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Jubilees addresses a problem in Genesis, where the nations are divided after the flood but are united again at the tower of Babel. Jubilees resolves this by saying the first division was flawed, leading Noah to carry out a second division.
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Genesis 10:32
Hebrew Bible
30 Their dwelling place was from Mesha all the way to Sephar in the eastern hills. 31 These are the sons of Shem according to their families, according to their languages, by their lands, and according to their nations. 32 These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, by their nations, and from these the nations spread over the earth after the flood.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Genesis 11:1
Hebrew Bible
1 The whole earth had a common language and a common vocabulary. 2 When the people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 3 Then they said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” (They had brick instead of stone and tar instead of mortar.) 4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise we will be scattered across the face of the entire earth.”
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Jubilees 8:9
Pseudepigrapha
8 In the sixth year [1567] she gave birth to a son for him, and he named him Peleg because at the time when he was born Noah's children began to divide the earth for themselves. For this reason he named him Peleg. 9 They divided it in a bad way among themselves and told Noah. 10 At the beginning of the thirty-third jubilee [1569-1617] they divided the earth into three parts — for Shem, Ham, and Japheth — each in his own inheritance. This happened in the first year of the first week [1569] while one of us who were sent was staying with them.
Date: 150-100 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Genesis concluded that same chapter by saying: “These are the groupings of Noah’s descendants ... and from these the nations branched out over the earth after the food,” that is, they branched out according to the way Noah’s descendants had divided things up. There was a problem, however: the next chapter of Genesis begins with the story of the Tower of Babel, which depicts all of humanity as still being one large family, with everyone having “the same language and the same words” and everyone settling together “in a valley in the land of Shinar” (Genesis 11:1-2). So did they split up or did they not? Jubilees’ author seeks to resolve this difficulty by saying that Noah’s sons had divided the earth in a bad way among themselves, necessitating a second division by Noah himself ..."
Kugel, James L.
A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creation
(p. 76) Brill, 2012
* 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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