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Jubilees adds the death of Cain in its rewrite of Genesis, describing him killed by stones, the same item he used to kill Abel. This follows a common Jewish tradition, seen in the Wisdom of Solomon, that justice is done by the guilty being punished by the means they used to harm others.
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Jubilees 4:32
Pseudepigrapha
31 At the conclusion of this jubilee Cain was killed one year after him. His house fell on him, and he died inside his house. He was killed by its stones for with a stone he had killed Abel and, by a just punishment, he was killed with a stone. 32 For this reason it has been ordained on the heavenly tablets: “By the instrument with which a man kills his fellow he is to be killed. As he wounded him so are they to do to him.”
Date: 150-100 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Wisdom of Solomon 11:16
Deuterocanon
14 For though they had mockingly rejected him who long before had been cast out and exposed, at the end of the events they marveled at him, when they felt thirst in a different way from the righteous. 15 In return for their foolish and wicked thoughts, which led them astray to worship irrational serpents and worthless animals, you sent upon them a multitude of irrational creatures to punish them, 16 so that they might learn that one is punished by the very things by which one sins. 17 For your all-powerful hand, which created the world out of formless matter, did not lack the means to send upon them a multitude of bears, or bold lions,
Date: 100-50 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... In the context of the present revelation of God’s wrath, Paul makes a universal claim about human beings: that they are “without excuse (ἀναπολογήτους)” because they failed to honor the Creator, about whom it is possible to know something (taking τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ to mean “what is knowable about God”) by observing the works of creation, which God manifested to them (1:19–20). Their failure to acknowledge God leads to folly (1:21–22), which is demonstrated, on the one hand by their idolatry, and on the other by their immorality. Paul presents these sins as punishments in themselves; three times, he states that God “gave them up” or “handed them over” (παρέδωκεν; 1:24, 26, 28) to idolatry (1:25), “degrading passions” (1:26–27) and “every kind of wickedness” (1:29–31). This way of explaining human sinfulness resembles a principle articulated in the Wisdom of Solomon that was fairly widespread in apocalyptic texts: “one is punished by the very things by which one sins” (Wisdom of Solomon 11:16; compare Testament of Gad 5:10; Jubilees 4:32) ..."
Hogan, Karina M.
"The Apocalyptic Eschatology of Romans" in Stuckenbruck, Loren T. (ed.) The Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and the Shaping of New Testament Thought
(pp. 155-174) Fortress Press, 2017
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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