Texts in Conversation
Genesis says the animals were created after God saw the man was alone, suggesting they could be possible companions before the woman was created. Jubilees moves their creation earlier to remove any hint that the animals could have been his partners.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 2:18
Hebrew Bible
18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion for him who corresponds to him.” 19 The Lord God formed out of the ground every living animal of the field and every bird of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man named all the animals, the birds of the air, and the living creatures of the field, but for Adam no companion who corresponded to him was found.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Jubilees 3:1
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
1 And on the six days of the second week we brought, according to the word of God, to Adam all the wild animals, and all the cattle, and all the birds, and everything that moves on the earth, and everything that moves in the water, according to their kinds, and according to their types: the wild animals on the first day; the cattle on the second day; the birds on the third day; and all that which moves on the earth on the fourth day; and that which moves in the water on the fifth day. 2 And Adam named them all by their individual names, and as he called them, so was their name. 3 And on these five days Adam saw all these, male and female, according to every kind that was on the earth, but he was alone and found no helper for himself. 4 And the Lord said to us: 'It is not good that the man should be alone: let us make a helper for him.' 5 And the Lord our God caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, and he slept, and He took for the woman one rib from among his ribs, and this rib was the origin of the woman from among his ribs, and He built up the flesh in its place, and built the woman.
Date: 170–125 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... In Genesis 2:18, God says, “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make a fitting helper for him.” God then created “all the wild beasts and the birds of the sky and brought them to the man to see what he would call them … but for Adam, no fitting helper was found.” This narrative scandalized the author of Jubilees, since it seemed to imply that God had first sought a mate for Adam from the animal kingdom and, only after seeing that Adam did not call any of the animals “my wife” or “woman” or something similar, decided to create a mate for Adam from his own “rib” or “side.” How could such a narrative square with the Torah’s own prohibition of bestiality (Exodus 22:18, Deuteronomy 27:21), not to speak of Jubilees’ repeated warnings against “all impurity and fornication”? The author therefore changed the order of things ..."
James L. Kugel, A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creation (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 37.
* 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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