Jubilees 3:28

Pseudepigrapha

27 On that day, as he was leaving the Garden of Eden, he burned incense as a pleasing fragrance — frankincense, galbanum, stacte, and aromatic spices — in the early morning when the sun rose at the time when he covered his shame. 28 On that day the mouths of all the animals, the cattle, the birds, everything that walks and everything that moves about were made incapable of speaking because all of them used to converse with one another in one language and one tongue. 29 He dismissed from the Garden of Eden all the animate beings that were in the Garden of Eden. All animate beings were dispersed — each by its kind and each by its nature — into the places which had been created for them. 30 But of all the animals and cattle he permitted Adam alone to cover his shame.

Philo On the Creation 156

Classical

Therefore, having laid down these to be boundaries as it were in the soul, God then, like a judge, began to consider to which side men would be most inclined by nature. And when he saw that the disposition of man had a tendency to wickedness, and was but little inclined to holiness or piety, by which qualities an immortal life is secured, he drove them forth as was very natural, and banished him from paradise; giving no hope of any subsequent restoration to his soul which had sinned in such a desperate and irremediable manner. Since even the opportunity of deceit was blameable in no slight degree, which I must not pass over in this place. It is said that the old poisonous and earthborn reptile, the serpent, uttered the voice of a man. And he on one occasion coming to the wife of the first created man, reproached her with her slowness and her excessive prudence, because she delayed and hesitated to gather the fruit which was completely beautiful to look at, and exceedingly sweet to enjoy, and was, moreover, most useful as being a means by which men might be able to distinguish between good an evil. And she, without any inquiry, prompted by an unstable and rash mind, acquiesced in his advice, and ate of the fruit, and gave a portion of it to her husband. And this conduct suddenly changed both of them from innocence and simplicity of character to all kinds of wickedness; at which the Father of all was indignant. For their actions deserved his anger, inasmuch as they, passing by the tree of eternal life, the tree which might have endowed them with perfection of virtue, and by means of which they might have enjoyed a long and happy life, preferred a brief and mortal (I will not call it life, but) time full of unhappiness; and, accordingly, he appointed them such punishment as was befitting.

 Notes and References

"... Jubilees portrays animals as even more rational than in the Bible. Language is important to Jubilees and is original to creation. Thus, it seems that even animals spoke Hebrew in the beginning. Targum Neofiti (Genesis 11:1) may also hint that animals could speak with humans and each other: “and all the inhabitants of the earth were of one tongue and one speech, and in the language of the Temple they used to converse, for through it had the world been created in the beginning.” Others writing around the time of Jubilees also unquestioningly accepted the idea of original animal speech. Josephus notes that at that time, “all the creatures spoke a common tongue” (Jewish Antiquities 1:41; compare 1:50). Philo concurs, “it is said that, in olden times ... snakes could speak with a man’s voice” (On the Creation of the World, 156). The Life of Adam and Eve (37:1–3) records the story of a serpent biting Seth while he was walking with Eve. Eve curses the serpent because it was not afraid to set itself against a human as the image of God, but the serpent “answered in a human voice: ‘O Eve, is not our enmity against you?’” ..."

Wells, A. Rahel 'One Language and One Tongue': Animal Speech in Jubilees 3:27–31 (pp. 319-337) Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 28, No. 4, 2019

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