Texts in Conversation
1 Enoch describes fourteen evergreen trees that keep their leaves all winter. Jubilees has a similar tradition, interpreting the evergreens as a priestly rule for which woods may burn on the altar, and credits the teaching to Enoch himself.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
1 Enoch 3:1
Pseudepigrapha
1 Observe and notice how, during winter, all the trees appear as if they have withered and lost all their leaves, except for fourteen trees that do not shed their foliage but keep the old leaves for two to three years until the new ones arrive.
Jubilees 21:12
Pseudepigrapha
11 ‘On all your offerings you are to place salt; let the covenant of salt not come to an end on any of your sacrifices before the Lord.’ 12 ‘Be careful about the kinds of woods that are used for sacrifice so that you bring no kinds of woods onto the altar except these only: cypress, silver-fir, almond, fir, pine, cedar, juniper, date, olive wood, myrtle, laurel wood, the cedar whose name is the juniper bush, and balsam.’ 13 ‘Of these kinds of woods place beneath the sacrifice on the altar ones that have been tested for their appearance. Do not place beneath it any split or dark wood; place there strong woods and firm ones without any defect — a perfect and new growth. Do not place there old wood, for its aroma has left — because there is no longer an aroma upon it as at first.’
Search:
Notes and References
"... priestly halakhah in the Aramaic Levi Document (4Q214b [4QLevif ar] fragments 2-6 and Bodleian c, Athos Greek), in Testament of Levi 9:12, and in Jubilees 21:13 is emphatic that the wood to be used on the altar should not be seasoned or dry. To this effect it should come, rather, from a prescribed list of (twelve or fourteen) evergreen trees (Jubilees 21:12, 14). And bringing it to the temple in late summer helps ensure that, unlike later rabbinic practice, even the evergreen wood that will be used in abundance in Tishri has not been unnecessarily dried out by the intense heat of summer. In Jubilees these regulations are found “written in the books of [Abraham’s] forefathers, in the words of Enoch and the words of Noah” (21:10). ..."
* 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.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.