1.0 Introduction: Interpretation in Rewritten Bible or Rewritten Bible as Interpretation? Exegetical Aims and Compositional Strategy
While no consensus obtains among specialists as to what the term “rewritten Bible” (or “rewritten Scripture”) properly denotesFootnote 1—or whether, indeed, it is proper to use at allFootnote 2—most agree that the texts thought to represent this category are basically exegetical in character.Footnote 3 That is, they are supposed to have as their aim or goal the interpretation of texts that are now part of the Hebrew Bible. At the same time, it is universally recognized that the authors of so-called rewritten Bible compositions exercised a substantial degree of freedom in their retelling. They clearly had their own interests, motives, and aims, distinct from those of the biblical narrative.Footnote 4 These interests (sometimes characterized as “ideological” in nature), in turn, determine the structure or literary shape of their work, including such basic elements as character, plot, scope, and narrative voice.Footnote 5 Thus, while it is constitutive for the genre or category that such works mainly follow the sequence and wording of the biblical text, they are not—and cannot be—identical to the latter in compositional form.Footnote 6 Every rewritten Bible composition is defined by its own retelling strategy or program.
How then are we to construe the relationship between exegesis and the broader compositional aims of such literary activity?Footnote 7 How do literary works with their own plot, aims, and structure function as “exegesis,” or what does it mean to describe them as “interpretation”? Stated otherwise, is rewritten Bible itself a form of interpretation, or does it just contain interpretation? I take this to be a crucial question with respect to understanding “rewritten Bible” as a form of literary and exegetical production in antiquity.
This question regarding the relationship between exegesis and composition has important implications for understanding the concept of “exegetical function” in rewritten Bible. The already classic works of Geza Vermes and James Kugel illustrate vividly the extent to which a specific textual or conceptual difficulty in the biblical text can be identified as the formal stimulus—the exegetical “trigger”—for expansions of all sorts.Footnote 8 But formal stimuli on the word or passage level fall well short of accounting for the genesis of a work like Jubilees or the Temple Scroll. The word- or verse-centered approach must therefore be combined with a broader compositional perspective if we are to come fully to terms with “exegetical function” in rewritten Bible. To be sure, identifying the specific textual origin of an exegetical tradition or motif, on the one hand, and describing the composition and aims of a work as a whole, on the other, can be conceived of as two separate types of inquiry.Footnote 9 Yet examples of “rewritten Bible” are not merely compilations or anthologies of exegetical tradition. They are, instead, full-fledged literary works in their own right, each with its own distinct profile and its own specific compositional aims, and these aims determine—to different degrees in different cases—how the authors select and shape the exegetical material. For that reason, we would be wise to resist the impulse to decouple the question of exegetical function and that of compositional aim.Footnote 10
The pericope of the ravens in Jubilees 11 illustrates this point well. This relatively elaborate narrative expansion has proven resistant to resolution in terms of “exegetical function.”Footnote 11 In a recent article, however, an attempt was made to demonstrate that an interpretive issue in the text of Genesis does indeed underlie the raven pericope in Jubilees 11.Footnote 12 In the view of Cory Crawford, the expansion represents a response to a perceived conflict between God's promises to Abram in Gen 15:7 “to give to you (
) this land” and 15:18 “to your seed (
) shall I give this land from the River of Egypt to the Great River—the River Euphrates.” The latter verse, he says, presents two problems: 1) Abram is “no longer explicitly included as an inheritor of ‘this land’ ”; and 2) “the boundaries of ‘this land’ enclose a vast territory that no Israelite king, no ‘seed’ of Abraham, would ever control.”Footnote 13 Crawford maintains that the author of Jubilees attempted to solve these difficulties by interpreting the promise in Gen 15:18 as a description of a past event, understanding the verse to mean “I have given this land to your method of sowing.”Footnote 14 The raven episode prevents the conclusion that the promise went unfulfilled by demonstrating that yhwh “had already given the land to Abram's literal ‘seed,’ when Abram ‘returned’ the ravens and invented the seed plow in order to allow his method of sowing, his 
, to be used forever after in the land of all the peoples from the Euphrates to the Nile.”Footnote 15
There are, however, major difficulties with this account. The first arises from the fact that Jubilees 11 clearly locates the raven episode during Abraham's youth in Mesopotamia, not Canaan; “the land” in question is explicitly identified as “the land of the Chaldeans” (11.21).Footnote 16 If this story in Jubilees is intended to demonstrate that God had already, in fact, fulfilled his promise in Genesis 15 by giving the land of Canaan over to Abraham's sowing method, it neglects to indicate this crucial point.Footnote 17 Similarly, Abram's sowing the land of the Chaldeans in the raven pericope does not actually help with the problem of the geographical extent of the land promise in Gen 15:18, since even that passage does not include Mesopotamia but stops short at the Euphrates.
Moreover, the rest of the book of Jubilees makes clear that the author does not recognize a contradiction between land promises to Abra(ha)m and those to his descendants, nor does one find any evidence that agricultural sowing indicates possession for the author.Footnote 18 Like Genesis, Jubilees continually affirms that God promised to give the land of Canaan to both Abraham and his descendents.Footnote 19 Indeed, in the actual treatment of Genesis 15 in Jubilees 14, the tension perceived by Crawford stands exactly as it does in the biblical text:
7 He said to him: “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you the land of the Canaanites to occupy forever and to become God for you and your descendants after you.” 8 He said: “Lord, Lord, how will I know that I will inherit (it)?”Footnote 20 (Jub. 14.7–8 // Gen 15:7)
18 On that day the Lord concluded a covenant with Abram with these words: “To your descendants I will give this land from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the Euphrates River: the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Phakorites, the Hivites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” (Jub. 14.18 // Gen 15:18)
Abraham himself declares in Jub. 22.27, “The most high God is the God of all and Creator of everything, who brought me from Ur of the Chaldeans to give me this land in order that I should possess it forever and raise up holy descendants so that they may be blessed forever.” If there is a conceptual conflict between Abraham and his descendants possessing the land, the book of Jubilees shows no concern to reconcile this tension.Footnote 21 In sum, though Crawford believes that “the cryptic narrative . . . can be decoded as an exegetical reconciliation of various promises that Yahweh made to Abram,”Footnote 22Jubilees does not reconcile the alleged contradiction(s) and does not seem interested in the problem elsewhere. While Crawford has rightly sought an exegetical trigger within the biblical text, the pericope has yet to receive an adequate explanation from the standpoint of formal exegetical stimuli on the word or verse level.
Upon closer examination, it becomes clear that this story was not composed as a solution to an exegetical problem in a single verse or passage. Rather, the narrative is a complex and highly learned interpretive response not only to textual and intertextual problems but also to possibilities latent within the text of Genesis when read within the context of a broader corpus of interrelated traditions and along its hermeneutic contours.
The present study undertakes a reappraisal of the “exegetical function” of the Abram/ravens story in the book of Jubilees, with a view toward the wider issues of understanding “exegetical function” in rewritten scripture compositions more broadly. After examining the construction of Jubilees 11, its constituent components, and its sources, the study turns attention to the literary function of the narrative and its place within the book as a whole. The important role the pericope plays within a broader compositional strategy demands consideration alongside genetic factors, I submit, in any attempt to describe the “exegetical function” of the story. The complex way this text functions as exegesis is directly related to both considerations, genetic as well as poetic. Indeed, these complementary concerns prove essential in light of the character of scriptural rewriting as a mode of literary production. Moreover, the analysis will demonstrate that this narrative follows from existing trajectories and impulses of traditionary development within its scriptural sources, echoing similar reflexes throughout Jubilees. To this extent, rewritten scripture—at least as embodied in the Abram/ravens story—represents a further extension of the exegetical processes at work in the history of scriptural redaction and composition. All of these considerations deeply complicate and enrich the notion of “exegetical function” in such texts, while shedding important light on the concerns of those who produced them.
2.0 Jubilees 11 and Its Sources: The Anatomy of a Rewritten Narrative
2.1 Gen 15 and Jubilees 11
There can be little doubt that the raven narrative in Jubilees is somehow related to Genesis 15, as others have already recognized.Footnote 23 Genesis 15:11 in particular seems evident behind the expansion: 
. The nature of Abram's action(s) in this cryptic verse and in relation to the even more enigmatic context is obscured by philological ambiguity in the final clause (
). In antiquity this phrase was interpreted variously to mean that Abram “frightened them [the birds] away,”Footnote 24 “sat with them [the pieces],”Footnote 25 “turned them [the birds] away,”Footnote 26 “brought them [the pieces] back to life,”Footnote 27 “answered them,”Footnote 28 or “struck them [the birds] repeatedly.”Footnote 29 Indeed, many interpreters capitalized on the polyvalence of the consonantal text and read it multiple ways simultaneously.Footnote 30
The relatively elaborate account of Abram's actions against birds in Jubilees 11 contains several features similar to those of other early interpretations of the text of Gen 15:11.
18 When the time for planting seeds in the ground arrived, all of them went out together to guard the seed from the ravens. Abram—a child of 14 years—went out with those who were going out. 19 As a cloud of ravens came to eat the seed, Abram would run at themFootnote 31 before they could settle on the ground. He would shout at them before they could settle on the ground to eat the seed and would say: ‘Do not come down; return to the place from which you came’! And they returned. 20 That day he did (this) to the cloud of ravens 70 times. Not a single raven remained in any of the fields where Abram was. 21 All who were with him in any of the fields would see him shouting: then all of the ravens returned (to their place). His reputation grew large throughout the entire land of the Chaldeans. 22 All who were planting seed came to him in this year, and he kept going with them until the seedtime came to an end. They planted their land and that year brought in enough food. So they ate and were filled. 23 In the first year of the fifth week [1891] Abram taught the people who made equipment for bulls—the skillful woodworkers—and they made an implement above the ground, opposite the plow beam, so that one could place seed on it. The seed would then drop down from it onto the end of the plow and be hidden in the ground; and they would no longer be afraid of the ravens. 24 They made (something) like this above the ground on every plow beam. They planted seed, and all the land did as Abram told them. So they were no longer afraid of the birds. (Jub. 11.18–24)
There are, of course, many elements here that one does not find elsewhere in the interpretive traditions relating to Gen 15 (“ravens” in particular, the invention of seed-plow machines, Chaldean farmers, etc.). But like other texts and versions of Genesis 15, Jubilees 11 has Abram turn away (
) the descending (
) birds by responding to them ( C “to answer”) or by shouting at them (
).Footnote 32 Moreover, here too the action is construed as recurrent: Abram must repeat it 70 times on this single day (compare Gen. Rab. 44.16 
; Gen 15:11 
)!Footnote 33 Thus, it is clear that Jubilees 11 relates to Genesis 15 on some level.Footnote 34
In its present narrative context in Jubilees, however, the raven story of chapter 11 has nothing to do with the covenant between the pieces of Gen 15. Indeed, the latter episode receives its own treatment in Jub. 14.7–20, without extensive exegetical embellishments. Jub. 14.12, reproduced here, corresponds to Gen 15:11: “Birds kept coming down on what was spread out,Footnote 35 but Abram kept preventing them and not allowing the birds to touch them.” The demonic cloud of ravens is nowhere in sight. Instead, Jubilees offers a subdued retelling of the biblical text with a few minor adjustments. Besides the (collective) singular 
represented by the plural “birds” (= 
?),Footnote 36Jub. 14.12 adds only the notion of iterativity present in other ancient construals of this text, as well as the note that Abram prevented the birds from even touching the carcasses—a transparent halakhic addition.Footnote 37 The main concern behind this addition is to prevent the defilement of the sacrificial pieces by the unclean bird, since Jubilees (unlike Genesis) has Abraham complete the sacrifice and God accept it (v. 19): “It passed (along), and Abram offered what had been spread out, the birds, their (cereal) offering, and their libation. The fire devoured them.”Footnote 38 According to Jub. 14.1 (cf. 11.15 and Gen 15:2, 7), Abram is 88 years old when he wards off these birds. This is a far cry from the “lad of 14 years” (Jub. 11.18) who turned back the ravens in Mesopotamia.
According to Jubilees, then, the bird episode in Genesis 15 / Jubilees 14 and the raven incident in Jubilees 11 are two completely different episodes in Abraham's life: one during his youth in Chaldea and the other much later in life in Canaan. But if the raven story derives in some way from Genesis 15, why has it been separated from its source and transferred to another location?Footnote 39 By what itinerary and to what end has it been associated with Abram's youth?
2.2 Epistle of Jeremiah 53–55
One explanation for the transfer is that suggested by Klaus Berger and developed further by Crawford. Berger proposed that “the origin of the raven tale and the tradition of the destruction of idols by fire connected to it could lie in the Epistle of Jeremiah 53.”Footnote 40 In Crawford's opinion, this is not only possible but “likely.”Footnote 41 The relevant verses in the Epistle of Jeremiah read as follows:
53 For neither can they [idols] set up a king in the land, nor can they give rain unto men. 54 Neither can they judge their own cause, nor redress a wrong, being unable: for they are as the crows between heaven and earth (ὥσπερ γὰρ κορῶναι ἀνὰ ∝έσον τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ τῆς γῆς).Footnote 42 55 For even when fire falls upon the house of gods of wood, or overlaid with gold or silver, their priests will flee away and escape, but they themselves shall be burnt asunder like beams.Footnote 43
According to Berger, Crawford, and others, this obscure passage is the source of the connection between the idolatry motif and the raven story. Indeed, in their view the raven legend found in Jubilees and other (e.g., Syriac) sources originally arose as an explanation of this obscure text in the Epistle of Jeremiah.Footnote 44 Assuming a fourth- to second-century date based on the supposed allusion to Ep Jer in 2 Macc 2:1–3, Crawford thinks it “likely that this text was in existence before Jubilees, and . . . may have been the common source of the tradition witnessed both in the Syriac sources and in Jubilees.”Footnote 45 Whether the author of 2 Maccabees actually alludes to Ep Jer is problematic, however, and the dating of the book is therefore quite uncertain.Footnote 46 Yet, even supposing an early date, the likelihood that this text is the source for the tradition in Jubilees depends primarily on the strength of the connection itself.
Epistle of Jeremiah 54, if the text as we now possess it is sound, compares idols to helpless (or useless) crows.Footnote 47 This is by no means the picture of the ravens in Jubilees 11. These latter birds are a highly effective force of destruction, endangering the lives of the entire population.Footnote 48 But more importantly, Jubilees does not compare idols to ravens (or vice-versa) at all. To be sure, Abram's turn from idolatry and the raven incident are closely related in Jubilees: both events are explicitly noted to have occurred when Abram was fourteen years of age (11.16 “two weeks of years”; 11.18 “fourteen years”), and the raven episode is flanked on both sides by the idol motif (11.16–17; 12.1–21). The point of the connection, however, is not that idols are like birds. Rather, the ravens and the idols are connected in Jubilees only insofar as both are weapons of demonic forces in their effort to corrupt humankind.Footnote 49 In other words, the nature of the bird/idol connection differs entirely in both texts, leaving no clear evidence of a literary relationship between them. The proximity of raven/crow imagery to the burning of an idol's temple in both texts, though striking at first glance, becomes less convincing upon further reflection—particularly since the fire motif has entirely different textual grounds in each.Footnote 50 Thus, the dependence of Jubilees on Ep Jer appears tenuous, even if the Epistle was composed as early as the third or second century b.c.e.
If, however, the primary source of the bird/idol connection in Jubilees was unlikely to have been the Epistle of Jeremiah, why, in fact, was the raven motif, ostensibly related to Genesis 15, associated with Abram's boyhood conversion?Footnote 51 It seems to me that a clear answer is found in the Gideon narrative.
2.3 Jubilees 11–12 and the Gideon Narrative
There are, first of all, obvious surface similarities between Jubilees 11 and the Gideon narrative in Judges 6–8, and several notable correspondences between key aspects of their respective plotlines are clear. Consider Judg 6:3–6, which serves as a prologue to the Gideon story:
3 And it would happen that when the Israelites had done their sowing (
) Midian, Amalek, and the Sons of the East would come up against them; 4 and they would encamp against them and would destroy the produce of the land (
) all the way to Gaza, and leave no means of sustenance (
) in Israel, not a sheep or an ox or an ass. 5 For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, swarming as thick as locusts (
); they and their camels were innumerable. Thus they would invade the land to destroy it (
). 6 Israel was reduced to utter poverty (
) by the Midianites, and the Israelites cried out to the Lord.
Compare Jub. 11.11–12:
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.
We thus have two similar tales of oppression involving sowing seed and a destructive swarm of adversaries who consume the produce and “destroy the land,” such that the people are “reduced to poverty.” Moreover, this narrative of oppression is juxtaposed in both stories to a tale about the young protagonist deliverer (Jub. 11.16, 18; Judg 6:15) turning from idolatry and destroying a site of his father's idolatrous worship at night (Jub. 12.12; Judg 6:25–32).
More subtle, but no less intriguing, are a number of verbal connections between the narratives. For instance, in Judg 7:3 God instructs Gideon to announce to his men, “Let anybody who is timid and fearful turn back and make like a bird (
) from Mount Gilead.” Even more curious is the phrase 
noted as the place where Gideon, after his victory, slays the first of the two generals, Oreb/Raven and Ze'ev/Wolf (7:25; cf. Isa 10:26 ® Isa 9:3). This phrase, , is usually translated as a place name “at the Rock of Oreb” or “at the Rock of Raven.” But the form itself could also quite easily be construed in connection with the verb 
“be hard pressed, afflicted,” as indeed the Old Greek translator of Isaiah understood the phrase in 
-Isa 10:26 ( = ἐν τόπῳ θλίψεως “in the Place of Affliction”).Footnote 52
We thus find a general similarity of plot conflict, with conspicuous verbal correspondences, as well as several verbal curiosities, such as the metaphorical comparison of men with birds and a phrase with the potential to be realized as “the affliction of ravens.” Viewing them together, some kind of connection between the story of Gideon in Judges 6–8 and the Abram/Ravens tale in Jubilees 11 would seem quite evident. But what is the nature of this literary association between Abraham and Gideon in Jubilees? Fascinating to note here are the numerous typological structures built into the presentation of Gideon in the Judges narrative itself—typological structures that serve above all to link Gideon and Abraham. An association between these two figures in the book of Jubilees is therefore by no means arbitrary. Indeed, upon closer examination it proves to represent a further link in an intertextual chain that is very much a part of the compositional development of these scriptural texts that serve as the source for Jubilees.
2.3.1 Narrative Analogies between Gideon and Abraham
The most obvious connection between Gideon and Abraham relates to the battle scene in each (Genesis 14 // Judges 7–8). The correspondences include:
1. The number of men: 318 for Abram and 300 for Gideon (Gen 14:14 // Judg 7:6). In both narratives, the point of this miniscule number is that the eventual victory is nothing short of miraculous and is accomplished solely by means of God's assistance. This is explicit in Judges: “The Lord said to Gideon, ‘The troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. Israel would only take the credit away from me, saying, “My own hand has delivered me” ’ ” (7:2; cf. 7:4). In Genesis, this same point is made by means of the connection between Genesis 14 and 15 (
, literally “My God is help,” and numerically = 318 []).Footnote 532. The course of the battle: both follow the same sequence. Abram “divides” his 318 men “at night,” “strikes” the enemy and “pursues after them” a great distance:
(Gen 14:15). So also Gideon: (Judg 7:16); (7:23; cf. Isa 10:26: ).3. The location: a valley (
) provides the setting of both stories. This is called “the Valley of the King” () in Genesis 14:17, a notable detail given that the Gideon narrative as a whole turns on the question of kingship (see Judg 8:18, 22–23).4. Amalek: both battles somehow involve Amalekites. In Gen 14:7 “they [the four allied kings eventually defeated by Abraham] smote the entire field of the Amalekites” (
). In Judg 6:33; 7:12 the Amalekites are among those struck down by Gideon's forces.5. The aftermath: in Genesis 14, Melchizedek, king of Salem/
, meets Abram along the way of his return from the battle and brings out bread (14:18: ). “Bread” is precisely what Gideon seeks after the battle, but is not given (Judg 8:5; 15: ), for which he punishes the people of Succoth and Penuel according to his word after he “returns in peace” (Judg 8:9: ). Abram thereupon solemnly refuses the battle spoils as a model of virtuosity and faith (Gen 14:22–24). Gideon, by contrast, takes a portion of the Midianite plunder and makes of it a golden ephod that becomes the cause of great apostasy (Judg 8:24–27).Footnote 54
Beyond these, there are several other minor connections one might note, such as the fact that both Abram and Gideon are dwelling near prominent trees at the time of the divine encounter—Abraham at “the terebinths of Mamre the Amorite” (
; Gen 14:13; see also 13:18), Gideon at “the terebinth at Ofrah which belongs to Joash the Abiezrite” (
; Judg 6:11). One might also note the prominence of 
“peace” in the Gideon narrative (Judg 6:23–24 [note the name of his altar in v. 24: 
]; 8:9); cf. Gen 14:18; 15:15. Also interesting is “the son of [Abraham's] house, Eliezer (
) in Genesis 15 and Gideon's own connection to Abiezer (
), repeatedly mentioned in the narrative (Judg 6:34; 6:11; 8:2; cf. 6:23–24).
The parallels extend beyond the battle narrative. Compare, for example, Abraham's divine visitation in Gen 18:1–8 with the visitation of the angel in Judges 6.
1 The lord appeared to him (
) by the terebinths of Mamre (
); he was sitting (
) at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot. 2 Looking up, he saw three men standing near him. As soon as he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them and he bowed to the ground 3 and he said, “My lords, if I have found favor in your sight (
), do not go on past your servant (
). 4 Let a little water be brought; bathe your feet and recline under the tree (
). 5 And let me fetch a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves; then go on—seeing that you have come your servant's way.” They replied, “Do as you have said.” 6 Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Quick, three seahs of choice flour! Knead and make cakes (
)!” 7 Then Abraham ran to the herd, took a calf, tender and choice, and gave it to a servant-boy, who hastened to prepare it (
). 8 He took curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared (
) and set these before them (
); and he waited on them under the tree (
) and they ate (
). (Gen 18:1–8)
11 An angel of the lord came and sat under the terebinth (
) at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite. His son Gideon was then beating out wheat inside a winepress in order to keep it safe from the Midianites. 12 The angel of the lord appeared to him (
) [. . .] 17 And he said to him, “If I have found favor in your sight (
), give me a sign that it is you who are speaking to me: 18 do not leave from here (
) until I come back to you and bring out my offering and place it before you (
).” And he answered, “I will stay until you return.” 19 So Gideon went in and prepared a kid and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour (
).Footnote 55 He put the meat in a basket (
) and poured the broth into a pot, and he brought them out to him under the terebinth (
) and he presented them. 20 the angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, put them on yonder rock, and spill out the broth.” He did so. 21 The angel of the lord held out the staff that he carried, and touched the meat and the unleavened bread with its tip. A fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread (
). And the angel of the lord vanished from his sight. (Judg 6:11–12, 17–21)
It goes without saying that not all of these individual connections bear equal argumentative weight. Taken together, however, they make a rather strong case that the Gideon narrative is itself deliberately shaped in relation to Abraham.
2.3.2 Abraham, Gideon, and Psalm 110
One can observe the typological correspondence between Abraham and Gideon quite strikingly in another text as well, Psalm 110. This psalm contains the only mention of Melchizedek in the Hebrew Bible apart from Genesis 14. Moreover, on close examination, there are a number of intriguing features of the psalm's wording and imagery that suggest some kind of connection with Abraham traditions. This was well recognized in Jewish interpretation (see Rashi, ad loc, summarizing earlier tradition; cf. b. Ned 32b).
At the same time, there are other curious elements of the psalm that seem to point in the direction of Gideon. For instance, within the Hebrew Bible, only in the case of Gideon is God's election of a victorious ruler authenticated by, or even associated with, morning “dew” (
), as depicted in Ps 110:3 (
; cf. Judg 6:36–40, where occurs four times in as many verses). As A. Schenker has noted, once this connection is established, many other commonalities between Psalm 110 and Gideon become apparent, such as the mention of “youth” (Ps 110:3; Judg 6:15); of “smiting kings” (Ps 110:5; Judg 8:2; cf. 7:25); of a large number of corpses strewn across a great expanse of land (Ps 110:6: 
; Judg 8:10; cf. 7:22–24); of an “army” (called an 
) characterized by generosity (Ps 110:3; Judg 8:24–27; cf. 7:4–8); and, last but not least, of military victory associated with drinking water from a stream and lifting the head (Ps 110:6; Judg 7:4–8 with 8:28).Footnote 56
While one can say much more about these features of the psalm and their overall function or purpose, it suffices here simply to note that the typological correspondence between Abraham and Gideon that is clear in the Judges narrative also comes to expression in Psalm 110, particularly in its masoretic textual form.Footnote 57 It is not surprising, then, to find a similar correspondence between Abraham and Gideon (and David!) reflected in other texts as well, such as 1 Chron 21:18–27.Footnote 58
2.3.3 Gideon, Abraham, and Moses
But the connections with Abraham in the Gideon narrative go even deeper, insofar as they include within their purview many well-recognized correspondences to stories about Moses. The opening of the story of Gideon, for instance, relates specifically to the commissioning scene of Moses in Exodus 3 and not merely to a conventional type-scene.Footnote 59 Gideon's battle against Midian, Amalek, and the Sons of the East in Judges 7–8 also appears to have connections with Moses's battle against Amalek in Exodus 17, another story of a battle (with Amalek) that spec-ifically underscores the dependence on divine assistance for victory (expressed in this case by the need for Moses to keep his staff raised [vv. 11–12]).Footnote 60 But, here again, as others have noted, this story in Exodus is itself aligned within the broader compositional structure of the Pentateuch in such a way that it corresponds to Abraham's battle in Genesis 14. Indeed, it is part of an entire series of structural parallels in which Abraham's life prefigures the life of Moses and the nation.Footnote 61 One could say much more in this connection, but by way of simple illustration:
In light of these connections, it can hardly be a coincidence that Gideon's firstborn son happens to be named Jether (
; Judg 8:20), which is another name ascribed to Jethro within the text of Exodus (Exod 4:18).
Thus, it is evident that the presentation of Gideon—with simultaneous reference to Abraham and to Moses—itself mirrors literary strategies at work in the shaping of this material in the Pentateuch. These narratives of Abraham and Moses are brought into literary correspondence by means of a large-scale typological patterning. The Gideon narrative appears to pick up on these hermeneutic trajectories and to extend them. It seems to me that the ravens story in Jubilees represents another reflex of precisely the same impulse, a continuation of this same mode of traditionary development.
2.3.4 Jubilees 11 and Gideon: Summary
Returning to our point of departure, the ravens narrative in Jubilees, it seems clear that the Gideon parallel supplies the general storyline: oppression (specifically related to sowing seed, the destruction of land and produce by an enemy swarm, and the reduction of the people to poverty), deliverance from evil forces by a youthful hero who also destroys a center of idolatrous worship at night, and so forth.
The victorious actions of Gideon at the Rock/Affliction of Raven (
), where the people are delivered from the oppression of “Midian and Amalek and the Sons of the East,” are literarily parallel to Abram's battle in Genesis 14 and Moses's battle against Amalek in Exodus 17. All are miraculous victories that underscore a dependence on divine intervention. The ravens tradition in Jubilees 11 develops out of these existing literary connections between Gideon, Moses, and Abraham. This author clearly recognized such connections and, as it appears, exegetically inferred, deduced, or extrapolated from them a further event that transpired during Abraham's youth.Footnote 64 In other words, this narrative was produced on the basis of and in response to the typological correspondences built into the narratives of Abraham and Moses and Gideon. Those existing textual connections not only opened up space for but also actively suggested or implied for this author a story about Abram's defeat of the ravens. Just as other scriptural traditions take Gideon's victory 
as a model for a future defeat of “Assyria” (Isa 10:26; cf. 9:3), so also is this deliverance itself seen as prefigured by Abraham (and Moses).Footnote 65
2.4 Etymology of Terah's Name ( )
If I have seen the matter correctly, the Gideon/Abraham correspondence, on the one hand, and the covenant between the pieces, on the other hand, go a long way toward explaining the basic structure of Jubilees 11 and many of its specific features. But the ravens narrative is more subtle and complex still, and one can discern additional textual connections. Consider the ostensible anchor of the tradition in the text of Jubilees, the interpretive crux of the supposed etymology of Terah's name (Jub. 11.12): “For this reason he named him Terah: because the ravens and birds reduced them to poverty and ate their seed.”Footnote 66
This is one of many places in Jubilees where access to the specific formulation of the original Hebrew would be highly desirable. Many have attempted to explain the etymology of Terah offered in Jub. 11.Footnote 67 Jerome explicitly appealed to Jubilees when he indicated in comments on Num 33:27 that 
means abactor, depulsor, since Terah was known for driving off ravens from the field.Footnote 68 After listing many possible options for the derivation (Aram. 
“vertreiben”; 
“ausspähen”; 
“brechen, abschlagen, auflösen, wegwerfen”; 
“wandern”; 
“Bewegung, Zerstreuung, ein die Zerstreuung Veranlassender”), Beer concludes with the following assessment: “Hierzu gelangt, läßt sich vermuthen, dass auch die oben angeführte Erzählung im Buch der Jubil., wornach Terach die Raubvögel verscheuchte oder zerstreute, aus nurgedachter Deutung der Namens 
als ‘Zerstreuer’ ihre Entstehung habe, welcher Ursprung aber dem Hieronymus nicht bekannt war.”Footnote 69 In a similar way, Rönsch wondered whether Jubilees derived 
from 
“to blow away, to scare away by blowing” (on analogy to “its synonym 
”).Footnote 70 Though such a derivation would seem to provide a needed exegetical connection between the name of Terah and Gen 15:11 (
), it makes no sense of the actual etymology offered in Jub. 11.12: “For this reason he named him Terah: because the ravens and birds reduced them to poverty and ate their seed.” Here, Terah is supposed to be related to “reduction to poverty,” not “scaring away.” Indeed, much of the speculation on the derivation of the name (Ewald, Rönsch, Beer) explains only Jerome's comment that Terah means “one who drives away” and not the usage in Jubilees. Yet it is not at all clear how Jerome's comment relates to the book of Jubilees in its preserved form(s). It seems likely, in fact, that the comment represents a different tradition, perhaps one based on a distortion or misunderstanding of Jub. 11.
On the other hand, some commentators have attempted to make sense of the etymology in the context of Jubilees itself. Charles, for example, suggested that “[t]he Ethiopic here = ἐπτώχισαν αὐτούς, but it could also be a rendering of ἔθλιψαν or ἐκάκωσαν. Hence this verb may go back to the Chaldee verb 
‘to ravage, devastate’.”Footnote 71 Note, however, in light of the discussion above that the phrase “reduced them to poverty” seems to reflect Judg 6:6 
(
καὶ ἐπτώχευσεν Ισραηλ), and one does not require a verb cognate with 
in this context. More compelling than Charles's connection with Aramaic 
(properly “to break, shatter,” which does not really correspond to the actions of the ravens) is Goldmann's suggestion that Jubilees connects 
with 
“to trouble, burden,” although it does not seem necessary to claim, as he does, that this was due to an actual “phonetic” spelling in the underlying Hebrew text of Genesis.Footnote 72 Of all the proposed solutions, this derivation seems to make the most sense of the text of Jub. 11.12.Footnote 73
Based on the discussion above (§ 2.1–3), the covenant between the pieces and the Gideon narrative together appear to have provided the basic material for identifying the troubled circumstances supposed to underlie Terah's name with the plague of ravens. In the absence of the precise Hebrew reading, the mechanism for the etymological derivation must remain uncertain. But if we assume that it is indeed based on a perceived semantic association with 
, as seems reasonable, this suggests an intriguing connection with another passage: Job 37:11, which is the only verbal occurrence of 
in the Hebrew Bible:Footnote 74
. In this section of the book, Elihu attempts to instruct Job about the great power and justice of God as evident from his control of meteorological phenomena. The precise sense of 37:11 is not clear within this context, and the variety of interpretations in antiquity attests to the difficulty of the verse.Footnote 75 The first clause is particularly obscure: what does 
mean and how does it relate to 
? In any event, the activity depicted in this verse is supposed to demonstrate that God accomplishes “all that he commands . . . upon the face of the inhabited earth,” whether for scourge or for blessing (vv. 12–13). In relation to Jubilees 11, several features of Job 37:11 might be noted:
1. The (exclusive) use of the verb
, which, if connected to Terah/, plays a key linking role within the raven pericope in Jubilees.2. The role of a (troubling or burdensome) “cloud” (
), a term also applied to the ravens in Jub. 11.19, 20 (but which is absent from the description of Judg 6:5 ).3. The mention of
, which was construed by other early interpreters as referring either to a “chosen one” (; α’ θ’) or to “fruit” (), either of which would be relevant in connection with Jubilees 11 (11,13 “fruit of the trees” and “fruit of the earth”).4. The role of
“his (God's) light” in this verse and Abraham's association with the “light” God appoints to the nations () in Isaiah.Footnote 76
The hypothesis that Job 37:11 was evoked for the author by the presumed etymology of Terah's name and read back into the narrative of Abraham's youthFootnote 77 would account for certain details of the Jubilees story that are not otherwise explicable on the basis of Gen 15 or the Gideon narrative: the relation between Terah/“trouble” (
) and the “cloud” (
) of birds, both in relation to Abraham (cf. 
).Footnote 78 Though admittedly speculative, it would be entirely consistent with the complex literary and exegetical activity of this author elsewhere.Footnote 79
In any case, in terms of “exegetical function,” this hypothesis still does not account for all the features of the raven pericope, which cannot be reduced either to an exegesis of Genesis 15, to an etymology of Terah's name, or to an etiology of the seed-plow.Footnote 80 Further consideration of the particulars of the story reveals the clear and literarily important function of this text within the overall narrative strate gy of the book of Jubilees. To this strategic function we now turn.
3.0 Other Sources
It appears that the composer of the raven story has incorporated elements from a number of sources. For example, in addition to Genesis 15, aspects of other divine promises to Abram appear to be reflected. One finds unmistakable resonances of Gen 12:2–3 (
; “and I shall bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing . . . and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”) in Jubilees 11. Besides the overall picture of the Chaldeans being blessed through Abram's action (11.22 “and they ate and were satisfied”; 11.24 “and they were no longer afraid of the birds”; compare Judg 8:28; cf. Lev 25:19), Jub. 11.21 anticipates the wording of Gen 12:2 with the comment that “[Abram's] name became great (
) throughout the entire land of the Chaldeans.”Footnote 81
But some features of the narrative cannot be explained adequately by appeal to scriptural materials relating to Abraham. Two prominent examples are Abram's supplying food for all the people of the land during the famine (Jub. 11.22; cf. v. 13) and Abram's teaching the Chaldeans the technology of the seed-plow (Jub. 11.23–24). These are not minor details within the story but key plot elements; yet they have no apparent grounding in scriptural texts about Abraham.
The presentation of Abraham as introducer of the seed-plow technology, and specifically in a Mesopotamian context, doubtless reflects an awareness of and engagement with Mesopotamian mythology, according to which Enlil was the inventor of the plow-seeder.Footnote 82 And surely the Deutero-Isaianic idol polemic (in connection with Abraham and Babylon)Footnote 83 is not far from the surface when Jub. 11.23 (in anticipation of his turn from idolatry in Jubilees 12) describes Abram teaching “the skillful woodworkers” of Chaldea the salvific technology of the seed-plow (compare the work of the 
“skillful woodworker” lampooned in Isa 40:19; cf. 41:7).
But this polemical play with the ancient Near Eastern culture-bringer traditions, while certainly a clever and significant aspect of the narrative, again falls well short of accounting for the nature and function of the pericope as a whole.Footnote 84 Nor should these cultural connections obscure the fact that, when viewed within the context of the book of Jubilees, such details belong to a broader interpretive pattern, forming clear analogies to the presentation of other key patriarchal figures such as Adam, Enoch, Noah, and Joseph. Consider the following passage concerning Adam in the Garden of Eden:
15 During the first week of the first jubilee Adam and his wife spent the seven years in the Garden of Eden working and guarding it. We gave him work and were teaching him (how) to do everything that was appropriate for working (it). 16 While he was working (it) he was naked but did not realize (it) nor was he ashamed. He would guard the garden against birds, animals, and cattle.Footnote 85 He would gather its fruit and eat (it) and would store its surplus for himself and his wife. He would store what was being kept. (Jub. 3.15–16)
To this, compare Jub. 11.13, which articulates a reversal of that situation.Footnote 86
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.
Here it appears that Abraham's role as a defender against avian threat (Gen 15:11) is retrojected back onto Adam, and Abraham's own actions are thereby brought into continuity with a paradisiacal ideal. Placed within this larger plotline, both Abram's teaching and his actions become salvific acts of the first order.Footnote 87 Similarly, the depiction both of Adam's storing of surplus and of the Chaldean farmers coming to Abraham for food and following his orders throughout the year of harvest bears strong verbal and thematic resemblance to the biblical depiction of Joseph in Egypt. See, e.g.:
54 And the seven years of famine began to come . . . and a famine was in all the lands, but in the entire land of Egypt there was bread. 55 And when all the land of Egypt was famished, it cried out to Pharoah for bread and Pharoah said to all of Egypt, “Go to Joseph! Do what he tells you.” 56 And the famine was upon the entire face of the earth. (Gen 41:54–56)
17 And they brought their flocks to Joseph and Joseph gave them bread . . . in that year. 18 And when that year ended they came to him in the second year and they said to him . . . (Gen 47:17–18)
13 The years began to be unfruitful due to the birds.Footnote 88 . . . 22 All who were planting seed came to him in this year, and he kept going with them until the seedtime came to an end. They planted their land and that year brought in enough food. So they ate and were filled.Footnote 89 . . . 24 . . . and all the land did as Abram told them. So they were no longer afraid of the birds. (Jub. 11.13; 22; 24)
It appears then, that the presentations of Adam and Abraham in Jubilees have been constructed in part on analogy to the biblical depiction of Joseph.Footnote 90 There are also similarities with the portrayal of Noah in Jubilees, and indeed, elsewhere in the book the continuity between Noah and Abraham is explicit.Footnote 91 In the raven pericope, like Noah, Abraham preserves life in the face of the earth's destruction (
) and removes a curse from the land (Gen 9:21 → Gen 5:29).Footnote 92
Note, furthermore, the function of teaching in all of these instances. Angels teach Adam in the Garden how to work and keep it, so that he drives away birds and other animals and stores up surplus (Jub. 3.15–16); Abraham teaches the Chaldeans the seed-plow technology, which has the effect of counteracting the evil of the demonic birds:
In the first year of the fifth week Abram taught the people who made equipment for bulls—the skillful woodworkers—and they made an implement above the ground, opposite the plow beam, so that one could place seed on it. The seed would then drop down from it onto the end of the plow and be hidden in the ground; and they would no longer be afraid of the ravens. (Jub. 11.23)
According to Jubilees 10, Noah also transmitted teaching with a similar prophylactic function:
9 Then he said that a tenth of them should be left before him, while he would make nine parts descend to the place of judgment. 10 He told one of us that we should teach Noah all their medicines because he knew that they would neither conduct themselves properly nor fight fairly. 11 We acted in accord with his entire command. All of the evil ones who were savage we tied up in the place of judgment, while we left a tenth of them to exercise power on the earth before the satan. 12 We explained to Noah all the medicines for their diseases with their deceptions so that he could cure (them) by means of the earth's plants. 13 Noah wrote down in a book everything (just) as we had taught him regarding all the kinds of medicine, and the evil spirits were precluded from pursuing Noah's children.Footnote 93 (Jub. 10.10–13)
In Jubilees 11, the causal force behind the oppressive birds is Mastema (cf. Hos 9:7), leader of all evil forces in the world.Footnote 94 It is noteworthy then that the teaching of Abraham regarding the plow has the same effect as Noah's teaching about medicines—both function to counteract the forces of evil. Indeed, the reasons for these analogies between Abraham, Noah, and Joseph appear to be closely related to the teaching of Jubilees regarding the role of evil in the world and in relation to the chosen line. The passage about Noah's teaching is one of the few explicit discussions of demons in relation to the promised line within the book.Footnote 95 Similarly, Jubilees makes a special point to note (twice) that during Joseph's days “there was no satan or any evil one” (Jub. 40.9; 46.2). This statement occurs in two other strategic locations in Jubilees. The so-called apocalypse of Jubilees 23 declares that in the future, in the days when “the children will begin to study the laws, to seek out the commands, and to return to the right way” (v. 26), “there will be neither a satan nor any evil one who will destroy” (v. 29). Again, the final chapter of the book returns to the topic with the statement that “[t]he jubilees will pass by until Israel is pure of every sexual evil, impurity, contamination, sin, and error. Then they will live confidently in the entire land. They will no longer have any satan or any evil person. The land will be pure from that time until eternity” (50.5). Such passages correspond to the historical program outlined in the first chapter of the book (esp. 1.15–18, 23–25).Footnote 96 We see, then, that the days of Joseph's rule are cast as a narrative example for the future, when Israel turns from error and returns fully to the Torah. In the same way, in Jubilees 11 Abram's separation from idolatry (Jub. 11.16–17) is directly related to the counteraction of evil (birds sent by Mastema; Jub. 11.11–13, 18–24). His success in this matter is depicted narratively as a consequence of his turning from idolatry and separation from the Chaldean ways of his father.Footnote 97
In sum, then, the actions of Abram in the raven pericope are connected to a series of structurally decisive texts and thematic emphases of the book of Jubilees as a literary whole.Footnote 98 The narrative analogy between young Abraham, Adam, Noah, and Joseph plays an important role in the compositional strategy of the book of Jubilees, which emphasizes the deep continuities among righteous forefathers and between them and their future descendants.Footnote 99 Here again, the profoundly intertextual and analogical presentation in Jubilees follows hermeneutic trajectories inherent within its source, taking up and extending these same typological strategies already at work in the multilayered presentation of these figures within the composition of Genesis itself.Footnote 100 “The new is said in the old, because the old includes the new within it; the old is said anew because the new goes forth from the old.”Footnote 101
4.0 Conclusions
Some of the conclusions of this study may therefore be summarized as follows:
1. Though features of the raven story certainly derive from Genesis 15, the narrative in Jubilees is not an interpretation of that passage.
2. The transfer of the bird motif from Genesis 15 to Abraham's youth in Ur of the Chaldeans is based on the thoroughgoing analogies between Gideon and Abraham. These analogies provide both the exegetical warrant and the raw material for the story in Jubilees, triangulated with the supposed etymology of Terah's name (possibly in connection with Job 37:11). If it is related at all, the Epistle of Jeremiah appears not to have played a decisive role.
3. The pericope incorporates details from other passages relating to Abraham (Gen 12:2–3) and large-scale parallels with the portrayal of other patriarchs (Adam, Noah, Joseph).
4. Although the passage clearly responds to Mesopotamian traditions regarding the origin of the seed-plow, such is not its primary function.
5. The raven narrative in Jubilees is part of a larger compositional strategy. It displays close connections with structurally determinative texts in Jubilees (chapters 1, 23, and 50) and is concerned with fundamental thematic elements that are characteristic of the author's viewpoint (e.g., demons and evil forces in the world, separation from the ways of the Gentiles). The nature of its “exegetical function” must be understood in light of this fact.
6. Given the function of the pericope within this broader narrative strategy, both the placement (in Abraham's youth) and the specific form of the raven tradition are very likely the creation of the author of Jubilees himself. This has important implications for our understanding of other reflexes of the tradition (such as those presented in the Syriac sources).
This deceptively simple-looking narrative is formed on the basis of large-scale analogies—analogies imbedded in the literary shape of its sources or that follow from hermeneutic trajectories inherent within them. The story springs in equal measure from minute details of textual wording and implicature as well as from macrostructural comparisons of the largest scale. It is the product of intense exegetical engagement with a corpus of authoritative tradition that is regarded as a coherent and relevant intertextual whole. Jubilees, by means of its exegetical rewriting, distills the teaching of that broader scriptural corpus and focuses it upon issues of greatest concern to the author and his time. Within such rewriting one observes a continuation or further extension of traditionary processes at work in the redactional development of the scriptural books themselves.Footnote 102
The Abram/ravens narrative in Jubilees is not adequately explained as an exegetical response to Genesis 15 triggered by perceived theological or textual difficulties (Crawford), nor is it reducible to an etiology of the seed-plow (Brock).Footnote 103 Rather, it must be understood as part of a larger strategy in Jubilees and its construal of Genesis–Exodus within a more extensive corpus of authoritative tradition. Any attempt to explain its “exegetical function” must also account for this narrative function.
To the degree that this is the case, one must recognize the false dichotomy inherent in claims to the effect that “the ravens episode is designed to resolve exegetical questions rather than narrative or theological questions,”Footnote 104 along with the limitations of broader generalizations such as that “[a]ncient biblical interpretation is an interpretation of verses not stories.”Footnote 105 This narrative is indeed in some sense “exegetical,” inasmuch as it is an intensely text-oriented and interpretive product. Although it is not “commentary” as such, the story exhibits patent signs of having been derived from a comprehensive and penetrating interpretive engagement with a corpus of scriptural literature; it arises from the shape, wording, concepts, connections, and implications of these mutually illuminating texts.Footnote 106 Yet the problems it addresses are macrostructural, intertextual, theological, and narrative in nature.Footnote 107 This broader sense of “exegetical function” must be taken into account in the attempt to understand the genesis and hermeneutics of scriptural rewriting as a form of literary, theological, and interpretive production in antiquity.
