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Jubilees

About this book

The First Generations

Chapter 4

1 And in the third week in the second jubilee [64-70] she gave birth to Cain, and in the fourth [71-77] she gave birth to Abel, and in the fifth [78-84] she gave birth to her daughter Âwân. 2 And in the first (year) of the third jubilee [99-105], Cain killed Abel because (God) accepted the sacrifice of Abel, and did not accept the offering of Cain. 3 And he killed him in the field: and his blood cried from the ground to heaven, complaining because he had killed him. 4 And the Lord rebuked Cain because of Abel, because he had killed him, and he made him a fugitive on the earth because of the blood of his brother, and he cursed him upon the earth. 5 And on this account it is written on the heavenly tablets, 'Cursed is he who strikes his neighbor treacherously, and let all who have seen and heard say, So be it; and the man who has seen and not reported (it), let him be cursed like the other.' 6 And for this reason we announce when we come before the Lord our God all the sin which is committed in heaven and on earth, and in light and in darkness, and everywhere. 7 And Adam and his wife mourned for Abel four weeks of years, [99-127] and in the fourth year of the fifth week [130] they became joyful, and Adam knew his wife again, and she bore him a son, and he named him Seth; for he said 'GOD has raised up a another descendant to us on the earth instead of Abel; for Cain killed him.' 8 And in the sixth week [134-40] he fathered his daughter Azûrâ. 9 And Cain took Âwân his sister to be his wife and she bore him Enoch at the close of the fourth jubilee [190-196]. And in the first year of the first week of the fifth jubilee, [197] houses were built on the earth, and Cain built a city, and named it after his son Enoch. 10 And Adam knew Eve his wife and she bore nine more sons.⁠ 11 And in the fifth week of the fifth jubilee [225-31] Seth took Azûrâ his sister to be his wife, and in the fourth (year of the sixth week) [235] she bore him Enosh. 12 He began to call on the name of the Lord on the earth. 13 And in the seventh jubilee in the third week [309-15] Enosh took Nôâm his sister to be his wife, and she bore him a son in the third year of the fifth week [325], and he named him Kenan. 14 And at the close of the eighth jubilee [386-392] Kenan took Mûalêlêth his sister to be his wife, and she bore him a son in the ninth jubilee, in the first week in the third year of this week, [395] and he named him Mahalalel. 15 And in the second week of the tenth jubilee [449-55] Mahalalel married Dinah, the daughter of Barakiel the daughter of his father's brother, and she bore him a son in the third week in the sixth year, [461] and he named him Jared, for in his days the angels of the Lord descended on the earth, those who are named the Watchers, that they should instruct the human beings, and that they should act justly and uprightly on the earth.⁠ 16 And in the eleventh jubilee [491-539] Jared married a woman named Baraka, the daughter of Râsûjâl, a daughter of his father's brother, in the fourth week of this jubilee, [512-18] and she bore him a son in the fifth week, in the fourth year of the jubilee [522], and he named him Enoch.

Enoch and His Writings

17 And he was the first among men that are born on earth who learned writing and knowledge and wisdom and who wrote down the signs of heaven according to the order of their months in a book, so that people might know the seasons of the years according to the order of their separate months. 18 And he was the first to write a testimony and he testified to the human beings among the generations of the earth, and recounted the weeks of the jubilees, and made known to them the days of the years, and set in order the months and recounted the Sabbaths of the years as we made (them) known to him.⁠ 19 And what was and what will be he saw in a vision of his sleep, as it will happen to the human beings throughout their generations until the day of judgment; he saw and understood everything, and wrote his testimony, and placed the testimony on earth for all the human beings and for their generations.⁠ 20 And in the twelfth jubilee, [582-88] in its seventh week, he married a woman named Edna,⁠ the daughter of Danel, the daughter of his father's brother, and in the sixth year in this week [587] she bore him a son and he named him Methuselah. 21 And he was moreover with the angels of God these six jubilees of years, and they showed him everything which is on earth and in the heavens, the rule of the sun, and he wrote down everything. 22 And he testified to the Watchers, who had sinned with the daughters of men; for these had begun to unite themselves, so as to be defiled, with the daughters of men, and Enoch testified against (them) all.⁠ 23 And he was taken from among the human beings, and we led him into the Garden of Eden⁠ in majesty and honor, and there he writes down the condemnation and judgment of the world, and all the wickedness of the human beings. 24 And on account of it (God) brought the waters of the flood upon all the land of Eden; for there he was set as a sign and so that he should testify against all the human beings, so that he should recount all the deeds of the generations until the day of condemnation. 25 And he burned the incense of the sanctuary, (even) sweet spices acceptable before the Lord on the Mount.⁠ 26 For the Lord has four places on the earth, the Garden of Eden, and the Mount of the East, and this mountain on which you are today, Mount Sinai, and Mount Zion (which) will be sanctified in the new creation for a sanctification of the earth; through it the earth will be sanctified from all (its) guilt and its impurity throughout the generations of the world. 27 And in the fourteenth jubilee [652] Methuselah married, Edna the daughter of Azrial, the daughter of his father's brother, in the third week, in the first year of this week, [652] and he fathered a son and named him Lamech. 28 And in the fifteenth jubilee in the third week [701-707] Lamech married a woman named Betenos the daughter of Baraki'il, the daughter of his father's brother, and in this week she bore him a son and he named him Noah, saying, 'This one will comfort me for my trouble and all my work, and for the ground which the Lord has cursed.'

The Deaths of Adam and Cain

29 And at the close of the nineteenth jubilee, in the seventh week in its sixth year [930], Adam died, and all his sons buried him in the land of his creation, and he was the first to be buried in the earth.⁠ 30 And he lacked seventy years of one thousand years; for one thousand years are as one day in the testimony of the heavens⁠ and therefore it was written concerning the tree of knowledge: 'On the day that you eat of it you shall die.' For this reason he did not complete the years of this day; for he died during it. 31 At the close of this jubilee Cain was killed after him in the same year; for his house fell upon him and he died inside his house, and he was killed by its stones; for with a stone he had killed Abel, and by a stone he was killed in righteous judgment.⁠ 32 For this reason it was ordained on the heavenly tablets: With the instrument with which a man kills his neighbor with the same he shall be killed; in the same way that he wounded him, in the same way they shall deal with him.'⁠ 33 And in the twenty-fifth jubilee Noah married a woman named `Emzârâ, the daughter of Râkê'êl, the daughter of his father's brother, in the first year in the fifth week [1205]: and in its third year [1207] she bore him Shem, in its fifth year [1209] she bore him Ham, and in the first year in the sixth week [1212] she bore him Japheth.

Texts in conversation

Compare Leviticus 24:20 and Jubilees 4:31

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

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Summary

Leviticus requires proportional justice, saying that harm must be repaid in kind. Jubilees applies this retroactively to the story of Cain, introducing a tradition where he dies when his house collapses, crushed by stones, similar to how he killed Abel.

Passages

Leviticus 24:20

Hebrew Bible
18 One who beats an animal to death must make restitution for it, life for life. 19 If a man inflicts an injury on his fellow citizen, just as he has done it must be done to him— 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth—just as he inflicts an injury on another person that same injury must be inflicted on him. 21 One who beats an animal to death must make restitution for it, but one who beats a person to death must be put to death.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Leviticus

Jubilees 4:31

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
30 And he lacked seventy years of one thousand years; for one thousand years are as one day in the testimony of the heavens and therefore it was written concerning the tree of knowledge: 'On the day that you eat of it you shall die.' For this reason he did not complete the years of this day; for he died during it. 31 At the close of this jubilee Cain was killed after him in the same year; for his house fell upon him and he died inside his house, and he was killed by its stones; for with a stone he had killed Abel, and by a stone he was killed in righteous judgment. 32 For this reason it was ordained on the heavenly tablets: With the instrument with which a man kills his neighbor with the same he shall be killed; in the same way that he wounded him, in the same way they shall deal with him.'
170–125 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jubilees

References

"... The book of Genesis does not report how Cain died; the original author of Jubilees similarly skipped the subject. As far as he was concerned, Cain’s story ended with his being cursed and exiled ... The Interpolator saw here another fine opportunity to connect something from Genesis with a law that appears later on in the Torah (and thus to assert that the law had always existed on the Heavenly Tablets). Leviticus 24:19-20 ... the means by which the harm was inflicted. Cain’s invented death through the collapse of his house upholds both halves of the verse: Cain was killed as punishment for Abel’s murder, and he was killed specifically by his house’s stones because with a stone he had killed Abel ..."
James L. Kugel, A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creation (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 51.

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

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  • What is the biblical mean of testimony of the heavens? Jubilees 4:30

    Zodie, April 23, 2024

Leviticus 24:20 and Jubilees 4:31

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