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In Genesis, God explains that he chose Abraham so he would in the future direct his children to follow the Torah, doing what is right and just. Jubilees turns that moment into a story where Abraham gives his descendants the same command.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 18:19
Hebrew Bible
18 After all, Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all the nations on the earth may receive blessing through him. 19 I have chosen him so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just. Then the Lord will give to Abraham what he promised him.” 20 So the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so blatant
Jubilees 20:2
Pseudepigrapha
1 During the forty-second jubilee, in the first year of the seventh week [2052], Abraham summoned Ishmael and his twelve children, Isaac and his two children, and the six children of Keturah and their sons. 2 He ordered them to keep the way of the Lord so that they would do what is right and that they should love one another; that they should be like this in every war so that they could go against each one who was against them; and do what is just and right on the earth. 3 That they should circumcise their sons in the covenant which he had made with them; that they should not deviate to the right or left from all the ways which the Lord commanded us; that we should keep ourselves from all sexual impurity and uncleanness; and that we should dismiss all uncleanness and sexual impurity from among us.
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Notes and References
... The biblical account of an aged Abraham distributing property among his children (Genesis 25:5-6) could suggest to the ancient biblical interpreter just such a moment. And indeed Jubilees places his account of Abraham's instructions to his children (Jubilees 20:1-10), not in its original biblical context, but rather directly before his account of Abraham's distribution of property (Jubilees 20:11-13), thus resolving the exegetical problem of which discrete future moment of instruction Genesis 18:19 refers to. By joining ethical testament to monetary will, Jubilees renders the last testament the fulfillment of Genesis 18:19 and hence the primary means of transmission of law and ethics. ...
* 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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