Texts in Conversation
Jubilees and 2 Enoch apply the tradition of the “two ways” from Deuteronomy to earlier figures, with Jubilees using it with Noah and 2 Enoch with Adam. Both believed that this moral choice was so important it must have existed before the Torah.
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Jubilees 7:26
Pseudepigrapha
25 Then the Lord obliterated all from the surface of the earth because of their actions and because of the blood which they had shed in the earth. 26 We — I and you, my children, and everything that entered the ark with us — were left. But now I am the first to see your actions — that you have not been conducting yourselves properly because you have begun to conduct yourselves in the way of destruction, to separate from one another, to be jealous of one another, and not to be together with one another, my sons. 27 For I myself see that the demons have begun to lead you and your children astray; and now I fear regarding you that after I have died you will shed human blood on the earth and that you yourselves will be obliterated from the surface of the earth.
Date: 150-100 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
2 Enoch 30:13
Secrets of Enoch
Pseudepigrapha
12 I conceived a cunning saying to say, I created man from invisible (spiritual) and from visible (physical) nature, of both are his death and life and image, he knows speech like some created thing, small in greatness and again great in smallness, and I placed him on earth, a second angel, honorable, great and glorious, and I appointed him as ruler to rule on earth and to have my wisdom, and there was none like him of earth of all my existing creatures. 13 And I appointed him a name, from the four component parts, from east, from west, from south, from north, and I appointed for him four special stars, and I called his name Adam, and showed him the two ways, the light and the darkness, and I told him, 14 This is good, and that bad, that I should learn whether he has love towards me, or hatred, that it be clear which in his race love me. 15 For I have seen his nature, but he has not seen his own nature, therefore (through) not seeing he will sin worse, and I said After sin (what is there) but death?
Date: 30 B.C.E - 70 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... In the Book of Jubilees 7:26 it says ... The sharpness of the opposition between the good and evil way also appears in 2 Enoch (or the Slavonic Apocalypse of Enoch) 30:15 ... So far, we have seen the Two Ways metaphor couched within polar tendencies of good and evil, moral and immoral qualities, and righteous and wicked people ..."
Sandt, Hubertus W., and David Flusser
The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and Its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity
(p. 146) Royal Van Gorcum, 2002
* 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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