also Hoffmann, p. 132. ↩

41. Charles, pp. lvi-lviii. ↩

42. See Michael Segal, “The Composition of Jubilees,” in Gabrielle Boccaccini, ed., Enoch and the Mosaic Torah: The Evidence of Jubilees (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009) pp. 28-29. ↩

43. See, for example, Seder Olam, chapter 28, and Onkelos and Rashi. See also Kugel, pp. 112-114. ↩