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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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Jubilees 7:26
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
25 And the Lord destroyed everything from the surface of the earth; because of the wickedness of their deeds, and because of the blood which they had shed on the earth He destroyed everything. 26 'And we were left, I and you, my sons, and everything that entered with us into the ark, and I see your works before me that you do not walk in righteousness: for in the path of destruction you have begun to walk, and you are separating from one another, and are envious of one another, and (so it comes) that you are not in harmony, my sons, each with his brother. 27 For I see, and the demons have begun (their) deceptions against you and against your children and now I fear on your behalf, that after my death you will shed the blood of men upon the earth, and that you, too, will be destroyed from the face of the earth.
Date: 170–125 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
2 Enoch 30:15
Secrets of Enoch
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
14 and I appointed for him four special stars, and I called his name Adam, 15 and showed him the two ways, the light and the darkness, and I told him: 'This is good, and that is bad,' so that I might learn whether he has love toward me, or hatred, so that it would be clear which of his race love me.
Date: 1–100 CE (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 ..."
Huub van de Sandt and David Flusser, The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and Its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity, Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, Section 3: Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature 5 (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2002), 146.
* 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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