Sárospataki Füzetek 16. (2012)

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narrative from Genesis 1 through Exodus 19.13 According to Jub. 4:15 in the days of Jared “the angels of the Lord, who were called Watchers, came down to earth,” not with the purpose to sin, as in 1 En. 6, but “in order to teach the sons of man, and perform judgment and uprightness upon the earth”.14 Only later, some of the angels who were on earth with the aim to teach men good things, “sinned with the daughters of men because they began to mingle themselves with the daughters of men so that they might be polluted.”15Enoch turns up as the one who witnesses against those sinning angels, Jub. 4:22. The full story of Gen 6:1—4 is retold in Jub. 5:1—2,

And when the children of men began to multiply on the surface of the earth and daughters were born to them, that16 the angels of the Lord saw in a certain year of that jubilee that they were good to look at. And they took wives for themselves from all of those whom they chose. And they bore children for them; and they were the giants. And injustice increased upon the earth, and all flesh corrupted its way; man and cattle and beasts and birds and everything which walks on the earth. And they all corrupted their way and their ordinances, and they began to eat one another. And injustice grew upon the earth and every imagination of the thoughts of all mankind was thus continually evil.17

Consequently, mankind is punished with the flood, the giants are killed by each other, and the fallen angels are imprisoned in the depths of the earth until the last judgement, Jub. 5:3-11. Also in Jubilees the souls of the slain giants become evil spirits on earth, who seduce people to idolatry (Jub. 11:4-5; 15:31). A similar story is found in Pseudo-Philo’s18 19 20 Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarumfm the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,20 in 2 Baruch,21 and in the New Testament apocryphal work Acts

THE INDECENT DESCENT OF THE SETIUTES

History Interpreted: The Rewriting of Genesis 1-11 in the book of Jubilees (JSJSup 66; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 3-4.

3 Cf. Jacques T. A. G. M. van Ruiten, “Genesis herschreven en gei'nterpreteerd in het boek Jubileeen, nader toegelicht met een vergelijking van Genesis 17 en Jubileeen 15,” NTT 64 no. 1 (2010): 33. According to R. H. Charles, APOT 2:6, the document was written between 109 and 105 b.c.e.; O. S. Wintermute, OTP 2:43, also dates the document before 100 B.C.E.

14 Wintermute, OTP 2:62.

13 Jub. 4:22, Wintermute, OTP 2:62.

16 Sic! Probably is meant “it happened when . . . that the angels” or “when . . . the angels”.

17 Wintermute, OTP 2:64. For a detailed comparison with Gen 6:1-4, see Van Ruiten, Primaeval History Interpreted, 183-196.

18 The Latin text of L.A.B. was transmitted together with Latin translations of Philo’s works, although most probably Philo was not its author, see D. J. Harrington, “Pseudo-Philo,” OTP 2:299- 300.

19 L.A.B. 3:1-3:34:2-3.

20 Testament of Reuben 5:6, English translation: H. C. Kee, “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” OTP 1:784; Testament of Naphtali 3:5, English translation: Kee, OTP 1:812.

21 2 Baruch 56:11-15, English translation: A. E J. Klijn, “2 (Syriac Apocalypse of) Baruch,” OTP 1:641.

2012/3 4 SÁROSPATAKI FÜZETEK 4c:>