Texts in Conversation
In Jubilees, the birds that snatch the scattered seed work for Mastema, the prince of evil. In Mark, Jesus’ parable of the sower echoes this tradition, and its own interpretation names the birds as Satan, who carries off the word before it can take root.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Jubilees 11:11
Pseudepigrapha
10 She gave birth to Terah for him in the seventh year of this week [1806]. 11 Then Prince Mastema sent ravens and birds to eat the seed which would be planted in the ground and to destroy the land in order to rob mankind of their labors. Before they plowed in the seed, the ravens would pick it from the surface of the ground. 12 For this reason he named him Terah: because the ravens and birds reduced them to poverty and ate their seed. 13 The years began to be unfruitful due to the birds. They would eat all the fruit of the trees from the orchards. During their time, if they were able to save a little of all the fruit of the earth, it was with great effort.
Mark 4:4
New Testament
2 He taught them many things in parables, and in his teaching said to them: 3 “Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground where it did not have much soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep. 6 When the sun came up it was scorched, and because it did not have sufficient root, it withered.
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Notes and References
... like the account of Abram and the birds, the parable [Mark 4:3-8, 14-20] is formed around the sowing of seed on the surface of the ground, the initial frustration of that task by hungry birds, and the final triumph of the seed over all such barriers to fruitfulness ...
Knowles, Michael P.
Abram and the Birds in Jubilees 11: A Subtext for the Parable of the Sower
(pp. 147-148) Cambridge University Press, 1995
* 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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