Texts in Conversation
Jubilees retells Genesis and expands on a brief note in Joshua that Abraham’s father served other gods. It develops a moment where Abraham rejects his father’s beliefs and shows him choosing a new path to preserve his image as a faithful patriarch.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Joshua 24:2
Hebrew Bible
1 Joshua assembled all the Israelite tribes at Shechem. He summoned Israel’s elders, rulers, judges, and leaders, and they appeared before God. 2 Joshua told all the people, “This is what the Lord God of Israel has said: ‘In the distant past your ancestors lived beyond the Euphrates River, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor. They worshiped other gods, 3 but I took your father Abraham from beyond the Euphrates and brought him into the entire land of Canaan. I made his descendants numerous; I gave him Isaac,
Date: 600–501 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Jubilees 12:2
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
1 And it came to pass in the sixth week, in the seventh year of it, [1904] that Abram said to Terah his father, saying, 'Father!' 2 And he said, 'Behold, here I am, my son.' And he said, 'What help and profit have we from those idols which you worship, And before which you bow yourself? 3 For there is no spirit in them, For they are dumb forms, and a misleading of the heart. Do not worship them: 4 Worship the God of heaven, Who causes the rain and the dew to descend on the earth And does everything upon the earth, And has created everything by His word, And all life is from before His face.
Date: 170–125 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... This section derives from an old midrashic motif, ultimately based on a brief passage in the book of Joshua. If, according to Joshua 24:2, Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor “worshiped other gods” when they lived in Mesopotamia, why does God say in the next verse, “So I took Abraham …”? Interpreters concluded that Abraham must at some point have rebelled against the beliefs of his father and brother and began to worship the one true God. Out of this developed the story recounted here and numerous other texts, according to which Terah was an idolator, indeed, a maker of idols and/or a priest of idolatry ..."
James L. Kugel, A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creation (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 88.
* 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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