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Jubilees teaches that animals once spoke the same language as humans that was lost after Eden. This is echoed in Philo and other Second Temple texts, a tradition that imagined animal speech as a normal part of creation at the beginning.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Jubilees 3:28
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
27 And on that day on which Adam went forth from the Garden, he offered as a sweet savour an offering, frankincense, galbanum, and stacte, and spices in the morning with the rising of the sun from the day when he covered his shame. 28 And on that day the mouth of all beasts, and of cattle, and of birds, and of whatever walks, and of whatever moves, was closed, so that they could no longer speak: for they had all spoken one with another with one lip and with one tongue. 29 And He sent out of the Garden of Eden all flesh that was in the Garden of Eden, and all flesh was scattered according to its kinds, and according to its types to the places which had been created for them. 30 And to Adam alone He gave (the wherewithal) to cover his shame, of all the beasts and cattle.
Philo, On the Creation 156
Classical
So, having laid these down as boundaries, so to speak, in the soul, God then, like a judge, began to consider which side men would naturally incline to most. And when he saw that the disposition of man tended toward wickedness and was only slightly inclined to holiness or piety, the qualities by which an immortal life is secured, he drove them out, as was only natural, and banished him from paradise, giving no hope of any later restoration to his soul, which had sinned so desperately and irremediably. For even the occasion of the deceit was highly blameworthy, and I must not pass over it here. It is said that the serpent, the ancient poisonous and earthborn reptile, spoke with the voice of a man. Once, coming to the wife of the first created man, he reproached her for her slowness and excessive prudence in delaying and hesitating to pick the fruit, which was completely beautiful to look at, exceedingly sweet to enjoy, and also most useful as a means by which men could distinguish between good and evil. And she, without any inquiry, prompted by an unstable and rash mind, agreed to his advice, ate of the fruit and gave some of it to her husband. This conduct suddenly changed both of them from innocence and simplicity of character to every kind of wickedness, and the Father of all was indignant at it. For their actions deserved his anger, since they passed by the tree of eternal life, the tree that could have given them perfect virtue and through which they could have enjoyed a long and happy life, and preferred a brief and mortal (I will not call it life, but) time full of unhappiness; and so he assigned them a fitting punishment.
Date: 20–50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Jubilees portrays animals as even more rational than in the Bible. Language is important to Jubilees and is original to creation. Thus, it seems that even animals spoke Hebrew in the beginning. Targum Neofiti (Genesis 11:1) may also hint that animals could speak with humans and each other: “and all the inhabitants of the earth were of one tongue and one speech, and in the language of the Temple they used to converse, for through it had the world been created in the beginning.” Others writing around the time of Jubilees also unquestioningly accepted the idea of original animal speech. Josephus notes that at that time, “all the creatures spoke a common tongue” (Jewish Antiquities 1:41; compare 1:50). Philo concurs, “it is said that, in olden times ... snakes could speak with a man’s voice” (On the Creation of the World, 156). The Life of Adam and Eve (37:1–3) records the story of a serpent biting Seth while he was walking with Eve. Eve curses the serpent because it was not afraid to set itself against a human as the image of God, but the serpent “answered in a human voice: ‘O Eve, is not our enmity against you?’” ..."
Wells, A. Rahel
'One Language and One Tongue': Animal Speech in Jubilees 3:27–31
(pp. 319-337) Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 28, No. 4, 2019
* 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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