Texts in conversation

Compare Jubilees 36:4 and Didache 2:7

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions · Early Christian

Summary

Jubilees and the Didache similarly interpret Leviticus 19, emphasizing the love of others as they love themselves. Rather than interpreting the command as avoiding harm, both present it as a positive instruction to promote common responsibility.

Passages

Jubilees 36:4

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

3 And this I command you, my sons, that you practice righteousness and uprightness on the earth, so that the Lord may bring upon you all that the Lord said that he would do to Abraham and to his descendants. 4 And love one another as brothers, my sons, as a man who loves his own soul, and let each look for ways to benefit his brother, and act together on the earth; and let them love each other as their own souls. 5 And concerning the question of idols, I command and instruct you to reject them and hate them, and do not love them, for they are full of deception for those that worship them and for those that bow down to them.

170–125 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jubilees

Didache 2:7

Early Christian

5 Your words shall not be false or meaningless but followed by actions. 6 You shall not be greedy or exploitative, nor a hypocrite, nor evil-minded, nor arrogant; you shall not plan evil against your neighbor. 7 You shall not hate anyone; some you will correct, some you will pray for, and some you will love more than your own life.

90–120 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Didache

References

"... the Bible was understood not to outlaw hatred per se, but hidden hatred, and to indicate that the way to prevent such hidden hatred was through open reproach (if only in the judicial sense). But what then of the law found in the very next verse, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18)? Did not this commandment go well beyond outlawing hatred, hidden or otherwise, and enjoin people to act lovingly toward one another under any circumstances? The answer depended, of course, on how the words were understood. They might mean, to be sure: You shall love your neighbor in the same way that you love yourself ... But this was hardly the only possible sense for ancient interpreters, perhaps not even the most likely ..."

James L. Kugel, The Bible as It Was (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 455.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

What the Way of Life Forbids

Didache16 chapters

Compare Jubilees 36:4 and Didache 2:7

Summary

Passages

Jubilees 36:4

Didache 2:7

References

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