NO FAITHFUL OATHS: A COMPARISON OF ESAU’S SPEECH IN
JUBILEES 37:18-23 WITH ACHILLES’ SPEECH IN ILIAD 22.260-272

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by
JAMES R. HAMRICK

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A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS
in
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
Master of Arts in Biblical Studies

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We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard

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Dr. James M. Scott, Dr. theol.; Thesis Supervisor
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Dr. Dirk Büchner, D. Litt.; Second Reader

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TRINITY WESTERN UNIVERSITY
June 2014

© James R. Hamrick

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ABSTRACT
Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the mid-twentieth century scholars have made
significant progress in understanding the Book of Jubilees, yet very little work has been done
exploring this composition within its broader non-Jewish Hellenistic literary and cultural context.
The handful of studies that have addressed this issue show that Jubilees was conversant with
Greek intellectual traditions, demonstrating the potential fruitfulness of this area of research and
the need to explore it further. This thesis attempts a modest contribution to this task by
examining Esau's speech to Jacob in Jubilees 37:18-23 in light of Achilles' speech to Hector in
Iliad 22:260-272. This comparison reveals that Esau’s speech exhibits notable similarities to
Achilles’ speech in literary setting, rhetorical purpose, rhetorical mechanism, use of imagery,
syntax, vocabulary, and characterization. These similarities are best explained as the result of the
author of Jubilees intentionally adopting and adapting elements of the Iliad for his own purposes.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………......…i
Table of Contents................................................................................................................ii-iv

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….1
Chapter 1: Hellenism and Jubilees -- A Brief Review of Scholarship………………….3
Chapter 2: Achilles…………………………………………………………………………14
Literary Context………………………………………………………………………….14
The Opening Plea……………………………………………………...............................16
The Speech…………………………………………………………….............................20
The Resolution………………………………………………...........................................31
Characterization………………………………………………………………………….34
Animal Imagery……………………………………………………………….….35
Refusal of an Oath………………………………………………………………..37
Shaming Hector’s Corpse………………………………………………………...39
Reception History………………………………………………………………..45
Chapter 3: Esau......................................................................................................................61
Literary Context…………………………………………………………………………61
The Book of Jubilees…………………………………………………………….61

iii

Source-Critical Context…………………………………………………….…….62
Immediate Literary Context………………………………………………….…..66
Text and Translation……………………………………………………………………..70
Ge‘ez Text…………………………………………………………………..……72
Translation……………………………………………………………………….73
The Opening Plea……………………………………………………...............................74
The Speech………………………………………………………….................................75
Humans and Snakes……………………………………………………................75
The Conditional Statements……………………………………………...............78
The Physical Transformation Statements………………………..79
The Social Transformation Statements…………………………..87
Separated Breasts………………………………………………...93
The Speech’s Conclusion………………………………………………...............94
The Resolution……………………………………………………...................................95
Characterization………………………………………………………………………….96
Animals…………………………………………………………………………..97
Oaths……………………………………………………………………………101
Chapter 4: Comparison…………………………………………………………………104

iv

Literary Context……………………………………………………………...…………109
The Opening Plea…………………………………………………….............................112
The Speech……………………………………………………………...........................112
The Resolution……………………………………………………….............................120
Characterization………………………………………………………………………...122
Additional Points of Contact with Homeric Epic and the Broader Greek Tradition…...124
Accessibility…………………………………………………………………………….137
The Epic of Theodotus..........................................................................................144
Tobit.....................................................................................................................146
Ben Sira................................................................................................................147
Rabbinic Literature...............................................................................................150
Motivation...........................................................................................................151
Analogy…………………………………………………………………………………153
Interpretability……………………………………………………………………….....159
Chapter 5: Conclusion……………………………………………………………………169
Bibliography.........................................................................................................................176
Appendix I: Notes on the Text of Jubilees 37:17-25.........................................................190

1

INTRODUCTION
A major desideratum for scholarship on the Book of Jubilees is exploration of this Palestinian
Jewish composition within the context of the broader Hellenistic cultural and literary world.
With this study we attempt a modest contribution to this task by examining Esau's speech to
Jacob in Jubilees 37:18-23 in light of Achilles' speech to Hector in Iliad 22:260-272. We will
argue that Esau’s speech exhibits notable similarities to Achilles’ speech in literary setting,
rhetorical purpose, rhetorical mechanism, use of imagery, syntax, vocabulary, and
characterization, and that these similarities are best explained as the result of the author of
Jubilees intentionally adopting and adapting elements of the Iliad for his own purposes.
We will begin our study with a brief and selective history of scholarship on the relationship
between Jubilees and the Hellenisticc world. The purpose here will be to situate our own
argument within existing scholarly discourse on Jubilees, as well as to identify antecedents and
analogues that will both strengthen our case and guide our interpretation of the data.
We are writing under the assumption that the best kinds of comparative works are ones that
treat the texts being compared with their own individual integrity. Before we compare two texts
we need to understand them in their own right, on their own terms, and in their own respective
contexts.1 Beyond the fact that it seems fitting to show such respect to the texts, a careful
individual analysis of the works may also alert us to similarities we might otherwise have missed
as well as prevent superficial comparisons. Thus, following our history of scholarship we will

1

Although if one text is ultimately dependent on another, that text cannot be treated with
integrity until it has been studied in light of its antecedent.

2

give extensive (though not exhaustive) individual treatments to the speeches of Achilles and Esau.
While we want to take each text seriously in its own right, our discussions will be structured in a
way that will allow for easier comparison.
Finally, we will engage in the work of comparison between our two texts, looking at their
various points of similarity and dissimilarity. While we believe that such a comparison is
valuable regardless of how one understands the genetic relationship between the two texts, we
will argue that there is enough evidence within the texts themselves and in the broader literary and
cultural context to make a plausible case for the influence of the Iliad on Esau's speech.

3

CHAPTER ONE
HELLENISM AND JUBILEES: A BRIEF REVIEW OF SCHOLARSHIP
Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls research on Jubilees has expanded significantly. 1
Despite the increased scholarly attention, there are relatively few studies that seek to understand
Jubilees as a text that has been complexly shaped by and in turn contributes to its broader, nonJewish Hellenistic literary and cultural environment.2 There may be several reasons for this.
First, since the Qumran discoveries have been the impetus for much of the growth in Jubilees
research, scholarship has been particularly focused on exploring the relationship between Jubilees
and the Qumran community. 3 Second, in spite of the work of scholars like Martin Hengel, many
still seem to assume a dichotomy between Palestinian and Hellenistic/Diaspora Judaism. It is
assumed the latter texts have interacted quite seriously with the broader Greco-Roman world,
while the former texts have been somewhat insulated from such influences. Third, since Jubilees
1

Compare, for instance, the size of the pre-Qumran bibliography and the post-Qumran
bibliography in Veronika Bachmann and Isaac W. Oliver's "The Book of Jubilees: A
Bibliography, 1850-Present," in Enoch and the Mosaic Torah: The Evidence of Jubilees (ed.
Gabriele Boccaccini and Giovanni Ibba; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 441-468. The preQumran bibliography consists of 4 pages and the post-Qumran bibliography consists of over 22.
2
Even Martin Hengel gives the book little attention in his Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in
Their Encounter in Palestine During the Early Hellenistic Period (trans. John Bowden;
Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974). As Oliver and Bachmann note: "Surprisingly, Jubilees was
mentioned rather marginally in Hengel's influential work about Second Temple Judaism." Isaac
W. Oliver and Veronika Bachmann, "The Book of Jubilees: An Annotated Bibliography from the
First German Translation of 1850 to the Enoch Seminar of 2007," Henoch 31(2009): 136. This
may be partly due to the fact that Hengel seems to have assumed a date for Jubilees somewhat
later in the second century B.C. E. and the focus of his work is a bit earlier (Judaism and
Hellenism, 74).
3
Research on Hellenism and the Qumran community similarly remains a lacuna in scholarship.
Hengel referred to "Qumran and Hellenism" or "Essenism and Hellenistic civilization" as a "rich
and neglected subject" that is in need of a monograph length study. Martin Hengel, "Qumran and

4

has a nationalistic and separatist character, it is assumed that where it does show knowledge of or
interaction with its broader Hellenistic cultural context that it must be actively rejecting this
context. Fortunately there are some significant exceptions to these generalizations of scholarship,
and we believe these exceptions demonstrate the importance of studying Jubilees within its
broader Hellenic literary and cultural context. In this chapter we briefly explore some of these
exceptions, offering a cursory survey of the history of English language scholarship on Jubilees
and Hellenism.4
In some ways, the idea that Jubilees interacts with its Hellenic environment should be
relatively uncontroversial. In their attempts to date the book scholars often note that the author
of Jubilees was aware of and reacting to some of the practices that were introduced during the

Hellenism," in Religion in the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. John J. Collins and Robert Kugler; Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 55.
4
We are not attempting to provide an exhaustive survey. Our focus on English language
scholarship means we have not dealt, for instance, with Adolphe Büchler's "Traces des idées et
des coutumes hellénistiques dans le Livre des Jubilés," REJ 89 (1930): 321-348. We also have
not interacted with some of the earlier German language scholarship on Jubilees that argued for a
Hellenistic-Jewish and/or non-Palestinian provenance for the work. Oliver and Bachmann's "The
Book of Jubilees: An Annotated Bibliography" summarizes the arguments of these earlier
scholars. Adolphe Büchler also gives a brief summary of these positions in "Studies in the Book
of Jubilees," REJ 82 (1926): 254-256. This willingness among some pre-Qumran scholars to
identify Jubilees as an originally Greek composition and/or a book from the
Diaspora/"Hellenistic" Judaism seems to have been largely based on similarities between Jubilees'
source-text for Genesis-Exodus and the LXX as well as similarities between some of its
expansions and Jewish works identified as "Hellenistic." Qumran has confirmed that Jubilees
was a Hebrew composition (though we cannot rule out Greek source texts), the provenance of
some of the parallel "Hellenistic" Jewish works have since been placed in Palestine rather than
the Diaspora (Tobit, for instance; Büchler, "Studies in the Book of Jubilees," 255), and the
distinction between Palestinian/Rabbinic and Diaspora/Hellenistic Judaism has been seriously
challenged (though not entirely abandoned).

5

Hellenistic reforms in Jerusalem, specifically the nudity of the gymnasium.5 Jubilees' response
to nudity is just one example of a larger concern about contamination from the surrounding
nations.6 Such concern does not necessitate direct knowledge of Greek literature and traditions,
but it does show us that the author of Jubilees was aware of and responding to the acculturation
of some contemporary Jews to allegedly non-Jewish traditions. Such internal evidence suggests
that we should, at a very minimum, be attuned to the ways in which Jubilees may reference and
allude to Greek traditions in polemical contexts.
Some scholars have explored Jubilees' interaction with broader Hellenic culture further than
passing references to the polemic against Greek nudity. Most notable are P.S. Alexander and
James M. Scott's respective treatments of geographical traditions in chapters 8-9. Alexander
makes the argument that Jubilees' version of the Gen 10 Table of Nations tradition has been
shaped not only by the Old Testament, but also by Greek geographical conceptions, specifically
the Ionian map. Alexander sees the imago mundi of Jubilees as a clever integration of both
Israelite and Greek geography, with biblical elements worked into a basic Ionian framework. This
Ionian framework consisted of a vision of the earth as a three-continent disc with Delphi as its
center. This disc was surrounded by an ocean that made three primary incursions into the land
mass. In the hands of our ancient author this map was modified so that Jerusalem rather than
Delphi was the earth's center-point and the three continents were identified with the three sons
of Noah.7 Additionally, sacred sites like the garden of Eden and Sinai were incorporated.8 If

5

James C. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 20-21.
The key passage is Jub. 3:30-31.
6
Jub. 1:9, 13-14, 19; 6:35-37; 15:34; and 22:16-18.
7
Cf. Ezek 38:12.

6

correct, Alexander's argument has important implications for our own study and for Jubilees
scholarship in general.9 First, his specific proposal provides an analogue for our own argument,
as we will posit a similar integration of Greek and Israelite models in Esau's speech. Second, and
more importantly, Alexander's argument provides support for the idea that the author of Jubilees
— or at least the author(s) of some of the texts and traditions that were incorporated into
Jubilees — was conversant with the broader Hellenistic world and capable of creatively
appropriating non-Jewish traditions. In this regard Alexander makes the following bold
statement, worth quoting in full:
If what we have argued above is correct, then the world map represents in unusually
concrete form the harmonisation of the Bible and 'science': the author of Jubilees
interpreted the Bible in the light of the non-Jewish 'scientific' knowledge of his day. He
was, it seems, open and receptive to such alien knowledge and envisaged no fundamental
clash between it and the truth of the Bible. We found plenty of evidence that he was
acquainted with Greek geography and that his knowledge of the subject was in certain
respects rather advanced . . . In terms of general Hellenistic scholarship his geographical
knowledge must be adjudged perfectly respectable: it is roughly on a par with that
displayed in Ps-Artistotle's De Mundo. Knowledge of this order surely argues that the
author of Jubilees could read Greek and had studied the Greek geographical literature.
The original Hebrew Jubilees was probably written in Palestine in the mid-second century
BC. The Jubilees world map is one of the clearest examples we possess of the impact of
Hellenistic thought on the Palestinian Jewish cultural milieu at this period.10

8

P.S. Alexander, "Notes on the 'Imago Mundi' of the Book of Jubilees," JJS 33 (1982): 198-199.
VanderKam calls the parallels between Jubilees and the Greek geographical tradition identified
by Alexander and by Gustav Hölscher (Drei Erdkarten: Ein Beitrag zur Erkenntnis des
hebräischen Altertums [Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften,
philosophischhistorische Klasse 1944/1948, 3; Heidelberg: Carl Winter, Universitätsverlag,
1949], 57-73) before him "impressive." James C. VanderKam, "Putting Them in Their Place:
Geography as an Evaluative Tool," in Pursuing the Text: Studies in Honor of Ben Zion Wacholder
on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (ed. John C. Reeves and John Kampen; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 63.
10
P.S. Alexander, "Imago Mundi," 210-211.
9

7

In his work on the imago mundi of Jubilees James Scott also notes potential influences from
the Greek world, particularly the pereiegesis tradition.11 He observes the similarities between
Jubilees' tripartite division of the earth into three climactic zones and the Greco-Roman klimata
tradition, which similarly identifies three major climates and depicts the author's homeland as the
ideal, temperate zone.12 Jubilees 8:30 reads:

!"#$ % &'( % )*+ % !,-. % /, % 0(1 % )*+ % !,-. % 2,3 % 40(1 %
!4556 %*70 % $7#8 % )*+ % 9&( % !9:; <
. . . [the land of Japheth] is cold, and the land of Ham is hot, but the land of Shem is not
hot or cold because it is mixed with cold and heat.13
What may seem like an innocuous geographical detail actually becomes laden with meaning
when read against a broader Greco-Roman background. In the opening chapter to his The
Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity Benjamin Isaac explores the persistent and varied
Greco-Roman ethnographic tradition that saw an integral connection between the physical
environment of a region and the social, physical, and cultural characteristics of its inhabitants. 14
According to these ancient authors factors such as temperature and terrain played a major role in
shaping people groups. This link between physical environment and ethnic characteristics was
used in good ethnocentric fashion to elevate a given author's own people and homeland over that
of foreign lands and peoples. The tradition is not unanimous, however, concerning what

11

James M. Scott, Geography in Early Judaism and Christianity: The Book of Jubilees
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 32 and 193 n.32.
12
Scott, Geography, 33-34; Alexander, "Imago Mundi," 203.
13
Unless otherwise noted, the Ge'ez text and all English quotations of Jubilees are taken from
James C. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees (2 vols.; CSCO 510-511; Scriptores Aethiopici 8788; Lovanii: E. Peeters, 1989).
14
Benjamin H. Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2004), 55-178.

8

environmental conditions led to given character traits in a people. For example, some tradents
actually denigrate the peoples who dwell in moderate climates, claiming that such people are soft
and weak. Harsher climates and terrains produce people that are tougher. But there is another
tradition that sees the moderate climates as the best blend of the otherwise extreme characteristics
of those who dwell in hot and cold climates. For instance, "There is . . . evidence that Panaetius
and others who were Platonists asserted that a mild and well-balanced climate, such as that of
Attica, is conducive to wisdom. This idea also occurs elsewhere in Plato's work. In the Timaeus
he writes that the goddess Athena herself had chosen the site of Athens, for it has a 'temperate
climate throughout the seasons (which) would bring forth men of surpassing wisdom.'"15
Aristotle and the Roman Vitruvius illustrate this ancient geographical principle well:

The peoples of cold countries generally, and particularly those of Europe, are full of
spirit, but deficient in skill and intelligence; and this is why they continue to remain
comparatively free, but attain no political development and show no capacity for
governing others. The people of Asia are endowed with skill and intelligence, but are
deficient in spirit; and this is why they continue to be peoples of subjects and slaves.
The Greek stock, intermediate in geographical position, unites the qualities of both sets of
peoples. It possesses both spirit and intelligence: the one quality makes it continue free;
the other enables it to attain the highest political development, and to show a capacity for
governing every other people – if only it could once achieve political unity.16
This is also the reason why the races that are bred in the north are of vast height and have
fair complexions, straight red hair, gray eyes, and a great deal of blood, owing to the
abundance of moisture and the coolness of the atmosphere. On the contrary, those that are
nearest to the southern half of the axis, and that lie directly under the sun's course, are of
lower stature, with a swarthy complexion, hair curling, black eyes, and but little blood on
15

Isaac, Invention of Racism, 70. The primary references he cites are Proclus' Timaeum 50b and
Plato's Timaeus 24c. He also points us towards Photius' Bibliotheca 249.441a.13ff and Critias
109c; 111e.
16
Aristotle, Politica 1327b. Quoted in Isaac, Invention of Racism, 70-71.

9

account of the force of the sun. Hence, too this poverty of blood makes them over-timid to
stand up against the sword, but great heat and fevers they can endure without timidity,
because their frames are bred up in the raging heat. Hence, men that are born in the north
are rendered over-timid and weak by fever, but their wealth of blood enables them to stand
up against the sword without timidity. The pitch of the voice is likewise different . . . further
it is owing to the rarity of the atmosphere that southern nations, with their keen intelligence
due to the heat, are very free and swift in the devising of schemes, while northern nations,
being enveloped in a dense atmosphere and chilled by moisture from the obstructing air,
have but a sluggish intelligence. . . But although southern nations have the keenest wits, and
are infinitely clever in forming schemes, yet the moment it comes to displaying valour, they
succumb because all manliness of spirit is sucked out of them by the sun. On the other
hand, men born in cold countries are indeed readier to meet the shock of arms with great
courage and without timidity, but their wits are so slow that they will rush to the charge
inconsiderately and inexpertly, thus defeating their own devices . . . the truly perfect
territory, situated under the middle of the heaven, and having on each side the entire extent
of the world and its countries, is that which is occupied by the Roman people. In fact, the
races of Italy are the most perfectly constituted in both respects – in bodily form and in
mental activity to correspond to their valour . . . hence it was the divine intelligence that set
the city of the Roman people in a peerless and temperate country, in order that it might
acquire the right to command the whole world.17
Scott brings this tradition to bear on Jub. 8:30, noting that in light of this evidence Shem's
placement in the temperate zone "may have been understood in geopolitical terms" and that "the
Book of Jubilees clearly expects the descendants of Shem to rule the world from their privileged
position in the center of the earth."18
This further confirms Alexander's claim that the author of Jubilees was conversant with
broader Hellenistic traditions and was able to creatively appropriate elements of these traditions
for his own purposes. Jubilees' use of the climate-zone traditions is another example of the
integration of Israelite tradition (the division of the earth amongst the three sons of Noah) with
Greek tradition, which again provides an analogue for the arguments we will make regarding
Jubilees 37. It is also worth noting the subtlety of Jub. 8:30. There are no explicit textual
17
18

Vitruvius, 6.1.3-11. Quoted in Isaac, Invention of Racism, 83-84. Cf. Strabo 6.4.1 and 9.3.6.
Scott, Geography, 33. He points to Jub. 22:11-14, 19:21-22, and 32:18-19.

10

indicators (a quotation of Aristotle for instance) that the author is incorporating non-Jewish
traditions and no lengthy explanation of the geopolitical implications of the statement. Rather, he
seamlessly incorporates a brief comment in the text that would call forth a rich and meaningful
geographical tradition in the minds of the cultured reader.
Our survey of scholarship should interact briefly with Cana Werman's 2007 essay "Jubilees
in the Hellenistic Context," which is the only English-language resource to entirely devote itself
to the broader question of Hellenistic influence in the text. She argues that Jubilees had
knowledge of both Hellenistic science and literature and that the text "utilized its familiarity with
Hellenizing trends in order to rebut them."19 In her discussion of Hellenistic science in Jubilees
Werman draws upon the work of Alexander and affirms the general contours of his arguments.
She argues that Jubilees is dependent on the geographical traditions in the Genesis Apocryphon
and has revised and expanded these earlier traditions in light of Hellenistic geography. 20 She
further argues that "Jubilees had a detailed, presumably written, description of the Ionic map at
his disposal. His use of that literature, however, was quite selective, for his primary purpose
was to reject its influence . . . Seeking to erect a barrier between the Jewish people and a foreign
(in his view, idolatrous) culture, and to combat that culture, Jubilees borrowed a weapon from
Hellenistic culture itself . . ."21 It is interesting to note that she (1) believes Jubilees is making use

19

Cana Werman, "Jubilees in the Hellenistic Context," in Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation,
Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (ed. Lynn LiDonnici and Andrea Lieber; Leiden: Brill,
2007), 135.
20
Werman, "Hellenistic Context," 136-140. Scott also noted the similarities between Jubilees and
Genesis Apocryphon but left the question of dependence, which remains controversial, open
(Geography, 28).
21
Werman, "Hellenistic Context," 140.

11

of a literary source and (2) sees the appropriation of Greek geographical traditions as ultimately
polemical/subversive.
Werman notes other areas where Jubilees exhibits familiarity with non-Jewish traditions and
tendencies. In passing she sees the book's dating system as a reflection of the general Hellenistic
interest in chronology and sees the use of and emphasis on the Hebrew language as testimony to
"an intercultural struggle during the formative period, between the concepts of Judaism and
Hellenism."22 These are not her most convincing claims, as interest in chronology could be driven
by many factors, and the use of/emphasis on Hebrew could just as easily be seen as a reaction
against the longstanding post-exilic use of Aramaic in Palestine as a struggle with Hellenism.
More interesting is her argument that Jubilees' description of the rise of civilization and empire
reflects an identification of the biblical Nimrod with king Ninus, whom Greek historians identify
as the first emperor, which would demonstrate some interaction with Hellenistic
historiography. 23
Werman argues that Jubilees was not only familiar with non-Jewish Greek sources, but also
interacted with so-called "Hellenistic Jewish literature." This corpus of Jewish literature, which
for her includes texts like Ps.-Eupolemus and Artapanus, "was concerned . . . with the affirmation
of both Hellenism and Judaism, attempting to combine or at least to harmonize them."24 She
identifies two key techniques these authors used to accomplish this goal: the identification of
22

Werman, "Hellenistic Context," 135. Werman does not offer any primary sources regarding a
Hellenistic interest in chronology.
23
Werman, "Hellenistic Context," 147-148. She thinks it is likely that the author of Jubilees
actually read Hellenistic history books for himself, but admits that these traditions could have
been mediated through Jewish sources, such as a hypothetical Hellenistic-Jewish source Jubilees
and the Third Sibyl may have shared.

12

biblical and Greek figures and the portrayal of biblical figures as "culture heroes." Jubilees also
uses these techniques, but it is for "a diametrically opposite goal."25 Werman's observation that
Jubilees participates in some of the same kinds of cultural discourses that we see in so-called
Hellenistic Jewish works is good, and it echoes earlier scholars who noticed some similarity
between Jubilees and this corpus. 26 She is also right to point out some of the differences between
the ways in which Jubilees enters into this discourse and what we find in something like Ps.Eupolemus.27 We must wonder, however, if she improperly frames these differences when she
speaks of "diametrically opposite" goals or claims that "whereas Hellenistic Jewry utilized
culture heroes as a means of bridging the cultural distance between Judaism and Hellenism,
Jubilees deliberately uses them to amplify this distance."28 In actuality, Jubilees' interaction with
the non-Jewish world may have more in common with "Hellenistic Judaism" than Werman
allows. It is true that Jubilees specifically rejects particular forms of knowledge and practice like
astrology while other Jewish authors used the culture hero tactic to sanctify such knowledge, but
this does not entail a complete rejection of foreign culture. Neither should we characterize the
works of "Hellenistic Jews" as completely ecumenical, as one of the primary points of the
culture hero technique is to show that the Jews are superior to their neighbors. At their core,
Jubilees and the "Hellenistic" Jews are doing similar things: selectively interacting with and
adopting elements and traditions from their broader world and recasting them within a

24

Werman, "Hellenistic Context," 141-142.
Werman, "Hellenistic Context," 146.
26
Werman, "Hellenistic Context," 142-151 for her discussion of Jubilees and Hellenistic Jewish
historiography. On the earlier scholars see our comments in n.4 above.
27
Werman, "Hellenistic Context," 150-151.
28
Werman, "Hellenistic Context," 151.
25

13

specifically Jewish framework in such a way that the pride and primacy of the Jewish people is
maintained. The appropriation of Hellenistic geographical traditions which Werman discusses is
really not so different in purpose or method than what we see among the "Hellenists."29
We have not tried to be comprehensive in our review of Jubilees and Hellenism in the history
of scholarship, but have rather selected a handful of key sources that provide noteworthy
precedents and analogues for our own study. Although the majority of Jubilees scholarship has
given little attention to the book's interaction with its broader Hellenic literary and cultural
context, the work that has been done in this area supports the idea that Jubilees exhibits
knowledge of and intentional, creative interaction with that broader context. Some of the
examples we looked at show that the author was able to cleverly integrate both Israelite/Jewish
and non-Jewish Greek traditions. Rather than ignoring or rejecting any foreign cultural influence
outright, the author of Jubilees was able to adopt and adapt traditions from the Gentiles in a way
that served his own religious and nationalistic purposes.
Our brief survey of previous scholarship should encourage us to look for other places where
Jubilees may have been shaped by conversation with the broader Greek intellectual and literary
tradition. One way we might move forward is to begin looking for places where the text may
have been influenced by or adapted a specific non-Jewish text. This is precisely what we are
attempting to do in the current study. Our goal is to explore the ways in which a specific Jewish
literary artifact of the Hellenistic era (Jubilees) may have interacted with a specific text from the
available non-Jewish Hellenistic literary and cultural repertoire (the Iliad).

29

Werman similarly contrasts Jubilees and the Jewish philosophical tradition ("Hellenistic
Context," 151-157).

14

CHAPTER TWO
ACHILLES

In the preceding chapter we gave brief attention to the history of scholarship on the question
of Jubilees' relationship to the broader Hellenistic world. We saw that although this issue has
been largely ignored by the academy, a handful of studies have demonstrated that explorations of
Hellenic influence on Jubilees is a promising area of inquiry. These studies provide a useful
starting point for our own argument. It should be noted, however, that the scholars surveyed in
the previous chapter explored the influence of certain Greek traditions on Jubilees. We are going
a step further by arguing that a specific non-Jewish Greek text influenced a particular passage in
Jubilees. The remainder of our study will consist of an examination of each of these passages
individually, followed by a careful comparison. In this chapter we will explore the older of the
two texts, Iliad 22.260-272. We will take a brief look at the literary context, analyze the
interchange between Hector and Achilles, and finally give attention to issues of characterization
and reception history.

Literary Context
As one of the foundational literary works of Western civilization, the general storyline of the
Iliad is well known. Through its almost 16,000 lines of dactylic hexameter the eighth/seventhcentury B.C.E. epic traditionally attributed to the poet Homer offers a snapshot of the lengthy
Trojan war, focusing on the source, transformation, and ultimate satiation of the wrath of the
Greek hero Achilles.

15

Our passage is set in the antepenultimate book of the work, where Achilles' wrath reaches its
climax. After withdrawing from the Greek offensive against Troy because of the dishonour
Agamemmnon showed him, Achilles is lured back into combat by his desire to avenge the death
of his companion Patroclus. Driving the Trojans back into the city, Achilles continues to seek
the life of the Trojan hero and prince Hector, who ultimately took Patroclus' life. Hector has a
choice to make: should he go out and meet swift-footed Achilles in one-on-one combat? Should
he remain in the city? Or should he go out unarmed to Achilles to attempt a truce (22.93-130)?
Hector's mother and father both urge him not to fight Achilles, fearing that their son will fall at
the hands of the formidable Greek hero (22.37-92). Finally, Hector resolves to meet Achilles in
combat. However, as Achilles bears down on him, Hector loses his courage and begins to flee
(22.136-138). Three times Achilles chases Hector around the city of Troy, preventing him from
fleeing into the safety of the city gates.
Throughout the Iliad the tides of the war have constantly been altered by the Olympian gods
and their various, competing interests and motives. Athena desires to aid Achilles in his pursuit,
but Apollo helps Hector. Even though Zeus does not want to see Hector perish, he gives his
permission for Achilles to kill him once he realizes that the scale of the fates falls in Achilles'
favor (22.208-213). Apollo withdraws from the battle, and by disguising herself as Hector's
brother, Deïphobos, Athena convinces Hector to stop running and face Achilles. Hector listens
to this deception and turns to face his pursuer (22.226-247). Before casting spears at each other
they engage in a brief verbal exchange, which is the focus of our study. In short, Hector requests
an oath-bound agreement that the body of the vanquished will be returned to his people for
proper burial.

16

We now take a closer look at that initial interchange between Achilles and Hector. We can
break it down into three sections: (1) The opening plea; (2) the speech;1 and (3) the resolution.

The Opening Plea
After reengaging in combat, Hector addresses Achilles:
250 ou‡ s' e¶ti Phle/oß uiJe\, fobh/somai, wJß to\ pa/roß per
tri\ß peri\ a‡stu me/ga Pria/mou di/on, oujde/ pot' e¶tlhn
mei!nai ejperco/menon: nuvn au•te/ me qumo\ß ajnhvken
sth/menai ajnti/a sei!o: eºloimi/ ken h‡ ken aJloi/hn.
ajll' a¶ge deuvro qeou\ß ejpidw¿meqa: toi\ ga\r a‡ristoi

255 ma/rturoi e¶ssonati kai\ ejpi/skopoi aJrmonia/wn:
ouj ga\r ejg w/ s' e¶kpaglon ajeiki/w, ai¶ ken ejmoi\ Zeu/ß
dw/hØ kammoni/hn, sh\n de\ yuch\n ajfe/lwmai,
ajll' ejpei\ a‡r ke/ se sulh/sw kluta\ teu/ce', "Acilleuv,
nekro\n "Acaioi!sin dw/sw pa/lin: w±ß de\ su\ rJe/zein.2

250 "Son of Peleus, I will no longer run from you, as before this
I fled three times around the great city of Priam, and dared not
stand to your onfall. But now my spirit in turn has driven me
to stand and face you. I must take you now, or I must be taken.
Come then, shall we swear before the gods? For these are the highest
255 who shall be witnesses and watch over our agreements.
Brutal as you are I will not defile you, if Zeus grants
to me that I can wear you out, and take the life from you.
But after I have stripped your glorious armor, Achilleus,
I will give your corpse back to the Achaians. Do you do likewise."3

1

We use the term "speech" throughout our study to refer to Achilles' and Esau's respective
responses to Hector and Jacob. We choose this term as a practical and simple way to describe
the portion of the verbal interchanges that we are placing most of our focus on.
2
Text taken from Martin L. West, Homeri Ilias (Monachii: Saur, 2000).
3
Homer, The Iliad (trans. Richmond Lattimore; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).
Unless otherwise noted, all English translations of the Iliad are taken from Lattimore.

17

Hector has resolved to face Achilles in a one-on-one battle to the death, with the ultimate
outcome in the hands of Zeus.4 Scenes of one-on-one combat between heroes are characteristic of
the Iliad's battle narrations. Most of the encounters occur within the context of group battle,
with the epic narrator focusing his lens on individual encounters within the otherwise blurry mess
of combat. There are, however, examples of formal single combat, in which two heroes face each
other in a more controlled and staged environment with their respective armies watching.5 The
two examples of the latter form of combat are the encounters between Menelaus and Paris (3.67382) and between Ajax and Hector (7.37-312). Since these formal bouts of single combat are
based on oath-bound agreements,6 it seems that Hector's request to Achilles is partly an attempt
to frame their engagement as formal or ceremonial combat that will be subject to agreed upon
rules.7 Achilles adamantly rejects this request — there will be no room for guidelines, ceremony,
or civility in his encounter with Patroclus' killer. This rejection will make the fight between these
two heroes what De Jong describes as a "hybrid" of the two types of Homeric single-combat. 8 It
is not bound by formal agreements, but it does occur outside of the context of group combat with
the two armies acting as observers.

4

As it assumes this combat to the death, the oath he proposes to Achilles here is different from
the oath he entertained as he considered a nonviolent resolution to his conflict with Achilles
(22.119).
5
Irene J.F. De Jong, Homer: Iliad. Book XXII. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012),
121.
6
Il. 3.103-120, 245-301 and 7.66-91.
7
"So [Hector] is in fact proposing a formal heroic duel with Achilleus." Norman Postlethwaite,
Homer's Iliad: A Commentary on the Translation of Richmond Lattimore (Exeter: University of
Exeter Press, 2000), 273.
8
De Jong, Book XXII, 121.

18

Given the prominence of oaths in Achilles' response and in our Jubilees passage it is
worthwhile to devote some attention to Hector's offer to Achilles. He begins by calling on
Achilles to join him in "giving the gods" (qeou\ß ejpidw/meqa), a unique phrase in the Iliad which
seems, based on the context, to be an invocation of the gods as witnesses to an oath. 9 Hector
piously states that the gods will be the best witnesses (a‡ristoi ma/rturoi) to observe their
agreement, and the best guardians or overseers (ejpi÷skopoi) to ensure it is kept. 10 Hector here
invokes the traditional role of the gods to punish the oath-breaker, a role recognized in both the
Greek and the biblical traditions.11 This pious optimism seems to contrast with Hector's earlier
assessment before his combat with Ajax, where he claimed: "Zeus, son of Kronos, who sits on
high, would not bring to fulfillment our oaths, but is found to be of evil intention toward both
sides . . ." (7.69-70). Regardless of his earlier statement, in this scene Hector is portrayed as
someone who takes oaths seriously and has faith in the ability of the gods to act as just
witnesses.

9

Nicholas Richardson, The Iliad: a Commentary (Vol. VI) (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1993), 133. De Jong notes that "the expression virtually amounts to 'let us swear.'" (Book
XXII, 123). According to Peter Karavites, "The use of epidometha served to invoke one another's
gods as witnesses, denoting the offer of a guarantee to the other side exactly as in Il. 3.276, where
Zeus, the god of Ida, was named as witness and the local rivers as divinities invoked to represent
the Trojan side." Promise-Giving and Treaty Making: Homer and the Near East (Leiden: Brill,
1992), 34. Cf. Il. 11.314; 17.179; 17.685; and 22.254. Hector's opening phrase of invitation
(!!!" #"# $#$%&) has the sense of "but come now!"
10
LSJ, 657. De Jong points us to a similar expression in 3.280, where the verb fula¿ssw is used
rather than the noun e˙pi÷skopoß (Book XXII, 123). We find Zeus as "steward" (tami÷aß) of oaths
in Euripides' Medea 170.
11
Some of the gods conspire to make sure that it is the Trojans who violate the single-combat
oath made in Book III, presumably to provide justification for the ultimate destruction of Troy
(4.64-67).

19

Hector indicates his willingness to enter into an agreement with Achilles by speaking the
terms of the oath in the first person: "I will not defile you . . . I will give your corpse back . . ."
He is not merely describing what the oath could look like ("Let us swear that . . ."), but is binding
himself by the oath in the hopes that Achilles will then reciprocate. The agreement he seeks with
Achilles is quite simple, and is identical to the one he made with the Achaians before his combat
with Ajax (7.76-91): the victor will loot the corpse of the vanquished, but will then return his
body unharmed to his people for proper burial.12 In this instance it could be argued that Hector
is motivated not by a sense of civility but rather fear for the treatment of his own corpse. His
initial flight from Achilles and his lack of a typical combat vaunt when he reengages Achilles may
point to pessimism about the outcome of this fight. Given his own suspicion that he will die,
Hector wants to ensure that his body will not be shamed. However, the fact that Hector made
the same request in his earlier combat with Ajax, a combat that his brother had assured him he
would survive (7.52-53), may indicate a genuine desire for mutual civility. 13 Regardless of what
Hector's motivations were for his earlier oath with the Achaians and his present oath with
Achilles, they have an important proleptic function in the narrative and add "to the suspense and
pathos around the theme of the mutilation of his body."14

12

There may be a bit of irony in Hector's statement "After I have stripped your glorious armor
Achilles", since Hector is already wearing Achilles' armor which was stripped from the body of
Patroclus (17.125). If Hector kills Achilles he will have two sets of his armor, but if Achilles
kills Hector he will merely be reclaiming what was already his. De Jong notes that within battle
it was expected that the fallen's comrades would fight to reclaim his body. In a ceremonial duel,
however, where his comrades are not part of the combat, it would make sense to make such an
arrangement beforehand (Book XXII, 125).
13
He has no problem, however, trying to mutilate the body of Patroclus (Il. 18.175-177).
14
De Jong, Book XXII, 124.

20

The Speech
We turn now to Achilles' response to Hector's request:
260 to\n d' a‡r' uJpo/dra ijdw\n prose/fh po/daß wjku\ß !Acilleu/ß:
" ºEktor, mh/ moi, a‡laste, sunhmosu/naß ajgo/reue.
wJß oujk e¶sti le/ousi kai« ajndra/sin oºrkia pista/,
oujde\ lu/k oi te kai« a‡rneß oJmo/frona qumo\n e¶c ousin,
ajlla\ kaka\ frone/ousi diampere\ß ajllh/loisin,

265 w"ß oujk e¶st' ejme\ kai\ se\ filh/menai, oujde/ ti nw#iœn
oºrkia e¶ssontai, pri/n hª eºtero/n ge peso/nta
aiºmatoß a•sai ¶Arha, talau/rinon polemisth/n.
pantoi/hß ajrethvß mimnh/skeo: nuvn se ma/la crh/
aijcmhth/n t' e¶menai kai\ qarsale/on polemisth/n.

270 ou‡ toi e¶t' e¶sq' uJpa/luxiß, a‡far de/ se Palla\ß !Aqh/nh
e¶gcei ejmw#ø dama/saø, nuvn d' ajqro/a pa/nt' ajpotei÷seiß
kh/de' ejmw#n eJta/rwn ou"ß e¶k taneß e¶gceiœ qu/iwn."15

260 Then looking darkly at him swift-footed Achilleus answered:
"Hektor, argue me no agreements. I cannot forgive you.
As there are no trustworthy oaths between men and lions,
nor wolves and lambs have spirit that can be brought to agreement
but forever these hold feelings of hate for each other,
265 so there can be no love between you and me, nor shall there be
oaths between us, but one or the other must fall before then
to glut with his blood Ares the god who fights under the shield's guard.
Remember every valour of yours, for now the need comes
hardest upon you to be a spearman and a bold warrior.
270 There shall be no more escape for you, but Pallas Athene
will kill you soon by my spear. You will pay in a lump for all those
sorrows of my companions you killed in your spear's fury."
Achilles responds by insulting Hector, calling him "insufferable"16 and rejecting his attempt at
making an oath-bound covenant.17 After this sharp opening, Achilles drives his point home by
15

Text taken from Martin L. West, Homeri Ilias (Monachii: Saur, 2000).
LSJ, 60. This term can also carry the sense of "unforgettable," which has led some translators
to read this as a reference to Achilles' inability to forgive Hector, i.e. "I cannot forgive you"
16

21

employing a simile with a doubled vehicle that draws on relationships between animals to
emphasize the impossibility of him making any kind of agreement with Hector.18 Since this
constitutes our primary point of comparison with Jubilees, it calls for some detailed attention.
The simile can be broken down as follows:

Vehicle:
(a) Just as there are no trustworthy oaths between lions and men
(b) And just as wolves and lambs do not have an agreeable spirit
(c) but hold feelings of hate for each other
Tenor:
(a) So there can be no love between Achilles and Hector
(b) Or oaths between them
(c) Until one or the other falls . . .
The three parts of the vehicle correspond exactly with the three lines of verse, while the three
parts identified for the tenor cannot be divided as neatly. Part (a) is on the first line of the tenor,
part (b) is on the first and second line, and part (c) is on the second and third lines. Still, there is

(Lattimore). Willcock suggests "wild" or "uncontrolled." Malcolm M. Willcock, The Iliad of
Homer: Books XIII-XXIV (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984), 295.
17
Achilles uses the term sunhmosu/nh. This is its only occurrence in the Iliad.
18
A simile typically consists of a tenor and a vehicle. The tenor is the thing being referred to,
and the vehicle is the imagery used to describe the tenor. In the simile "the Jedi was like a
magician," the Jedi is the tenor and the magician is the vehicle. The example we have in Achilles'
speech is interesting because we have what Jonathan Ready refers to in passing as a "doubled
vehicle" (Character, Narrator, and Simile in the Iliad [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2011], 62). We have two sets of images (lions/humans and wolves/lambs) that are being used,
rather than one.

22

a clear parallelism between the vehicle and tenor.
Achilles is drawing on the proverbial animosity between humans and lions and between
wolves and lambs in order to illustrate the utter impossibility of any kind of agreement between
himself and Hector.19 This is an example of adynaton, which will be discussed more in the
following chapter. In the first part of the vehicle Achilles uses two possessive datives, literally
"As there are not to lions and to men faithful oaths," which means "As lions and men do not have
faithful oaths."20 Such a construction could be understood at least two different ways. First, it
could communicate that there is no faithful oath that exists between lions and men (an
interspecies comment). Second, it could be presenting lions and men as analogous in their lack of
faithful oaths: lions do not have faithful oaths and neither do men (an intra-species comment).
The former is clearly the case based on the emphasis on interspecies animosity in the subsequent
wolves/lambs statement. We belabor what seems to be an obvious point only because this
question will present itself in our analysis of Esau's speech below.

19

"On the face of it, the equation Achilleus offers is transparent. In order to cast as absurd
Hektor's request that Achilleus join him in an agreement and seal it with an oath, Achilleus
situates Hektor and himself in a context in which these practices do not occur. Previously happy
to fashion agreements and swear oaths, Achilleus now claims that they are irrelevant in the
present situation." Ready, Character, Narrator, and Simile, 62. Carroll Moulton claims that
"Achilles' grim words on enmity contrast pointedly with Hector's vision of young lovers in
22.125-128" (Similes in the Homeric Poems [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977], 85).
However, Hector's young lover imagery had the same purpose as Achilles' similes: expressing the
impossibility of any rapprochement between the two heroes. Thus Achilles' response may not
come as a surprise to Hector.
20
On the possessive dative see Raymond V. Schoder, Vincent C. Horrigan, and Leslie Collins
Edwards, A Reading Course in Homeric Greek: Book One (Newburyport, MA: Focus
Publishing, 2004), 223; Donald J. Mastronarde, Introduction to Attic Greek (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1993), 73.

23

The phrase oºrkia pista/ is one of several phrases that are used in Achilles/Hector's exchange
to refer to the proposed agreement, with the others being:

Hector: qeou\ß ejpidw/meqa; aJrmonia/wn (aJrmoni/a)
Achilles: sunhmosu/naß (sunhmosu/nh); oºrkia pista/; oJmo/frona qumo\n; filh/menai;
oºrkia

Among these various terms oºrkia pista/ has special importance for our study, as it is one
of the most significant points of contact between Achilles and Esau's speeches. The term oºrkion
(repeated in 22.266), is a different lexeme than the familiar o¢rkoß, although the distinction in
meaning between the two is a matter of debate. One way of differentiating them is to see o¢rkoß
as a reference to oaths and oºrkion as a reference "to the treaties and the sacrificial animals
employed in making them official."21 This distinction seems to hold fairly well when applied to
the occurrences of oºrkia pista/ in the Iliad. The modification of the term with pisto/ß likely
points to the desired result of these particular oaths/covenant ceremonies: the establishment of
faithful relationships between two parties. 22

21

Karavites, Promise-Giving and Treaty Making, 59. It seems likely that the term oºrkion had
as its original reference an oath, but in a process of synecdoche came to refer to the
treaty/covenant of which it was originally only a single component. From there it could also be
applied to other individual elements of the treaty/covenant ceremony, like the sacrificial victims.
This is Joseph Plescia's suggestion as well: ". . . horkia must have referred first to the oaths and
then, also, to the whole treaty-making ceremony, including the provisions sworn." The Oath and
Perjury in Ancient Greece (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1970), 58 n.1.
22
Hesychius ad loc. defines the phrase: oºrkouß ejpi\ pi/stesi. The relationship between
faithfulness and oaths is also seen in the negative in texts which discuss unfaithfulness and oathbreaking/perjury together: Wis 14:25; Dionysius Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae 5.33.2;
Josephus J.W. 1.260.4.

24

The phrase is distinctively Homeric, with most other examples in Greek antiquity occurring
in Homeric quotations.23 There are, however, some extra-Homeric uses, particularly by Greek
writers in the Roman period.24 The phrase occurs twelve other times in the Iliad and once in the
Odyssey, 25 always being used within contexts of treaties, particularly ones that relate to the
cessation of conflict. It refers to Agamemnon's hypothetical truce with the Trojans (2.124), to
the agreement between the Trojans and Achaians to end the war through Menelaus and Paris'
single combat (3.245, 252, 269, 280, 323; 4.157; 7.351), to the peace/truce that will result from
that single combat (3.73, 93, 256, 323), to Agamemnon's reconciliation with Achilles (19.191),
and to the peace Zeus encourages between the groups who disagree on how to respond to
Odysseus' slaying of the suitors (Od. 24.483). In two instances it clearly refers to the sacrificial
victims of the treaty ceremony (Il. 3.245, 256). It is connected on several occasions with the
verb te/mnw26 and/or the language of friendship. 27

23

Tryphon, De tropis 21.2.2 (Il. 3.245); Dio Chyrsostum, Orationes 55.15.6 (Il. 7.351);
Lucianus, Revivescentes sive piscator (Il. 22.262); Maximus of Tyre, Dissertations 35.6.4-5 (Il.
22.262); Atticus frag. 4.21 (Il. 22.262); Athenaeus of Naucratis, The Deipnosophists 10.26 (Il.
3.245 and 3.269); Porphyry Homeric Questions (Il. 7.350-352). See also the
scholia/commentators.
24
Phlegon of Tralles, On Marvels 3.8.18; Julian the Apostate, The Heroic Deeds of Constantius.
The singular form with adjective and noun in reverse order occurs in Pindar, Olympia 11.6.
25
Il. 2.124; 3.73, 94, 245, 252, 256, 269, 280, 323; 4.157; 7.351; 19.191; 22.262; Od. 24.483.
26
"Cut faithful oaths" in Il. 2.124; 3.73, 93, 252, 256; 19.191; Od. 24.483. The use of a verb for
"cutting" in the context of making a covenant is found in Semitic languages as well, and may
ultimately reflect the symbolic dissection of the ceremonial victims. Margo Kitts, Sanctified
Violence in Homeric Society: Oath-Making Rituals and Narratives in the Iliad (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005), 86-87.
27
filo/thß in Il. 3.73; 3.93; 3.256; 3.323; and file/w in Il. 22.265 and Od. 24.485. Karavites
offers a helpful discussion of the concept of friendship (filo/thß) within the context of the idea
of brotherhood in Ancient Near Eastern treaties. The association of our phrase with the concept
of friendship is noteworthy, as it underlines that point that oºrkia pista/ are related to the

25

Achilles is thus emphasizing that there are no truces between lions and human beings.
Indeed, a more idiomatic translation might be "Just as there are no peace treaties between lions
and men." Their conflict is eternal and cannot be altered by civilizing institutions like covenants,
and filo/thß certainly remains an impossibility. From Achilles' perspective this is also the case
between himself and Hector.
In one sense, the use of oºrkia pista/ as well as the other terms used by both Achilles
and Hector to refer to the proposed agreement is somewhat odd, since they seem to overstate the
nature of Hector's request. Hector is not asking for the cessation of combat. He assumes one of
them will die. He is only asking for respectful treatment of the corpse, although even here he
grants the victor the right to plunder the body. In light of his request, his own choice of aJrmoni/a
is "remarkable, since the word denotes the act of collecting and fitting disparate parties together
in a harmonious whole . . ."28 Achilles uses language which is related to the cessation of conflict
(oºrkia pista/) and friendly/loving relations (file/w).29 If the nature of Hector's proposed
agreement is being overstated, it is arguably for poetic effect. Further, by overstating the nature
of Hector's request, Achilles may be emphasizing just how enraged he really is with Hector — a
request for the return of a corpse is to Achilles no different than giving up combat altogether.
This "overstatement" reading is not, however, the only way we can understand Achilles'
use of oºrkia pista/. We have already mentioned that Hector's requested terms are identical to
establishment of peaceful relations between parties. Karavites, Promise-Giving and Treaty
Making, 48-58. See also Kitts, Sanctified Violence, 86-87.
28
Karavites, Promise-Giving and Treaty Making, 34. Hector is only indirectly referring to his
agreement with Achilles as a aJrmoni/a, since his statement is primarily about the gods being the
best guardians of these agreements.

26

the terms of his single combat with Ajax, and that he is attempting to bring his encounter with
Achilles under the realm of this quasi-ceremonial encounter. While oºrkia pista/ was not used of
Hector and Ajax's encounter, it was used repeatedly in reference to the other example of single
combat in the Iliad, that of Paris and Menelaus. Achilles' use of this phrase here may simply
emphasize the fact that he does not wish to bring his encounter with Hector into the realm of
regulated or ceremonial combat. There is to be nothing civilized about their encounter, only the
meting out of vengeance for the death of Patroclus.
A final possible connotation of oºrkia pista/ in this context should be considered. We
have noted that the phrase can refer specifically to the sacrificial victims of the treaty/covenant
ceremony. If this use of the phrase is hovering in the background of 22.262 then Achilles'
statement takes on additional meaning. Within the context of the treaty/covenant ceremony the
sacrifice of livestock helps bring about peace and cooperation between two parties. The
interactions between lions and humans, as portrayed in the Iliad (see below), also revolve around
the slaughtering of livestock. In this case, however, it is the unwanted destruction of the
livestock by the predatory lions and the human/lion violence that results. The role of livestock in
lion/human relations is the exact opposite of the role of the livestock (the oºrkia pista/) in human
treaties.
We have made some observations on the key phrase oºrkia pista/ and can now proceed
to discuss the creatures for whom these faithful oaths are an impossibility. Achilles' invocation
of lions resonates well with the rest of the epic, where they are a commonplace among Homer's

29

Willcock, The Iliad of Homer, "to be friends", 295. The other terms Achilles uses are arguably
more appropriate to the context.

27

famous similes and form "the largest and most complex family of similes in the Iliad."30 Beyond
their general use in the Iliad, King notes that lion similes are used to describe important points in
Achilles' aristeia.31 Most of the lion similes are what Lonsdale calls the "marauding lion" type,
which depict "the confrontation of men and dogs with a wild beast."32 The lion is often
portrayed as a predator who attacks, kills, and eats domestic animals like cattle and sheep. 33
This naturally places it in conflict with human shepherds/herdsmen and their dogs, who use
spears and torches to chase away and kill the lion.34 In other cases the lion is portrayed as the
prey, with humans and dogs pursuing it (perhaps in some cases as a result of or in an attempt to
prevent the lion's marauding).35 There is also an example of humans stealing the lion's cubs. 36
While there are some lion similes that do not put lions in conflict with humans, the majority of
the longer similes express some kind of antagonism between the two species. 37 They are natural
enemies, and as such they are a fitting pair for Achilles to use to make his point.
It is worth noting that Achilles could have referenced the relationship between lions and
cattle instead. The animosity between humans and lions is mostly secondary: it is because the
30

Martin Mueller, The Iliad (London: Allen & Unwin, 1984), 116. For a list of lion similes see
Steven H. Lonsdale, Creatures of Speech: Lion, Herding, and Hunting Similes in the Iliad
(Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner, 1990), 142. For a discussion of lion similes and the question of
firsthand knowledge of lions in the Homeric world, as well as the appearance of lions in ancient
Near Eastern art and royal hunting, see Maureen Alden, "Lions in Paradise: Lion Similes in the
Iliad and the Lion Cubs of Il. 18.318-22," The Classical Quarterly 55 (2005): 335-343.
31
Katherine Callen King, Achilles: Paradigms of the War Hero from Homer to the Middle Ages
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 19-26.
32
Lonsdale, Creatures of Speech, 39-40.
33
For example: Il. 5.161-162; 5.554-558; 10.485-486; 11.172-176; 15.630-636; 16.487-489;
17.61-67; 24.41-43.
34
For example: Il. 5.136-142; 5.554-558; 11.548-555; 12.299-306; 17.109-112; 18.573-586.
35
Il. 3.23-26; 12.41-49; 20.164-173.
36
Il. 18.317-322.

28

lions want to devour the livestock that they become the enemies of humans. Why did Achilles
choose lions/humans rather than lions/cattle to make his point? Perhaps because covenant
making is a human practice, and it may have seemed more fitting to begin the simile with at least
one party (humans) that can actually swear an oath and make a covenant. Whatever the reason,
the choice of lions/humans creates a different impression than lions/cattle or the following
wolves/lambs pairing. In the Iliad lions and humans are in some respects equally matched, as
they are each portrayed as victorious over the other at different times.38 They also both take on
the role of hunter/predator, as the lion preys upon cattle and humans pursue lions. This is
different from the lion's relationship with cattle or sheep, in which the lion is always the predator
and the domestic animals are always the prey. If it were not for the following animal pairing, it
might seem that Achilles is conceding that he and Hector are evenly matched.
The second part of the tenor invokes another pair of animals that are proverbially
irreconcilable: wolves and lambs. Rather than using datives of possession, Achilles employs
e¶cousin. Lions and men do not have faithful oaths, and wolves and lambs do not have
oJmofro/na qumo\n — an agreeable spirit.39 The use of qumo/ß serves to underline the unchanging

nature of these relationships — the lack of concord between wolves and lambs is innate. Though

37

Similes not involving lion/human conflict include: Il. 11.113-119; 16.756-758; and 16.823-826.
Lions victorious over humans: Il. 5.136-142 and 17.61-67. Humans victorious over lions: Il.
11.548-555; 12.41-49; 17.109-112, 657-654.
39
This phrase is used to refer to Demeter and Persephone in Homeric Hymns 2.435. Cf.
Homeric Hymns 4.391.
38

29

the use of lions fits well within the horizons of the Iliad, the pairing of wolves and lambs does
not. They occur together only one other time, in 16.352-355:40

They as wolves make havoc among lambs or young goats in their fury,
catching them out of the flocks, when the sheep separate in the mountains,
through the thoughtlessness of the shepherd, and the wolves seeing them
suddenly snatch them away, and they have no heart for fighting.
Ready points to the oddness of Achilles anthropomorphizing the wolves and lambs, animals
that Homer does not attribute human qualities to in the same degree he does with lions.41 His
solution is to point us away from epic as the source of these images and towards the realm of
fable, "wherein wolves and sheep make a proverbially antagonistic pair."42 Conflict between
lions and humans is also explored in fable, a connection that was already made in the scholia.43
The third part of the vehicle, introduced by a contrastive, strengthens the point Achilles
is trying to make. Whether this third part refers only to the wolves and lambs or to the lions and
men as well is difficult to tell, but it does seem to primarily flow from and connect best with the
wolves/lambs pairing. The preceding line brought us into the inner lives of wolves and lambs by
speaking of their qumo/ß. This line continues by drawing our attention to their mindset and
intentions, speaking of their thorough evil-mindedness towards each other. The reciprocal nature
of this expression is interesting, since we might normally think of the evil-mindedness in the
wolf/lamb pairing as one-way — the wolf as the predator is the one that seeks the harm of the

40

Ready, Character, Narrator, and Simile, 65.
Ibid.
42
Ibid., 66.
43
Hartmut Erbse, Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Scholia Vetera) Volume 5 (Berolini: Walter
de Gruyter, 1977), ad loc. Ready, Character, Narrator, and Simile, 64.
41

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lamb.
Achilles now transitions to the tenor, which he introduces with w‚ß. The first part of the
tenor parallels the first part of the vehicle in its arrangement of components (negative particle +
"to be" verb + one of the parties + conjunction + the other party + the thing which they do not
have between them), although it is grammatically different in its use of an infinitive. Achilles
makes clear that there is no love between him and Hector. In addition to general resonance with a
covenantal context, the choice of a verb which can have connotations of affection may mirror the
internalizing oJmofro/na qumo\n. The second part of the tenor is, like the second part of the
vehicle, introduced by oujde/. Achilles brings us full circle with the use of oºrkia.
The third part of the tenor is introduced with an illogical pri/n.44 In a typical negative
pri/n clause we expect pri/n to designate conditions which must be met in order for the action

previously negated to be carried out. For instance, "I will not pay my property taxes until the
city addresses the sewer problems." In Achilles' statement, however, he is not actually
presenting legitimate conditions that could change his course of action. He tells Hector that there
will be no oºrkia until one or the other falls in battle and satiates the thirst of Ares, god of war.
At that point, of course, the time for an agreement will have passed. As Wilson points out, the
illogic of this statement "intensifies the feeling."45 Achilles' rejection is absolute — Hector will be

44

For a discussion of such clauses associated with Achilles in the Iliad see John R. Wilson,
"Negative pri/n Clauses and the Rhetoric of Achilles," Glotta 69 (1991): 179-183.
45
Wilson, "Negative pri/n Clauses," 182. Wilson notes that negative pri/n clauses are used about
a quarter of the time in the Iliad to refer to a "hero's encounter with the either/or of life or death in
combat." In these passages the hero persists in combat until he either kills or is killed. For
example: "But I will not leave off my killing of the proud Trojans until (pri/n) I have penned them
inside their city, and attempted Hektor strength against strength, until he has killed me or I have

31

dead before Achilles will make an agreement with him. Of course, even though this is Achilles'
intention, he will eventually capitulate to Hector's request, indicating that here he may be saying
more than he knows.
After rejecting Hector's request with this vivid simile, Achilles puts forth his final
challenge to him. He tells him to mentally prepare himself for battle ("Remember every valor of
yours . . ."), yet he is assured of his coming victory: "There shall be no more escape for you, but
Pallas Athene will kill you soon by my spear." Before throwing his spear Achilles offers one last
remark, which reminds the audience that this is ultimately a matter of revenge: "You will pay in a
lump for all those sorrows of my companions you killed in your spear's fury." Hector is about
to meet his end.

The Resolution
In many respects the entire remainder of the Iliad narrates the resolution of the conflict
between Achilles and Hector. Following their verbal exchange Achilles initiates combat by
throwing his spear. Hector manages to avoid it, and this seems to give him courage and optimism
for the first time. He taunts Achilles for his own optimism, and throws his first spear at his foe.
The audience knows, however, that Hector's blip of hope is misplaced. In an example of
dramatic irony, we have been told that Athena has returned Achilles' spear to his hand
unbeknownst to Hector. Hector's spear hits Achilles' shield, causing no bodily damage.46

killed him" (Il. 21.224-226). In our passage Achilles is expressing a similar idea, but the main
clause is illogical.
46
"The fight itself is wholly typical — A misses B, B hit but fails to pierce A, A kills B . . ."
Peter Jones, Homer's Iliad: A Commentary on Three Translations (London: Bristol Classical
Press, 2003), 288.

32

Turning to the man he believes to be his brother, Hector asks for a second spear. When he sees
Deiphobos is not there he realizes he has been duped by Athena and that the gods have handed
him over to death (22.296-305). Resigned to his fate, Hector resolves to die with glory. Pulling
his sword he charges at his foe. In these brief verses we see Hector go through three stages: (1) a
seemingly lackluster initial engagement with Achilles in which Hector's plea leaves doubt in the
audience about his own optimism, (2) a burst of courage and unfounded optimism, and (3) a
realization of his certain death paired with a courageous resolve to die well. In the final moment
of combat Hector has reached a balance of realism and courage.
Achilles launches his spear at Hector a second time, now hitting his mark. The spear goes
through Hector's throat, fatally wounding him but leaving his windpipe intact. This allows for
one final verbal exchange between the two heroes. Once again Hector asks Achilles to return his
body for a proper burial. This time the plea is lengthier and more impassioned:

I entreat you, by your life, by your knees, by your parents,
do not let the dogs feed on me by the ships of the Achaians,
but take yourself the bronze and gold that are there in abundance,
those gifts that my father and the lady my mother will give you,
and give my body to be taken home again, so that the Trojans
and the wives of the Trojans may give me in death my rite of burning (22.338-343).
Hector, like other battlefield supplicants, does not have his request granted.47 As before,
Achilles vehemently rejects Hector's plea:

47

De Jonge, Book XXII, 143 notes four more battlefield supplications: 6.45-65; 11.130-48;
20.463-72; 21.64-119. She states, "Whereas supplications usually are effective since suppliants
are under the protection of Zeus, those on the battlefield are never successful. This may be due
to the supplicandi being Agamemnon, who is generally rather violent . . . and Achilles in his
present revengeful mood."

33

No more entreating of me, you dog, by knees or parents.
I wish only that my spirit and fury would drive me
to hack your meat away and eat it raw for the things that
you have done to me. So there is no one who can hold the dogs off
from your head, not if they bring here and set before me ten times
and twenty times the ransom, and promise more in addition,
not if Priam son of Dardanos should offer to weigh out
your bulk in gold; not even so shall the lady your mother
who herself bore you lay you on the death-bed and mourn you:
no, but the dogs and the birds will have you all for their feasting (22.345-354).
Achilles' language here is even more intense than in his previous rejection. Before he had
invoked predatory relationships within the animal world to illustrate the impossibility of any
kind of agreement between himself and Hector. Here he continues the animal imagery, this time
much more graphically as he wishes that he could bring himself to eat Hector's meat (kre/aß) raw.
Previously Achilles had colourfully illustrated the impossibility of rapprochement with Hector
through the use of the animal similes and the illogical !"#$ clause. Here he expresses the same
impossibility by telling Hector that there is no price high enough to assuage his wrath and allow
the body to be ransomed. Even if the ransom were twenty times (and then some!) the going rate,
or even if Priam gave him Hector's weight in gold, still Achilles would not return the body.
Achilles is not interested in the materialistic honor that is a hero's due — he is interested in
revenge.
After a prophetic warning to Achilles, Hector dies and Achilles speaks over the body: "Die:
and I will take my own death at whatever time Zeus and the rest of the immortals choose to
accomplish it" (22.365-366). Following Hector's death his body is stripped of armor, and
Achilles proves true to his word. First the Achaians take turns gazing on "the stature and on the
imposing beauty of Hector" (22.369-371) while stabbing his corpse and taunting him. Achilles

34

then thinks of "shameful treatment for glorious Hector" (22.395): He runs rope through holes in
his ankles and drags Hector's body behind his chariot.
The remainder of the Iliad deals with Achilles' continual abuse of Hector's corpse, the
mourning of Hector's family, the burial of Patroclus, the gods' protection of Hector's body from
mutilation, the gods' ultimate intervention to bring about the return of Hector's body, and finally
the surprising encounter between Achilles and Priam in which Achilles allows Hector's body to
be ransomed and buried.

Characterization
We can now ask what kind of character Achilles' speech and surrounding actions reveal him to
be. This is an interesting and important question for understanding Achilles and the Iliad in their
own right, but will also have implications as we explore the potential influence of this figure and
text on Jubilees. Because we will argue for the appropriation of the Iliad's Achilles in a later
Jewish text, serious attention needs to be given not only to issues of characterization within the
horizons of the epic itself, but also how Achilles' speech and actions were received by
subsequent generations.
Questions of characterization for the Iliad's Achilles are not easy to answer, since he is
perhaps the most complex hero in Homeric epic. This is particularly true of moral appraisals of
the figure. Questions of his characterization and moral standing have been debated by readers
from the classical world until today. Is Achilles in the right when he withdraws from the Achaian
alliance? Is he in the right when he refuses Agamemnon's peace offering in Book IX? Is he in the
right when he rejects Hector's request for an agreement? Is he in the right when he abuses

35

Hector's corpse? Since our study focuses on Achilles' exchange with Hector, we will not attempt
to answer some of these larger questions about his character, but limit ourselves to the specific
issues raised in his speech and immediately surrounding context. We will focus on three of these
issues: (1) Achilles' use of animal imagery; (2) the implications of Achilles' refusal to enter into an
oath; and (3) Achilles' abuse of Hector's body. While the final point is not a part of Achilles'
speech proper, his abuse of Hector's body is the very thing that Hector's plea aims to prevent
and that Achilles' speech ultimately affirms will happen.

Animal Imagery
First, we can ask what Achilles' use of animal imagery in his simile tells us about him as a
character. It is common for scholars to see in Achilles' speech a self-identification with the lions
and the wolves.48 This is a reasonable reading of the text, since he explicitly compares the
relationship of the two sets of animals to his own relationship with Hector, and the order of the
referents in the vehicle (lions-humans and wolves-lambs) and the tenor (ejme\ kai\ se/ — AchillesHector) aligns Achilles with the lions and wolves. What are the implications of this
identification? We already noted that the lion/human pairing envisions a battle between equals,
whereas the wolf/lamb pairing is one of predator and prey. By identifying himself with the wolf
in that pairing Achilles is echoing the predator/hunter similes the narrator has used to describe

48

"The syntax of this passage indicates that Achilles views himself as the lion and Hektor as the
man, and his later words to Hektor confirm his." King, Achilles, 26. "The anaphora with w‚ß
suggests that the beasts' antagonism is being brought into especially close parallel with his and
Hector's situation, with an exact correspondence between the three pairs of opponents: lions and
men, wolves and sheep, Achilles and Hector. This encourages us to read the simile with the view
that the lion and the wolf correspond to Achilles and the man and the sheep to Hector." Michael
Clarke, "Between Lions and Men: Images of the Hero in the Iliad," GRBS 36 (1995): 144.

36

him throughout Book XXII, and may be indicating his optimism about the outcome of his combat
with Hector. However, the power and strength balance between the creatures is not what is
primarily in view here. Rather, it is their incompatibility.
It is customary among many scholars to see Achilles' use of this animal imagery as an
indication of his departure from the realm of human civility. Achilles becomes, in King's words,
the "be<a>st of the Achaians."49 Jones claims that "Achilles shows how far beyond the reach of
human society he is when he argues that he and Hector are the equivalent of animals when it
comes to the human convention of burial."50 One potential difficulty with such a reading is the
preponderance of animals amongst the similes in the Iliad. Heroes on both the Achaian and
Trojan sides are routinely likened to wild animals like lions and boars.51 If such similes indicate a
loss of humanity then Achilles is not the only one to undergo such a transformation: he becomes
one of many to demonstrate the animalistic nature of warfare.
That being said, there may be a difference between Achilles' use of animals in his simile and
many of the other animal similes in the epic. The other similes often refer to the physical
behaviors and attitudes of heroes in combat, such as their prowess (17.280-283) or their
aggressiveness (10.360-364). In such cases comparing the actions of the hero to the perceived

49

King, Achilles, 13-28.
Jones, Homer's Iliad, 294. Consider also: "By his own comparison Achilles is behaving like a
lion or a wolf — a creature of the wild that recognizes neither pity nor ai˙dw¿ß." Jinyo Kim, The
Pity of Achilles: Oral Style and the Unity of the Iliad (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000),
141. And "Books 19-22 present Achilles at his most bestial. His viciousness in battle, his
rejection of social norms such as oaths and suppliants, his scavenging, and his similes reveal a
man on the edge of humanity." John Heath, The Talking Greeks: Speech, Animals, and the Other
in Homer, Aeschylus, and Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 124.
51
"All of the major heroes except Aeneas and Odysseus have at least one such [lion] simile that
is elaborated to three lines or more." King, Achilles, 19.
50

37

wildness of animals like lions and boars is appropriate and even complimentary. Achilles' simile
is different, however, since he is invoking animals within the context of what we might call some
of the civilizing institutions of human beings: oath-making, covenants, and friendship. In this
sense Achilles may be bringing the civilizing institutions of the human world into the realm of the
bestial, the same realm in which combat exists. Once transported into this realm these
institutions cease to be meaningful. Such a move parallels the earlier disillusionment that Achilles
felt over the honor-system in Book IX.52

Refusal of an Oath
This brings us to the second element we wish to address: Achilles' refusal to enter into an
oath-bound agreement with Hector. We saw that Achilles twice rejects a request from Hector.
First, he rejects Hector's pre-combat request for an oath-bound agreement that the corpse of the
defeated will be returned sans armour for proper burial. Then he rejects the dying Hector's
second request, which is a supplication to return his body. Below we will give attention to the
meaning of Achilles' rejection of the specific nature of Hector's requests (the return of the battle
dead for burial), but here we can ask what Achilles' initial rejection of a request for an oath might
indicate about him as a character.
While the severity of Achilles' response might trouble modern readers, there seems to be no
reason why Achilles would be expected to accept and reciprocate Hector's proffered oath. Oaths
and the covenants they sealed were sacred in the ancient world, including the Greek tradition,
52

"Fate is the same for the man who holds back, the same if he fights hard. We are all held in a
single honor, the brave with the weaklings. A man dies still if he has done nothing, as one who

38

where Zeus meted out justice to the perjurer.53 The primary taboo surrounding oaths, however,
was breaking them in the case of promissory oaths or perjuring oneself in the case of an
asseverative oath.54 If Achilles swore an oath to Hector and then defiled his corpse, he would
have been committing a serious sacrilege. Indeed, it is the Trojans' breaking of an earlier oath that
provides one of the major justifications for the continuance of the siege and the eventual fall of
the city (4.155-168). This is not the case, however. Achilles is not breaking an oath-bound
agreement, but refusing to enter into one. What may be more noteworthy than Achilles' refusal
to take an oath is his rejection of Hector's specific request, his resolve to abuse Hector
posthumously (discussed below), and his use of the animal relationships in his simile to reject
Hector's request. We hinted above that Achilles' simile may be moving a civilizing, human
institution into the realm of the bestial, in the process robbing it of its meaning.
We have to ask here if Achilles is calling into question the very legitimacy of oaths and
covenants, just as he earlier called into question the honor system which provided the motivation
and foundation for the aristocratic participation in warfare? As we will see in our discussion of
Jubilees, there was a tradition of pessimism about oaths in the ancient world which both Isaac
and Esau contribute to in their own ways. Is Achilles participating in this tradition as well?
Perhaps — but not necessarily. In light of Achilles' general disillusionment and his use of the
bestial imagery in his simile, we could certainly read this as a challenge to the legitimacy of oaths,

has done much. Nothing is won for me, now that my heart has gone through its afflictions in
forever setting my life on the hazard of battle" (Il. 9.318-322).
53
For Zeus as punisher of perjurers see Judith Fletcher, Performing Oaths in Classical Greek
Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 4; Aristophanes, Clouds 396.
54
Plescia, The Oath and Perjury, 83-91; Albert J. Harrill, "Divine Judgment against Ananias and
Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11): A Stock Scene of Perjury and Death," JBL 130 (2011): 351-369.

39

specifically those oaths involved with treaty/covenant-making. However, we should keep in
mind that the focus of Achilles' speech is the rejection of any kind of rapprochement with a
specific individual, Hector. He is not explicitly saying that faithful oaths do not exist or are
completely meaningless in general, but that there is no possibility of them existing between
himself and Hector. Therefore, we should exercise caution about seeing Achilles as one who
completely calls into question the meaningfulness of oaths or covenants between humans, while
recognizing that the elements do exist in Achilles' speech for later interpreters to read his words
in that direction.

Shaming Hector's Corpse
Finally, we can give attention to Achilles' mistreatment of Hector's body, the very thing that
Achilles' rejection of Hector's requested oath foreshadows. Achilles' words reveal that he is
committed to mutilating Hector's corpse, and he proves true to his word not long after. What
does this tell us about Achilles? Is he engaging in an act of barbarism or impiety? Is he rightfully
avenging his fallen comrade? Is he merely engaging in typical practices of warfare? As Segal puts
the question, "Does Homer regard the mutilation of the corpse as a cruel and savage act, or does
he merely accept it as the ordinary practice of war?"55 Modern scholars are divided over how to
read Homer's characterization of Achilles in this case. Some, like Segal, believe that Achilles is

55

Charles Segal, The Theme of the Mutilation of the Corpse in the Iliad (Leiden: Brill, 1971), 10.

40

behaving in a barbaric, impious, or unheroic manner.56 Others believe that he is merely engaging
in customary war practices and that Homer does not offer any moral disapproval.57
Regardless of how one interprets Achilles' actions, it is clear that the fate of corpses is a
central theme in the Iliad and recurs in the Odyssey as well.58 This is seen, for instance, in the
numerous taunts and references to the battle dead being consumed by birds and beasts, 59 the
battle over Sarpedon and Patroclus' remains,60 and of course the climactic events involving
Hector's body. There is a level of anxiety among combatants and their families on the subject of
proper burial and the possibility of the corpse being molested (Il. 22.66-76). It is very important
to characters in the Iliad that one receive proper funeral rites and an honorable burial, which
consists of ceremonial cremation of the body followed by the burying of the bones (6.416-420;
24.786-805). There are hints that for some the importance of burial was tied to a belief that the
departed soul could not enter Hades until the corpse had been tended to, and that the dead were
capable of haunting the living until their body was at rest.61 For the most part, however, burial
seems to be related to the key values in the Iliad of honor, shame, and memory. The heroes in
Homer are primarily concerned with gaining and maintaining honor and fame, something that

56

". . . the exposure and mutilation of a dead warrior's corpse does indeed arouse in Homer
repugnance and even some measure of moral outrage." Segal, Mutilation of the Corpse, 13.
57
Samuel Eliot Bassett, "Achilles' Treatment of Hector's Body" TAPA 64 (1933): 41-65.
58
Od. 11.66-80.
59
For example: Il. 1.4-5; 2.393; 4.237; 8.379-80; and 11.818.
60
The battle over Sarpedon is narrated in Il. 16.508-683, and the battle over Patroclus lasts for
more than an entire book (Il. 17.1-18.235).
61
Il. 23.70-74. Frank Tarbell urges some caution about overstating the importance of this idea in
Greek thought. "Greek Ideas as to the Effect of Burial on the Future of the Soul" TAPA 15
(1884): 36-45.

41

guarantees them a type of immortality in the memory of subsequent generations.62 They are
afraid of doing anything, or having anything done to them, that would bring them shame — both
in this life and in their mnemonic afterlife. Having a good death and a proper burial bring honor,
while a poor death and the mistreatment of a corpse bring shame (Il. 7.77-91).
It is not only the unburied dead that experience shame, but their comrades as well. The
anxiety over corpse mistreatment creates a social obligation that one struggle to ensure that their
comrade receive a proper burial. To ignore this obligation brings shame (Il. 16.544-545). Thus
we see the struggle over Sarpedon's body, followed by the struggle over Patroclus' body, and
finally the ransom of Hector's body. The theme of risking oneself to bury a relative, comrade, or
countryman that we see in later Greek and Jewish literature is already present in Homer.
It is clear that proper burial was important, and that improper burial was seen as something
bad and shameful for the deceased. It is also clear that one has an obligation to fight for his
friend's corpse. But what about the one who is abusing the corpse? Is there any kind of negative
moral or social judgment attached to this? How we answer this depends in part on how we
understand vocabulary like ajeiki/zw ("treat unseemly, injure").63 The verb ajeiki/zw and the
cognate ajeikh/ß (“unseemly, shameful”; LSJ, 26) are clearly negative words, but the question is
62

Richard Martin, "Glory," in The Homer Encyclopedia (ed. Margalit Finkelberg; Malden,
Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001),315-317.
63
LSJ, 26This verb occurs several times in the latter third of the Iliad where it is used to express
the abuse of a fallen enemy's body. In 16.545 and 16.559 it refers to the potential abuse of
Sarpedon's body by the Achaians. In 19.26 it refers to the potential of flies and worms fouling
Patroclus’ body, showing that it is not only humans who can shame a corpse. The verb is part of
Hector's proposed oath in 22.256, where he promises not to mistreat Achilles' corpse beyond
taking his armor. Hector's request is of course denied, and the verb is used to describe his
postmortem dragging behind the chariot of Achilles in 22.404, 24.22, and 24.54. We also

42

whether or not they cast aspersions on the one doing the act. In other words, is the deed
shameful only because it brings shame on the victim, or does it bring shame on the perpetrator as
well?64 Unfortunately, this is not an easy question to answer. The scholia reveal disagreement
on this issue amongst ancient interpreters and this disagreement continues among scholars
today.65 The ambiguity of this language may have contributed to the diverse assessments of
Achilles' action and character in the classical and Hellenistic ages, an issue which we will explore
further below.
Moving beyond vocabulary, it is possible to point to the gods' response to corpse
defilement as evidence for Homer's disapproval of these acts. Indeed, the gods express concern
over the fate of both Sarpedon’s and Hector's corpses, in both cases intervening to protect them
(Il. 16.676-683 and 24.23-24). It must be remembered, however, that it is primarily the gods
who sympathize with the Trojans or have a special connection to Sarpedon who are concerned
here.66 Their concern may not reflect universal moral indignation as much as it reflects their
offense at having something shameful done to mortals whom they love or patronize. The
response of the gods, then, would be similar to that of someone like Priam — it is their
relationship to the fallen that is primarily in view, not moral principles. The gods also express
anxiety over the potential deaths of their favourite mortals, and even intervene to protect them.

encounter the cognate adjective ajeikh/ß ("unseemly, shameful") as Achilles thinks of "shameful
deeds" (ajeike/a e¶rga) for Hector (22.395 and 23.24).
64
". . . Homer means by 'unseemly' and 'evil' in this connection, 'that which dishonors or harms
the object of the action,' without any reference to the moral quality of the acts itself, although
this may be at times clearly 'immoral'" (Bassett, "Hector's Body," 44).
65
Bassett, "Hector's Body," 44-46.
66
Sarpedon’s divine lineage likely has a role here as well.

43

Most readers of the Iliad, however, do not see this as a divine condemnation of the act of killing
in war, but rather the natural outworking of divine favouritism.
On the other hand, in Il. 24.25-27 we are told that rescuing Hector's body was pleasing to all
of the gods with the exception of the three who had the greatest grudge against the Trojans: Hera,
Poseidon, and Athena. This may tell us that even those gods who were more neutral took pity
on Hector, perhaps indicating the outrageousness of Achilles' actions, something that Hera,
Poseidon, and Athena may have recognized if they were not so consumed with anger. It is
probably still inappropriate to use the language of morality, but Homer might be suggesting that
the appropriate divine and human response here is that of pity towards Hector, a feeling that he
might expect his readers to share. This response of pity may not reflect a universal
condemnation of corpse mutilation, but could be understood as a reaction to the excessiveness of
Achilles' actions. Homer may be attempting to portray Achilles' actions towards Hector as an
extreme or excessive example of typical and normally acceptable acts of war. Achilles does not
just kill, loot, and expose Hector. He twice refuses Hector's request and the possibility of
receiving a ransom. He expresses a desire to cannibalize Hector himself. He drags Hector's body
for days. There is a special kind of fury and intensity in Achilles' treatment of his foe, and it is
possible that we are meant to interpret this as Achilles going too far. Achilles can be understood
in some ways as a pendulum character. His initial withdrawal from combat is justified, but he
arguably takes it too far, swinging out past the bounds of acceptable heroic behaviour. Similarly,
avenging Patroclus' death by defeating and abusing Hector is justified, but again he may swing out
past the bounds of acceptable behaviour by excessively mistreating the corpse.

44

The idea that Achilles has gone too far might also be supported by the fact that his behaviour
towards Hector is quite different from some of his earlier actions in combat. In Andromache's
conversation with Hector she tells how her father Eetion died at the hands of Achilles:

[Achilles] killed Eetion
but did not strip his armor, for his heart respected the dead man,
but burned the body in all its elaborate war-gear
and piled a grave mound over it, and the nymphs of the mountains,
daughters of Zeus of the aegis, planted elm trees about it (Il. 6.416-420).

Achilles' action towards Eetion is far more benevolent than what Hector will request of him,
as Hector merely wants Achilles to allow his parents to ransom his naked body so they can give
him a proper burial. Though he rejects Hector's modest request, Achilles actually abstains from
taking Eetion's armor, does not take a ransom, and gives the man a proper burial himself.67
We see a similar change in Achilles' behavior with respect to supplicants. Not only does he
reject Hector's final supplication, but during his aristeia he also rejects two other battlefield
supplicants: Tros, son of Alastor (20.464-475), and Lycaon, son of Priam (21.64-127). Lycaon's
case is particularly interesting, because Achilles had ransomed rather than killed him in the past.
Indeed, Achilles' rejection of supplicants in his aristeia differs from his earlier pattern of
behavior, in which he was more willing to grant their requests.68 Achilles' acts of mercy actually
"provide the only instances mentioned in the Iliad of prisoners being taken or released for

67

"It is noteworthy that the only individual in the Iliad who buries a dead enemy is the one who
is accused of the most unchivalrous treatment of the body of an opponent" (Bassett, "Hector's
Body," 47).
68
Il. 6.414-428; 11.104-106, 111-112.

45

ransom."69 Achilles' treatment of Tros, Lycaon, and Hector show us that something has clearly
changed for the character. This transformation could be interpreted negatively, particularly since
Achilles' actions now reflect the brutality of Agamemnon, arguably one of the most unpopular
characters in the Iliad.70
In our discussion of Achilles' characterization in the Iliad we have tried to offer a voice of
caution to the modern readers who might quickly rush towards negative conclusions about
Achilles, instinctively classifying his behavior as immoral, subhuman, or uncivilized. At the same
time, we have recognized that there is evidence within the Iliad for such interpretations of this
provocative character. While we might hesitate to use terms like moral or immoral, there is a
sense in which Achilles descends into the uncivilized. He is the best of the Achaians, and in the
final demonstration of his wrath-driven superiority he ultimately exceeds and surpasses the
bounds of heroic humanity, revealing in the process the uncivilized nature of warfare by pushing
things towards their shocking extremes.

Reception History
To this point we have focused on understanding Achilles within the horizons of the Iliad
itself. Just as interesting, and for our purposes just as important, is the reception history of
Achilles' encounter with Hector. How was Achilles assessed and appropriated in the ancient
world? This is a complicated question to answer. The ambiguities in Achilles' character within

69

King, Achilles, 13.
Agamemnon kills the battlefield supplicants Adrestos (6.37-65) and Peisandros (11.130-148).
He also rejects the supplication of Chryses in Book I, which ultimately led to his conflict with
Achilles.
70

46

the Iliad alone would give rise to multiple interpretations among the ancients, just as they
engender controversy amongst classics scholars today. Additionally, ancient readers and writers
had access to traditions and texts about Achilles apart from Homer's epics, such as the lost Epic
Cycle, which add to the complexity of his reception history. One of the most helpful treatments
of this history is Katherine Callen King's Achilles: Paradigms of the War Hero from Homer to
the Middle Ages.71 In her work she explores the diverse understandings and appropriations of
Achilles in the ancient world and shows us that the ambiguities in Achilles' characterization gave
rise to both positive and negative interpretations, a point which will be important for us in our
comparison with Jubilees.
Our goal here is not to offer an exhaustive treatment of this reception history, but merely to
explore evidence for how some of the elements in Achilles' encounter with Hector would have
been understood by later readers. Particularly interesting here is Achilles' abuse of Hector's
corpse, the issue which stands at the heart of his verbal exchange with the doomed hero. This
abuse was well known in the ancient world. As MacDonald notes: "every educated Greek knew
how Hector died; it and Achilles' desecration of Hector's corpse were popular themes for artists,
especially vase painters and sarcophagus sculptors."72 The evidence we will consider here is of
two types: (1) general discussions of the treatment of the dead, and (2) more specific references
and allusions to Achilles' treatment of Hector.

71

Cf. Pantelis Michelakis, Achilles in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002).
72
Dennis R. MacDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2000), 145. See some of this visual evidence in Anneliese Kossatz-Deissmann,
"Achilleus," in LIMC, nos. 558-632.

47

Figure 1. Hector's corpse. Malibu 95.AA.80. Athens, 180-220 C .E. Digital image courtesy of the Getty's
Open Content Program.

For the first category we find some useful materials among the Greek dramas, such as
Sophocles' Antigone, which deals with a conflict over the treatment of Polynices' body.
Polynices led an attack against his home city of Thebes, ultimately dying in combat against his
brother. Creon, who became ruler of Thebes in the wake of the battle, ordered the exposure of
Polynices' body and proclaimed the death penalty for anyone who would violate this order.
Polynices' sister and the namesake of the play, Antigone, brazenly violated the order by caring
for her brother's body. The conflict between Antigone, who defends her actions, and Creon, who
orders her death, occupies the rest of the play.
Sophocles certainly allows both sides to be heard, but ultimately Antigone's actions are
vindicated and Creon is condemned (998-1095). It could be argued that Sophocles and those who

48

sympathized with his play would have condemned Achilles' treatment of Hector. Proper burial
of the dead seems to be a divine law that human beings transgress at their own peril. Though
there are certainly resources for a critique of Achilles here, the situations in Antigone and in the
Iliad are not identical. In Antigone we are dealing with the treatment of a family member's body,
albeit one who died as an enemy combatant. Antigone is motivated largely out of a sense of
familial duty, making us wonder if the issue here is really the treatment of the dead in general,
including one's enemies, or the treatment of family members.
A clearer case for the propriety of allowing the battle-dead a proper burial, even if they are
one's enemies, is found in Euripides' Suppliants. Like Sophocles' Antigone, Suppliants takes place
in the aftermath of the famous battle at Thebes. The Argives, who aided Polynices in besieging
his home city of Thebes, have been denied the opportunity to reclaim and bury the bodies of
their dead. Under Creon's edict, the corpses remain exposed. The mothers of these fallen
soldiers and Adrastus, king of Argos, go to Athens to beg Theseus and the Athenians to redeem
the bodies. Theseus initially refuses the request, but eventually capitulates, using force of arms
to reclaim the fallen Argives after a diplomatic solution fails. What is particularly fascinating
about this instance of corpse recovery is that it is a third party who intervenes. The Athenians
were not part of the initial battle with Thebes, and from a Homeric perspective probably would
not have any obligation to fight for dead men who were not their countrymen or their allies in
combat. Indeed, some of Theseus' initial resistance seems to be due to the fact that the Argives
were foreigners (292-293). What emerges in the play is a different justification for struggling for
the battle dead, one that is not based primarily on kinship obligation but on the importance of

49

upholding international law and defending the oppressed (377-380).73 Allowing one's foes to
bury their dead is presented as a pan-Hellenic law that must be upheld (526), and this law is
ultimately rooted in divine will (19; 563). The message Theseus sends to Creon is worth quoting:
Now let the dead be buried in the earth, and let each element return to the place from
whence it came into the light of day, the spirit to the upper air, the body to the earth. We
do not possess our bodies as our own: we live our lives in them, and thereafter the earth,
our nourisher, must take them back. Do you think it is Argos you harm by not burying
the dead? You are wrong: all Hellas is concerned if the dead are deprived of their due and
kept unburied. If your action becomes customary, it will turn brave men into cowards.
To me you have come uttering dreadful threats: are you nevertheless afraid of the dead if
they are hidden in the earth? What are you afraid may happen? That they will
overthrow your land from the grave? Or that in the depths of the earth they will beget
children who will avenge them? . . . Well, what will it be? We want to act piously: grant
us permission to bury the dead. Otherwise, what comes next is plain: I will come and
bury them by force. The news shall never be brought to the Greeks that the ancient law
of the gods, coming before me and the city of Pandion, was there annulled (530-545; 559563; Kovacs, LCL).
Like Sophocles in Antigone, Euripides does not directly address Achilles' treatment of
Hector. However, the idea of an obligation regarding the treatment of enemy corpses that is
rooted in both divine and human law could provide the basis for criticism of Achilles. Such a
critique might not be surprising from Euripides, whom King identifies as one of the more
antagonistic voices in the tradition: "Euripides evokes negative aspects of Homer's epic that
Sophocles ignores . . . Instead of appropriating the Iliad as an authority to validate the ideas in
his own text, he seems intent on destroying the authority it and its hero Achilles enjoyed in
Athens."74

73

Note, however, that a shared ancestry is invoked by the Chorus in their supplication (263264). There may also be a sense in Suppliants of a pan-Hellenic identity. Perhaps barbarian
peoples would not be given the same consideration that Theseus ultimately gives to the Argives.
74
King, Achilles, 78. See her full discussion of Euripides’ largely critical appropriation of
Achilles in 77-104.

50

We see a concern for the burial of one's enemies in another drama, Sophocles' Ajax. Since it is
set in the time of the Trojan war it may have particular relevance. Near the end of the play, after
Ajax has killed himself, there is a dispute about what will happen to his body. Menelaus
instructs Ajax's brother Teucer to leave the body unburied (1047), intending for it to "be cast
forth somewhere on the yellow sand to become forage for the birds of the seashore" (1064-65).
His reasoning is similar to that of Creon in Antigone: Ajax was a traitor to the Achaians (105260). The situation in general is quite similar to Antigone, as obedience to a ruler and his
pronouncements (Menelaus) is pitted against devotion to one's family and the obligation to give a
proper burial. Just as Creon's position is ultimately critiqued, so is Menelaus'. The chorus asks
him not to "violate the dead" (1091). Teucer claims that Menelaus is dishonoring the gods in this
exchange:

Teucer: Then do not refuse honour to the gods, seeing that the gods preserved you.
Menelaus: Why, would I find fault with the laws of the gods?
Teucer: Yes, if you stand there and forbid burial of the dead.
Menelaus: Yes, that of my own enemies; is it not honorable? (1129-32; Lloyd-Jones, LCL).
Menelaus' response reflects the point we have raised already: the obligation to bury a corpse
is primarily an obligation for one's friends, family, and compatriots. It may not be expected that
one bury the corpse of their unrelated enemy. It is noteworthy that Teucer does not immediately
challenge Menelaus' principle, but rather the facts: was Ajax really an enemy? It will be the voice
of Odysseus that ultimately challenges the underlying principle in his speech to Agamemnon:
Listen, then! I beg you not to venture to cast this man out ruthlessly, unburied. Violence
must not so prevail on you that you trample justice under foot! For me too he was once
my chief enemy in the army, ever since I became the owner of the arms of Achilles; but

51

though he was such in regard to me, I would not so far fail to do him honour as to deny
that he was the most valiant among the Argives, of all that came to Troy, except Achilles.
And so you cannot dishonour him without injustice; for you would be destroying not
him, but the laws of the gods. It is unjust to injure a noble man, if he is dead, even if it
happens that you hate him. (1333-45; Lloyd-Jones, LCL).
Agamemnon has difficulty understanding why Odysseus would support the burial of
someone who was a hated enemy. Odysseus' response in the passage above and the ensuing
conversation reveal three ideas: (1) violating the corpse would be an offense to the gods; (2)
postmortem abuse does not bring honor to the hero; and (3) even though Ajax was an enemy he
was still a noble and excellent enemy. Odysseus prevails.
While Ajax does not explicitly address the issue of Hector's burial (though it does invite a
tragic comparison between the two in 1024-35), it is difficult to imagine that Sophocles would
have found Achilles' action defensible. Though there is a difference between Ajax and Hector, in
that Hector was a Trojan and Ajax an Achaian, Ajax has become to Menelaus, Agamemnon, and
Odysseus an enemy like the Trojans. Yet Odysseus argues, rightfully in the eyes of the play,
that even his hated enemy Ajax deserves a proper burial. We must wonder if the play offers a
veiled critique of Achilles by placing Achilles' own desire to abuse Hector's body on the lips of
two of the lesser-loved characters of the Iliad, Agamemnon and Menelaus. This would be quite
interesting considering the fact that Sophocles offers a generally positive portrayal of Achilles75.
Perhaps the popularity of Achilles led Sophocles to present critiques of him only in veiled form.
Greek drama is not the only place we encounter a sense of obligation to bury the dead,

75

King, Achilles, 77.

52

even if they are an enemy. For instance, Herodotus tells us about a man named Lampon who
approached Pausanias and urged him to mutilate an enemy:

"When Leonidas was killed at Thermopylae, Mardonius and Xerxes cut off his head and
set it on a pole; make them a like return, and you will win praise from all Spartans and the
rest of Hellas besides. For if you impale Mardonius, you will be avenged for your father's
brother Leonidas." This is what Lampon, thinking to please, said. Pausanias, however,
answered him as follows: "Aeginetan, I thank you for your goodwill and forethought, but
you have missed the mark of right judgment. First you exalt me and my fatherland and my
deeds, yet next you cast me down to mere nothingness when you advise me to insult the
dead (nekrwø! lumai/nesqai), and say that I shall win more praise if I do so. That would
be an act more proper for barbarians than for Greeks and one that we consider worthy of
censure even in barbarians" (9.78.3-9.79.1; Godley, LCL).
For Pausanius, abusing corpses is something that barbarians do — not Greeks. Based on his
response, it seems quite possible that Pausanius would have condemned Achilles’ treatment of
Hector as behaviour unfitting for a Greek hero.
In each of the aforementioned works we see some sense of obligation to ensure or at least
allow the burial of an enemy corpse. While Achilles' treatment of Hector is not directly
addressed, there is arguably a latent critique of the hero within these texts. This latent criticism is
made explicit in other sources. One notable example is Plato, who mentions Achilles' treatment
of Hector in his Republic. Plato's reception of the Iliad's Achilles and Homer in general are quite
interesting, as he challenges and censors the best of the Achaians and the bard who told his story.
For Plato, Homer's Achilles is an unacceptable role model for the education of youth for several
reasons. These include his acceptance of gifts from Agamemnon in Book XIX and his acceptance
of a ransom for Hector's body, as these actions indicate greediness. His insolence towards the

53

god Apollo and the Scamander are also critiqued. Most significantly for our purposes is the
incredulity over these events in the life of Achilles:

. . . and again [Achilles] said of the locks of his hair, consecrated to the other river
Spercheius: 'This let me give to take with him my hair to the hero, Patroclus,' who was a
dead body, and that he did so we must not believe. And again the trailings of Hector's
body round the grave of Patroclus and the slaughter of the living captives upon his pyre,
all these we will affirm to be lies nor will we suffer our youth to believe that Achilles, the
son of a goddess and of Peleus the most chaste of men, grandson of Zeus, and himself
bred under the care of the most sage Cheiron, was of so perturbed a spirit as to be
affected with two contradictory maladies, the greed that becomes no free man and at the
same time overweening arrogance towards god and men (Republic, 391b-c; Shorey, LCL).
We see that Plato identifies Achilles' treatment of Hector's body as one of the deeds that
must be rejected, and pairs it with his brutal slaughter of the twelve Trojans as part of Patroclus'
funeral. Not only should Achilles not have mistreated Hector's body, Plato's criticism of
Achilles' eventual acceptance of ransom from Priam for the return of the corpse indicates that he
should not have accepted Hector's original request (return the body of the fallen in exchange for
ransom) but rather gone above and beyond this by returning the body free of charge. Plato lumps
all of these actions of Achilles into the category of "overweening arrogance (uJperhfani÷a; we
might also translate this as "contempt"; LSJ, 1864) towards god and men." Hobbs notes that
Plato likely intends these actions to be read as examples of the "terrible and impious deeds"
mentioned in 391d.76
MacDonald points us towards another negative interpretation of Achilles' treatment of
Hector in Pseudo-Justin Martyr's Cohortatio ad gentiles 30 (first half of the fourth century C.E.).

54

The lateness of the text should make us cautious about using it to understand the interpretation
of Achilles in the Hellenistic era, but it is still worth noting:
¢Oti de\ ejk ghvß a‡nqrwpoß pe/plastai, kai\ ¢Omhroß ajpo\ thvß palaiavß kai\ qei/aß
i˚stori/aß maqw/n, thvß legou/shß Ghv ei• kai\ eijß ghvn ajpeleu/shØ, to\ a‡yucon tou!
§Ektoroß sw!ma kwfh\n ojnoma/zei gh!n. ¶Efh ga/r pou kata\ touv jAcille/wß meta\
qa/naton to\ touv ºEktoroß su/rontoß swvma: Kwfh\n ga\r dh\ gaivan ajeiki/zeiß
meneai/nwn.
And that man was formed of earth, Homer, too, having discovered from the ancient and
divine history which says, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," calls the
lifeless body of Hector dumb clay. For in condemnation of Achilles dragging the corpse of
Hector after death, he says somewhere:— "On the dumb clay he cast indignity, Blinded
with rage".77
Pseudo-Justin is trying to argue that Homer was aware of the biblical teaching that human
beings had been formed from the earth, and he cites Il. 24.54 (kwfh\n ga\r dh\ gaivan ajeiki/zei
meneai/nwn) as evidence. This is the closing line of Apollo's rebuff against Hera, Poseidon, and

Athena, whose lingering hatred for Troy leads them to oppose divine intervention to rescue the body
of Hector from Achilles. What is important for our purposes is Pseudo-Justin's criticism of
Achilles' treatment of Hector through the use of an oppositional kata/.78
Beyond commentary on the Iliad passages themselves, there are also examples of Achilles'
interaction with Hector being mimicked by others in history and literature. There is a tradition,
for instance, that Alexander the Great similarly dragged his enemies. This tradition is preserved
by Dionysius Halicarnassus, who quotes and comments upon Hegesias of Magnesia's version of
the story, as well as by Quintus Curtius Rufus. The account from Hegesias reads:

76

Angela Hobbs, Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness, and the Impersonal Good
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 203-204.
77
ANF 1:286.
78
LSJ, 883. See Matt 5:11, 23; 10:35; 12:14, 25.

55

The king advanced, leading his division. Some plan had been formed by the enemy
commanders to meet him as he approached; for they had come to the conclusion that, if
they overcame this one man, they would rout his host at the same time. This hope led
them on to daring, so that never before had Alexander been in danger to such a degree.
One of the enemy fell on his knees, and Alexander thought he had done so in order to ask
for mercy. Having allowed him to approach, he narrowly avoided the thrust of a sword
which the man carried under the flaps of his corslet, so that the blow was not mortal.
Alexander himself despatched the man with a blow on the head with his sabre, but the
king's followers were inflamed with spontaneous anger. In fact, so completely did the
man's insane daring banish pity from the minds of everyone who saw or heard of it, that
six thousand barbarians were cut down at the trumpet signal which followed. Baetis
himself, however, was brought before the king alive by Leonatus and Philotas. And
Alexander, seeing that he was corpulent and tall and savage-looking (for he was black in
colour too), was seized with loathing for his appearance as well as for his designs against
his life, and ordered that a bronze ring be drawn through his feet and that he should be
dragged round, naked. Pounded with the pain of passing over many rough pieces of
ground, he set up a scream. And it was just this detail which I mention that brought
people together. The pain racked him, and he kept on yelling like a barbarian, begging
Alexander for mercy and addressing him as 'lord'; and his peculiar language made them
laugh. His fat and swelling flesh suggested another creature, a Babylonian beast of ample
proportions. So the troops made sport of him, mocking with the coarse mockery of the
camp an enemy who was hateful in appearance and clumsy in his manner (Dionysius
Halicarnasssus, de Compositione Verborum 18; Usher, LCL).
Dionysisus of Halicarnassus quotes this in his critique of Hegesias' poetic style, and
contrasts it unfavorably with Homer's account of Achilles dragging Hector in the Iliad. While
there are differences between the two accounts (Alexander's victim is alive, for instance), the
similarities with Achilles are undeniable and were strong enough to invite the comparison with
the Iliad. How should we appraise Hegesias' portrayal of Alexander? On the one hand, the
treatment of Baetis seems quite cruel, which might lead us to understand Alexander's actions
negatively. On the other hand, Hegesias' grotesque portrayal of the victim is arguably an attempt
to prevent the reader from pitying him.
What can we learn from Dionysius' comments on this fragment? He prefaces it with this
summary:

56

The subject which the sophist is treating is as follows: Alexander, when besieging Gaza, a
strongly fortified position in Syria, is wounded during the assault and captures the place
after some time. Carried away by anger, he massacres all the surviving inhabitants,
allowing his Macedonians to kill anyone they should meet, and having captured their
commander, a man who was highly honoured for his position and his appearance, he gives
orders that he should be bound alive to a war chariot and that the horses should be driven
at full speed before the eyes of all, and he kills him in this way. No one could have a
story of more terrible suffering to tell, or one containing more visual horror (18; Usher,
LCL).

Following the fragment Dionysius goes on to say: "I ask you, does this description resemble
those lines of Homer, in which Achilles is made to outrage Hector after his death? And yet the
suffering in this case is less, for the outrage is being wrought upon a corpse that has no feeling."
Dionysius then quotes Homer's version of Achilles dragging Hector's body, and concludes: "This
is the way in which a noble body and terrible sufferings should be described by men of sensibility
and intelligence." Dionysius' focus here is stylistic: Homer is superior to Hegesias because of
Homer's use of rhythm. We should note, however, that Dionysius' characterization of Baetis
seems to be more positive than Hegesias'. Part of Hegesias' failure may also have been in his
portrayal of Baetis in such a way that it does not fully evoke the pity of the reader. For
Dionysius, the proper response that a story about this kind of suffering should evoke in the
reader is one of horror and pity.
Does this constitute a criticism of Achilles and Alexander? Perhaps, but not necessarily.
Dionysius is focused on the victim's suffering, not the perpetrator's culpability. Evoking pity for
the suffering of a victim does not necessarily mean the aggressor is being condemned. For
example, one of the functions of Homer's necrologies is to humanize and nobilize vanquished
characters in order to increase the reader's pity towards the battle dead. While it is possible to

57

use Homer's necrologies, which often focus on the domestic impact and suffering of war, to
construct a critique of warfare and violence, this was probably not Homer's intention. Our
conclusion must be that Hegesias and Dionysius are ambiguous regarding value judgments against
Achilles and Alexander, although the horror of Alexander's actions would ultimately lead some
readers, like Quintus Curtius Rufus, to condemn the conqueror.
A second version of this story is found in the first-century C. E. Roman author Quintus
Curtius Rufus' history of Alexander the Great:

Betis, after fighting a gallant battle and being exhausted by many wounds, was deserted
by his men, but nevertheless fought on with equal vigour, although his armour was
slippery alike with his own blood and that of the enemy. But since he was the target of
weapons from all sides, his strength at last gave out and he came alive into the power of
the foe. When he was brought before the king, Alexander, usually an admirer of valour
even in an enemy, exulting, young as he was, with insolent joy, said: 'You shall not die as
you have wished, but be sure that you shall suffer whatever can be devised against a
capitve.' Betis, gazing at the king with an expression not only undaunted but haughty,
answered not a word to his threats. Then Alexander cried: 'Do you not see how
determined he is to keep silence? He has not bent his knee, has he? Has he uttered a
word of entreaty? Yet I will overcome his silence, and, if in no other way, I will put an
end to it by groans.' Then his wrath changed to frenzy, for even then his new fortune
suggested foreign customs. For while Betis still breathed, thongs were passed round his
ankles, he was bound to the king's chariot, and the horses dragged him around the city,
while the king boasted that in taking vengeance on an enemy he had imitated Achilles,
from whom he derived his race (4.6.25-29; Rolfe, LCL).
This author makes explicit the connection between Achilles’ and Alexander's actions, and
actually presents Alexander as intending to emulate Achilles.79 Curtius also clearly criticizes
Alexander for his actions. Is this an implicit condemnation of Achilles' actions as well?

79

Alexander's self-identification with Achilles is a recurrent theme in his biographies, a point we
will return to in chapter four.

58

Another interesting potential appropriation of Achilles' treatment of Hector and a
continuation of the Alexander tradition is found in Rabbinic literature in a tale that discusses Jews
and Samaritans meeting with the conqueror. Goldstein's translation based on his edited Hebrew
version of Megillat Taanit 21 Kislev and b.Yoma 69a reads as follows:

On the twenty-first day thereof [of Kislev] is the Day of Mount Gerizim, on which no
mourning is allowed. It is the day on which the Cuthaeans asked of Alexander the
Macedonian to turn over to them the house of our God to be destroyed, saying to him,
'Sell us five kors on Mount Moriah.' He granted it to them. When they came, the
inhabitants of Jerusalem went out with cudgels and beat them off. They [the
Jerusalemites] told [the high priest,] Simeon the Just. He put on priestly undervestments
and put on priestly outer vestments and took with him the nobles of Jerusalem. All night
the ones [the Jews] marched on one side and the others [the Cuthaeans] marched on the
other, until dawn. As soon as they reached Antipatris, the sun rose and they [the two
columns] met each other. The king asked, 'What is this?' They [the Cuthaeans] told him,
'These are the very Jews who have rebelled against you.' As soon as Alexander the
Macedonian saw Simeon the Just, he dismounted from his chariot and bowed down to
him. They [the Cuthaeans and perhaps other onlookers] said to him, 'Will a great king,
such as you, bow down to this Jew?' He replied, 'I see his image when I go into battle,
and I win.' He [Alexander] said to him [Simeon], 'What do you request?' He replied,
'Gentiles have misled you into turning over to them the house in which we pray for your
kingdom.' He [Alexander] said to him, 'Who have misled me?' He [Simeon] replied, 'They
are the Cuthaeans who are standing before you.' He [Alexander] said to him, 'I deliver
them into your hand.' They bored80 through their [the Cuthaeans'] heels, tied them to the
tails of their horses, and dragged them over the thorns and thistles until they came to
Mount Gerizim. When they came to Mount Gerizim, they plowed it and planted it with
vetch in the same manner as they [the Cuthaeans] had plotted to treat the house of our
God, and that day they [the Jews] made a festive day. 81

Goldstein rightly notes that "the Jews inflict upon the Samaritans not only the desecration of
their holy site, but also gruesome death by torture, combining Israelite Gideon's treatment of the
80

bqn. This verb is sometimes translated by tetrai/nw in the LXX (2 Kgs 12:10, 18:21; Job

40:24). tetrai/nw is the verb used when Achilles pierces Hector’s feet in Il. 22.396.
81
Jonathan A. Goldstein, "Alexander and the Jews," Proceedings of the American Academy for
Jewish Research 59 (1993): 66.

59

men of Sukkoth with Greek Achilles' treatment of Hector."82 He goes on to say: "Alexander was
said to have copied Achilles' treatment of Hector and to have inflicted it on the defeated enemy
commander upon the fall of Gaza! One might be surprised to find that gentile writers regard such
treatment of a defeated enemy as an atrocity, whereas the rabbinic legend includes it as part of
the reason for celebrating a festive day!"83 This is interesting: we seem to have a Jewish tradition
arguably based on both the Iliad and the story of Alexander dragging his own enemies which
portrays the dragging of one's enemies positively.
The appearance of a Jewish text in this tradition raises a question that is important for our
particular study: how might Jewish readers have thought about the dragging of Hector by
Achilles? This rabbinic text might indicate that some would not take issue with it. There are also
texts from the Hebrew Bible that seem to have no problem with the threatened or actual
molestation of an enemy corpse.84 On the other hand, a passage like Amos 2:1 might condemn
the mistreatment of an enemy's corpse, and the burial of Saul and his sons in 2 Sam 21 may also
speak to the importance of giving proper burial even to someone who was an enemy. 85 The
Book of Tobit may be particularly relevant for this discussion, as it portrays a pious Israelite

82

Goldstein, "Alexander and the Jews," 97.
Ibid.
84
1 Sam 17:51, 54. Cf. T. Jud. 3:4-5: "And fighting Achor for two hours I [Judah] killed him, and
after having cleft his shield in two I chopped off his feet, And as I was stripping off his
breastplate, behold, eight men, companions of his, began to fight with me" (Hollander and de
Jonge).
85
Bolyki points to Deut 21:22-23 as evidence that even the executed deserved burial. Ja/nos
Bolyki, "Burial as an Ethical Task in the Book of Tobit, in the Bible and in the Greek Tragedies,"
in The Book of Tobit: Text, Tradition, Theology: Papers of the First International Conference on
the Deuteronomical Books, Pa/pa, Hungary, 20-21 May, 2004 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 90. See the
full discussion of burial in the Hebrew Bible on 89-91.
83

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man who, like Antigone, risks his life to bury his fellow Israelites.86 However, while Tobit
emphasizes the importance of proper burial, it does not speak specifically to the treatment of an
enemy corpse. Thus it seems that a Jewish reader, like ancient Greek readers, could have
appraised Achilles' actions either positively or negatively.

Our exploration of the characterization of Achilles in the Iliad passage and surrounding
context and in the ancient reception history of the figure has revealed a level of ambiguity. On
the one hand, Achilles' speech and subsequent treatment of Hector could be read as par for the
heroic course, and could even be something that later literature might positively emulate (Bassett;
b. Yoma). On the other hand, the Iliad itself and subsequent tradition can suggest that Achilles'
words and actions were aberrant, a crossing of the boundaries of heroic and human civility (Segal;
Plato; Pseudo-Justin). The reception of this particular incident from Achilles’ life reflects a
broader ambiguity in Achilles' reception history, with the dominant tradition positively
evaluating the figure (Pindar, Sophocles) while a vocal minority criticizes him (Euripides,
Plato).87 Achilles is thus a liminal figure who is interpreted in diverse and even contradictory
ways in later tradition. As we will discuss below, this ambiguity may have made Achilles the
perfect figure for Jubilees to appropriate.

86
87

Cf. Sir 38:16.
See King, Achilles

61

CHAPTER THREE
ESAU
In the previous chapter we offered a detailed analysis of Achilles' speech to Hector in Il.
22.260-272, giving attention to the speech itself, its literary context, and the speech's implication
for Achilles' characterization both within the Iliad itself and in the epic's ancient reception
history. We now turn to a similar analysis of Esau's speech in Jubilees 37:18-23. Our goal is to
explore and appreciate Esau's speech in its own right while also structuring our analysis in such a
way that it lays a foundation for a comparison of our two speeches in the following chapter. As
with our discussion of Achilles' speech we begin by looking at the literary context.

Literary Context
The Book of Jubilees
The Book of Jubilees is one of our most important examples of so-called "rewritten
scripture."1 Purporting to be revelation given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, Jubilees narrates the
history of Israel from the beginning of creation up until the exodus from the first person
perspective of an angel of the presence. The book is primarily modeled on Genesis and Exodus,
but freely reworks these books in many places and incorporates other sources and traditions as
well. Originally a Palestinian Hebrew composition, the work has survived in its entirety only in
the Ethiopic tradition, although fragments are extant in Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Latin.
Historically there has been wide disagreement about the dating of the book, but based on the
finding and paleographic dating of fragments from Qumran as well as internal arguments a

1

Sidnie White Crawford, Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2008).

62

general consensus has been reached that the book was written in the second century B.C.E.2
VanderKam, whose arguments have been very influential in late twentieth-century and early
twenty-first-century Jubilees scholarship, believes the book reflects knowledge of the
Maccabean revolt and that its reception by the Qumran community indicates it was composed
before the forebears of this community became disillusioned with the high priesthood in the midsecond century B.C.E. Thus VanderKam dates the composition of the book to approximately
160-150 B.C.E.3 Some opt for an earlier date, arguing that Jubilees demonstrates awareness of
the Hellenistic reforms in the mid-170s but does not reference the oppression under Antiochus
Epiphanes.4 Others argue for a later second-century date, such as Doron Mendels who places the
composition of Jubilees in 125 B.C.E.5 Our argument fits comfortably within any of these dating
schemes.

Source-Critical Context
Before proceding with a closer analysis of our passage some brief attention should be given to
basic source-critical issues. As we will see below, Esau's speech in Jub. 37:18-23 is set within an
account of a battle between the first-generation Israelites and Edomites that ultimately results in
Esau's death. This is not the only extant account of such a battle, as we encounter examples of
this tradition in both Testament of Judah 9:1-8 and in Midrash Wayissa'u (M.W.) 37.1-14.6 In
2

See the discussion in James C. VanderKam, Textual and Historical Studies in the Book of
Jubilees (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1977), 207-285.
3
James C. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 20-21.
4
VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, 21.
5
Doron Mendels, The Land of Israel as a Political Concept in Hasmonean Literature (Tübingen:
Mohr, 1987), 57.
6
Midrash Wayissa'u is preserved in various forms in a variety of medieval Jewish manuscripts,
including the collections Yalqut Shimeoni (13th century C. E.) and the Chronicles of Jerahmeel

63

both of these texts we see the battle with Edom paired with a battle against the Amorites.7 The
exact nature of the relationship between all of these texts remains open for debate, and no
consensus has been reached.8 That said, de Jonge makes a good case that the three texts are
ultimately dependent on a common source. He observes that elements in the shorter account of
the Amorite war in Testament of Judah "are unintelligible without the information supplied by
Midrash Wayissau'u."9 This indicates that the Testament is an abbreviation of a longer
source/tradition to which M.W. had access. Both of these texts also include shared material about
the battles with the Amorites and Edomites that are lacking in Jubilees, indicating that Jubilees is
not the source — or at least not the sole source — for their accounts. De Jonge's summary
statement on the relationship between these texts is worth quoting:
As to the stories of the Amorite and Edomite wars, it is clear that Jubilees and the
Testaments go back to a common source . A direct dependence of the Testaments on
Jubilees is impossible, because Jubilees gives an abbreviated account of the war with the
Amorites, whilst T.Jud. offers many more details. On the other hand it is impossible that
Jubilees should be dependent on the Testaments, for its story of the Edomite War cannot
possibly have been derived from T. Jud. IX. We must therefore assume a common
source, very probably written in Hebrew, which may have been an early redaction of the
(14th century C.E.). For a discussion of the manuscript evidence and editions see Martha
Himmelfarb, "Midrash Vayissa'u: A New Translation and Introduction," in Old Testament
Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures (ed. Richard Bauckham, James R. Davila, and
Alexander Panayotov; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 1:144. Versification and translation in
our discussions are taken from Harm W. Hollander and Marinus de Jonge, The Testaments of the
Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1985), 451-456. Kugel points us to J.B.
Lauterbach's privately published edition of the Hebrew text available for download at
www.hebrewbooks.org. James L. Kugel, A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees
and the World of its Creation (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 165 n.296.
7
Cf. Gen 48:22. Jubilees also has a version of this story in 34:1-9.
8
"The number of opinions on the topic nearly matches the number of commentators who have
taken it up." Robert A. Kugler, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 2001), 58.
9
Marinus de Jonge, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Study of Their Text, Composition
and Origin (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1975), 61.

64

Midrash Wayissa'u tradition, or even a fuller account of which Midrash Wayissa'u is an
independent partial redaction.10
This does not mean that these texts are completely independent of each other. Indeed, given
the lateness of M.W. it is possible that it has been influenced in some manner by the earlier texts
either in direct or indirect form. However, even if there has been some influence among these
texts, they are still dependent on a shared oral or written tradition that is no longer extant.
Even though the story of Jacob's final encounter with Esau in Jubilees is drawing upon earlier
traditions, the author still seems to have incorporated his own elements. Most notably, Esau's
speech is completely absent from the parallel accounts. The brevity of the Testament of Judah
account does mean it is possible that the speech was part of the work's source(s) but that it has
been omitted in an effort to condense the story. However, we cannot argue from silence. M.W.
does mention a verbal exchange between Jacob and Esau, but it is only Jacob who speaks:
When Jacob saw that Esau dared to war with him, and that he had come to kill them in the
fortress, and that he shot arrows against them, Jacob stood upon the wall of the fortress
and spoke to Esau his brother words of peace, friendship and brotherhood
(hwjaw twoyr MwlC yrbd). But Esau did not heed them (37.3).11
Again, it is possible that there was a speech from Esau in M.W.'s source, but we have no
evidence for this. The fact that M.W. provides us with a lengthy account of the wars and does
not seem to have much concern for literary economy makes it less likely the speech would have
10

Ibid., 70-71. Cf. John C. Endres, Biblical Interpretation in the Book of Jubilees (Washington,
DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1987), 180.
11
Hollander and de Jonge, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary, 454. Note
the expansion in the Syriac version of Jub. 37:19: "Jacob said 'Do not do (this), my brother. As
for me, there is no evil in my mind against you; do not plan evil against me. Be aware that there is a
God, and he sees secrets and repays each one in accord with what he does. Calm your great anger
and do nothing hastily. Then evil would come upon you.'" See Appendix I for further discussion.

65

been omitted if known.12 As far as we can tell from the extant literary evidence, Esau's speech is
unique to Jubilees.
Beyond the absence of the speech in the parallel accounts, we can also consider the fact that
Esau's speech and some of the surrounding context contain elements that are similar to other texts
in Jubilees. Most notable here is the emphasis on oaths. We will discuss this further below, but
the portrayal of Esau as an oath-breaker in his speech and surrounding context reflects a broader
theme in Jubilees, and has many similarities to extra-biblical stories in chapters 8-10. This
increases the likelihood that Esau's speech and other seemingly unique elements in its version of
the battle are original to the book, or at the very least based on a different stream of tradition than
the common source underlying Testament of Judah and M.W.
Even though Jubilees has unique elements, it is still drawing on an existing tale about a battle
with the Edomites. What might the ultimate inspiration of such a tale have been? VanderKam
has argued that both the conflicts with the Amorites and the Edomites are ultimately stylized
accounts of Judas Maccabeus' conflicts. 13 The parallels between details in the battle with Edom
and narratives of Judas' conflicts with surrounding nations are certainly suggestive.14 While
elements of the story may have been based on these events, it is likely that the idea of a conflict
These could certainly constitute words of "peace, friendship, and brotherhood." It is possible that
this Syriac expansion and M.W. are connected in some indirect way.
12
Note, however, de Jonge's aforementioned suggestion that M.W. could be a partial redaction of
a fuller account. The absence of Esau's speech from M.W. might also weigh against the
possibility, raised above, that M.W. may be drawing upon Jubilees and/or Testament of Judah in
addition to its other source(s). However, it is still quite possible that Jubilees has influenced this
later account in an indirect way, a suggestion that we will note again in the following chapter.
13
VanderKam, Textual and Historical Studies, 217-238.

66

between Esau/Edom and the first Israelites was inspired by Gen 27:40-41 and Amos 1:11.15 In
Gen 27:40 Isaac "blesses" Esau that he will live by his sword and predicts that he will rebel
against Jacob's yoke. In 27:41 Esau commits to killing Jacob once Isaac has died. The mention of
the sword, a future rebellion, and the desire to kill Jacob could all support the creation of a tale in
which Esau attacks Jacob after their father's death. Amos 1:11 would have provided further
support for this, as it says that Edom "pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity,
and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever." Even though this likely refers to
events in Amos' eighth-century B.C.E. setting, it could easily be read by early interpreters as a
reference to Esau and the first generation of Edomites. Indeed, the introduction to the war with
Edom in Midrash Wayissa'u cites this verse (37.1).
While a more detailed analysis of the various versions of our story and an investigation into
its ultimate sources and origins would be interesting, for the sake of space we will limit ourselves
to this brief discussion and occasional notes throughout our study. The main thing we can take
away from this discussion is that Esau's speech is likely an original composition of the author of
Jubilees that has been incorporated into an existing tradition about armed conflict between the
first-generation Israelites and Edomites.

Immediate Literary Context
The exchange between Jacob and Esau we are examining is a climactic moment in the narrative
of Jubilees and the culmination of a lengthy process of negative characterization of Esau. With his
14

For instance, the mercenary nations that we are actually told engage Jacob's sons in combat are
the same nations that Judas is in conflict with in 1 Macc 5 and Ant. 12.8. VanderKam, Textual
and Historical Studies, 233-235.

67

final disregard for the sacredness of oaths and filial piety Esau seals his fate.16 As Jacob indicates
in 37:17, Esau has already sworn an oath to both his father and his mother, thus swearing two times
before Isaac's death. Both of these oaths bind him to love his brother. These are the oaths Esau is
about to flagrantly violate.17
As her death approached, Rebekah became concerned that Esau would harm Jacob. In both
Genesis and Jubilees Esau's violence was an earlier fear of Rebekah's, one which prompted her to
have Jacob sent to Laban (Gen 27:42-45 and Jub. 27:1-7). In Genesis this fear is ultimately
assuaged when Jacob returns and is reconciled with Esau (32:3-33:16), but in Jubilees it
resurfaces as Rebekah nears her death. Her solution is to ask Isaac to compel Esau to swear an
oath that he will not harm Jacob, in the hopes that the power of an oath will ensure harmony
between her sons. Isaac questions the efficacy of the oath as a deterrent, knowing that Esau is so
impious that he will disregard it and still attempt to harm Jacob. Fortunately, Rebekah can rest
assured that Jacob's guardian will protect him when this happens (35:9-17).
Isaac follows Rebekah's wishes, but only after Esau has first sworn an oath to her directly in
35:24: "'I swear to you that I will love him and that throughout my entire lifetime I will not aim
at what is bad for him but only at what is good.' He swore to her about this entire matter."18

15

Kugel, A Walk through Jubilees, 173.
"Esau becomes for the community of Jubilees not only the symbol of their political enemies
(Edomites) but also the arch-enemy of familial harmony, one of God's foremost commands to
them" (Endres, Biblical Interpretation, 182).
17
In a sense he is also violating the oath from Jub. 24:5 by trying to get his birthright back
through murder.
18
Livneh notes that the content of this oath draws on the commands of Lev 19:18b ("You shall
love your neighbor as yourself") and Lev 19:17a ("You shall not hate your brother in your
heart"). Atar Livneh, "Can the Boar Change Its Skin? Esau's Speech in Jubilees 37:18-23,"
Henoch 34 (2012): 76. Esau will vehemently reject both of these commands in his speech.
16

68

Later, when Isaac is approaching his own death, he solicits an oath from Esau (and Jacob) as
Rebekah asked. The seriousness of this second oath is emphasized in the text:
Now I will make you swear with the great oath — because there is no oath which is
greater than it, by the praiseworthy, illustrious, and great, splendid, marvelous, powerful,
and great name which made the heavens and the earth and everything together — that you
will continue to fear and worship him, as each loves his brother kindly and properly. One
is not to desire what is bad for his brother now and forever, throughout your entire
lifetime, so that you may be prosperous in everything that you do and not be destroyed.
If one of you aims at what is bad for his brother, be aware that from now on anyone who
aims at what is bad for his brother will fall into his control and will be uprooted from the
land of the living, while his descendants will be destroyed from beneath the sky. On the
day of turmoil and curse, of anger and wrath — with a blazing fire that devours — he will
burn his land, his city, and everything that belongs to him just as he burned Sodom. He
will be erased from the disciplinary book of mankind. He will not be entered in the book
of life but in the one that will be destroyed. He will pass over to an eternal curse so that
their punishment may always be renewed with denunciation and curse, with anger, pain,
and wrath, and with blows and eternal sickness. I am reporting and testifying to you, my
sons, in accord with the punishment which will come on the man who wishes to do what
is harmful to his brother (36:7-11).
Esau's violation of this oath happens fairly quickly after it has been sworn, both in narrative time
and in discourse time. In narrative time the violation occurs either immediately afterwards or
approximately five years later,19 and in discourse time it occurs in the very next chapter. Isaac's
extensive description of the oath and the rapidity of Esau's violation of it both serve to underline the
gross impiety revealed in Esau's speech.

19

There is some confusion on this point in the text. Jub. 37:1 tells us that "On the day that
Isaac, the father of Jacob and Esau, died Esau's sons heard that Isaac had given the birthright to
his younger son Jacob. They became very angry." This anger quickly turns into murderous
intent, as they make preparations to attack Jacob and his sons. This seems to indicate that the
war between Jacob and Esau occurred fairly quickly after Isaac's death. However, in 37:14 we
learn that Jacob is in mourning for Leah when Esau's army approaches. This is problematic
because Leah died in 2167 AM (36:21), five years after Isaac's death. See Kugel, A Walk through
Jubilees, 174-175 for a discussion of some of these issues. T. Jud. 9.1 notes that the Israelites
and Edomites were at peace for eighteen years before the conflict. M.W. sets the battle in the
year Leah died (37.1).

69

Interestingly, it is not Esau himself, but his sons who initially instigate the attack that will violate
Esau's oaths.20 His sons feel slighted because Jacob, the younger son, received the birthright, a fact
that they learn at Isaac's death, presumably as Isaac's possessions are being divided among his two
sons (37:1-2). Esau explains that he sold his birthright and that Jacob tricked him out of his
blessing. He also rehearses the oath that Isaac made him and Jacob swear, reminding the reader yet
again of Esau's oath not to harm his brother (37:3-4). Unfortunately, Esau's sons will not be
dissuaded. They are determined to kill Jacob and his sons, and threaten to harm Esau as well if he
does not cooperate (37:5). Esau has already been established as someone who disregards filial
piety — now it seems that the first generation of Edomites has an even more severe disregard for
such values.21 Unlike Jacob, who went to great lengths to honor his parents, and unlike Jacob's son
Judah who refuses to kill Esau out of reverence for his father and uncle (38:1), Esau's children have
murderous disdain for their elders. Against their father's continued warnings the children of Esau
put together an international army of mercenaries, drawing fighters from the traditional enemies of
Israel: Aram, Philistia, Moab, Ammon, and the Kittim. After the army has been assembled Esau's
sons threaten him with death once more (37:11). We learn yet again of Esau's disapproval of their
actions before he undergoes an evil transformation (37:12-13). Remembering "all of the evil
hidden in his heart against Jacob," Esau forgets "the oath that he had sworn to his father and mother
not to aim at anything bad against his brother Jacob throughout his entire lifetime."22 At the height

20

This is a departure from what we see in M.W. and T. Jud. In M.W. it is Esau who is the
initiator, and though his sons are mentioned (37.5, 13-4), they do not play a primary role in the
account. In T. Jud. Esau’s sons are definitely part of the attacking force, but again it is Esau who
is emphasized as the antagonist.
21
On filial piety, see Jub. 7:16, 12:30, 13:18, 20:2, 27:6, 29:15, 34:3, 35:1. For the contrast
between Jacob and Esau on this issue see 35:9-12. Cf. Endres, Biblical Interpretation, 115-117.
22
Jub. 37:13. Kugel originally argued that the incongruity of Esau's original resistance to his sons
and his unabashed animosity towards Jacob as leader of the mercenary army point towards two
different traditions that have been weaved together. James Kugel, Traditions of the Bible: A
Guide to the Bible as it was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1998), 371. In his recent commentary he argues instead that Esau's "waffling and ultimate
transformation" is due to the fact that as Isaac and Rebekah's child he could not be completely
vilified. His children on the other hand "are halfbreeds" and they are able to persuade the weak

70

of Esau's earlier murderous rage Rebekah had urged Jacob to leave home until his brother forgot
"the full extent of what you [Jacob] did to him" (27:3). Esau now remembers what he had earlier
forgotten, and in the process forgets the covenant he has made. In the biblical tradition mnemonics
is tied to faithfulness, and Esau here proves to be unfaithful by remembering what he should forget
and forgetting what he should remember.
With Esau's change of heart the narrative now shifts to Jacob in Hebron where he is in
mourning for Leah and unaware of the army coming towards him. Fortunately, the people of
Hebron are more fond of Jacob than they are of Esau and they warn him of Esau's plans (37:15).
Jacob, however, cannot believe it is true until he sees them approaching the tower of Hebron with
his own eyes. It is at this point that our text begins: Jacob closes the tower of Hebron, stands on
top, and addresses his brother Esau, chastising him and reminding him of the oath he swore to their
parents. We now turn our attention to this exchange.
Text and Translation
As we have already mentioned, Jubilees was originally composed in Hebrew and then translated
into Greek and possibly into Syriac.23 From the Greek version it was translated into Latin and
Ethiopic. Fortunately, our passage is not only preserved in the Ethiopic version but also in Syriac
and in a fragmentary Hebrew manuscript from Qumran, making it one of the rare passages with
triple-attestation. The events following our passage are also preserved in the Latin. The sole
Hebrew testimony for our text comes from 4QpapJubh (4Q223-224), which has been edited by
VanderKam and Milik in DJD XIII.24 This very fragmentary manuscript is dated on paleographic
grounds to the late Hasmonean period (c. 75-50 B.C.E. ), with a preference for the earlier part of that

Esau. Kugel, A Walk through Jubilees, 176-177. We will make an alternative suggestion in the
next chapter.
23
VanderKam, Textual and Historical Studies, 8-10. He treats the hypothesis that the Syriac
Chronicle draws on a Syriac source that was ultimately translated from the Hebrew without a
Greek intermediary favourably.
24
James C. VanderKam and J.T. Milik, "223-224. 4QpapJubh," in Qumran Cave 4 VIII:
Parabiblical Texts, Part 1 (ed. H.W. Attridge et al; DJD XIII; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 95-140.

71

period.25 Since the Ethiopic provides us with the fullest and the most accurate version, we will use it
as our base text for translation and analysis, interacting with the Hebrew and Syriac evidence where
extant and relevant.26 Transcriptions of the Hebrew and Syriac texts and extensive textual notes are
given in Appendix I. Our new English translation of the Ethiopic reflects emendations and
refinements suggested by the Hebrew evidence. These emendations will be indicated by italicized
text in the translation.
We have included the Ethiopic version of our passage below. The text is taken unmodified
from VanderKam's critical edition.27 Since the publication of VanderKam's edition in 1989 over
twenty new manuscripts of Ethiopic Jubilees have come to light.28 We have transcribed and
collated two of the most significant among the new manuscripts, Gunda Gund! 162 and EMML
9001.29 Erho dates Gunda Gund! 162 to the late fourteenth century, making it one of our earliest
manuscripts of Ethiopic Jubilees, and further notes its generally unaffiliated text-type.30 He dates
EMML 9001 to the early fifteenth century.31 These manuscripts confirm the continuing reliability
of VanderKam's edition and the general textual stability of Ethiopic Jubilees. As our notes show,
most of the variants come from EMML 9001, many of which reflect expansionist tendencies in the
addition of conjunctions and the stating of implied subjects. In most other places where these two
new manuscripts vary from the critical edition it involves spelling choices, and in many of these
cases there is broad variation in the manuscript tradition.
25

VanderKam and Milik, "4QpapJubh," 96.
26
Regarding the accuracy of the Ethiopic text over the Syriac, we will see in our notes below that
the Syriac abbreviates the Hebrew and that the Ethiopic frequently agrees with the available
Hebrew evidence against the Syriac.
27
James C. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees: A Critical Text (Lovanii: E. Peeters, 1989).
28
Ted Erho, "New Ethiopic Witnesses to some Old Testament Pseudepigrapha," BSOAS (2013):
4. For a summary of this new manuscript evidence see Erho, 3-16.
29
We express our thanks to the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library for making images of these
manuscripts available to us. We have not noted common letter substitutions (! = " and # = $ )
in the manuscripts. Where a variant from our new manuscripts agrees with variants from
Vanderkam's apparatus we have indicated the manuscript numbers in parentheses.
30
Erho, "New Ethiopic Witnesses," 5-6.

72

While our primary focus is on Esau's speech proper, we are also including Jacob's brief address
(v. 17) and the two concluding verses (vv. 24 and 25) in our translation and analysis below.
Ge'ez Text
(17) !"#! $ %&'# $ ()*+ , !-. $ /01 $ 1+23 $ !1&45 $ 607 $ 89: ;</ $

!=> $ ?&@ $ ABC $ .D8E $ F&GHI $ J8K1 $ 38LF@ $ 8K1 $ M1F , GA $ /8N $
.OP $ H.OQE $ 7%RE $ !786E $ STJ $ H8KJ7 $ =UF $ %J0E $ 8.OP $ !JVW1
$ .OQE $ 7%RE $ 1XYKE ,32
(18) !/81 $ ZC $ %/[% $ ;</ $ !=>\ $ %Q] $ 7/^_ $ V38 $ !7%`a1 $ 6+b
$ .OP $ c+' $ H.O^ $ .d\U $ 80E $ 7W76 , !8K1 $ #3OF $ @e[f $ GKN $
7GKN $ 8g@ $ !E. $ ='FQ $ %Oh $ #Pi: $ !j5 ,33
(19) !F#Q%I $ %K1 $ kl@ $ !/^+@ $ 80E $ 7W76 $ !%Q] $ 4m5 $ 60nE $ o8p
,34
(20) 0(T $ HK1 $ Y4b@ $ H%Y $ 8Yq5E $ 8. $ =rQs $ O`/l $ (8t $ !#uvw $ E. $
j6b $ 78. $ %+E. $ !8. $ !x% $ yJ $ b8z $ %'bKF $ E. $ %'bK1 $ {@Q $
!%2qT $ %|} $ 843b $ 60nE $ o8p , 1*Q~ $ %s2F $ 868MK $ 80. $ iKEI $
8)! ,35
(21) !8. $ 43Ä $ 1ÅPF $ VP. $ 607 $ .O0T $ E. $ i=3QTÇU , !E. $
i=F%4QÇU36 $ !8. $ Y $ %Q2mÉU $ JPTnÉU $ !%?KÑ $ %|} $ =E/K $
J/01 $ Q3@ $ PTnE $ VP637
(22) !78. $ Y $ %KJ< $ ()*v $ 7PÖ6 , !78. $ 1j6_ $ 60n: $ J%bÜF $
!O5V $ 60n: $ !435 $ VP. $ 60n: $ %|} $ 843b $ VP. $ 60nE ,38
31

Ibid., 6.

!"#!]+ @T-3 9001. !-.]!-U 162 (9). ?&@]?&= 162 (12 21 58). .D8E]+ H9001. .OP](áP 162 9001. STJ]+ !- 9001. =UF]=UN 162 9001 (9 20 39c 42 44 47 48).
%J0E]%J0S 162. 8.OP]8()P 162. !JVW1]!JV"F 162 (9 17 38 39 48); !JT71 9001.
33
%/[%]%/[à 9001. .OP](áP 162. 7W76]+ !8KH 9001. !8K1]om. ! 9001.
#3OF]#JOF 162. @e[f]@eâ 162 (9 38); @e[[ 9001 (39 58). %Oh] + %Oh 9001 (20
25 35 58). #Pi:]+ #7ä 162. !j5]!jb 162 (17 44); !jv 9001 (9 21 38 39 48).
34
!F#Q%I]!FDQ%I 9001. !/^+@]!/^_@ 9001. o8p]18p 162 9001 (42 47).
35
8.]+ !- 9001. =rQs]=r7s 9001. O`/l]e`al 162. !#uvw]!#uÄw 162 (9).
!8.]!78. 9001. yJ b8z/%'bKF] tr. 162 (42 47 48). %|}]!%|} 9001. o8p]18p
9001 (35 42). 1*Q~]1*Qã 9001 (17 20 38 47 48 63). 8)!]%p! 162.
32

36

The root is spelled with " rather than % in Wolf Leslau, Concise Dictionary of Ge’ez (Classical
Ethiopic) (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1989), 179. These gutturals are frequently interchanged
in the manuscript tradition.
37
1ÅPF]1ÅP 162 (9 38). !%?KÑ]7%?KÑ 162 9001. %|}]+ !-9001. PTnE]7TnE
162. VP6]VP. 9001 (12 20 25 38 44).

73

(23) !"# $ %&'! $ ()* $ +# $ ,- $ ./0 $ ."12 $ +# $ .3425+ $

!"672 $ 189+ $ :;# < =>?@ $ .A= $ !B>?C $ @DE+ $ !FB5A $ G+ $ :;1
<39
(24) !HIJ $ 2"K $ L&M7 $ +# $ ."+K $ "1NO $ ;&9P $ !"1QD $ R3S $ +# $
BT*U < !#V. $ "AW $ LAX2&Y $ +# $ #3G8 $ WB#V" $ !8= $ ?1Z WB?[\ $
!B4*U $ !FB]8N $ "1^P <40
(25) @"= $ IJ $ B_ $ G"`.P $ !G.[72aP $ +# $ BbEc $ !GQUd $ eN.fP
<41
Translation
(17) And he [Jacob] shut the gates of the tower. He stood on the top and spoke with his
brother Esau and said: "A beautiful consolation you came to console me (with) because of
my wife who died! Is this the oath which you twice swore to your father and to your
mother before he died? You sinned against the oath, and in the hour which you swore to
your father you were convicted."
(18) Then Esau answered and said: "The sons of men and snakes do not have a faithful
oath which, having sworn it, they swear forever. Everyday they seek out evil, these
against these, and how one might kill his enemy and adversary.
(19) And you will indeed hate me and my children forever, and there will be no observing
brotherhood with you.
(20) Hear these my words which I tell you. If a pig changes his hide and even softens his
hair like wool, and if horns come out of his head like the horns of the ram and the flock,
then I will observe brotherhood with you. The breasts have been separated from their
mother, because you are not a brother to me.
(21) And if the wolves make peace with the lambs, so that they do not eat them or
oppress them, and if their hearts are towards them and they treat (them) well, then in my
heart there will be peace towards you.
(22) And if a lion becomes a friend and a confidant to an ox, and if it is yoked with him
and plows (with) one yoke, then I will make peace with you.

!G"#]!.# 162 9001 (9). .AHg].Ahg 162. 189P]+H.ijk 9001. H.2j*]om. H9001. !i?:]!i?8 162. ./0]+ !- 9001. :;# 189+]trans. 9001 (25 35 42 47).
39
!"#]!.# 9001 (20 21 35 63). %&'!]l&'! 162; l&'@ 9001. ,-]?- 162. ./0]+ !9001. !"672]!"[H2 9001. =>?@]=>m 162; + !- 9001. !FB5A]!FBn@A 9001.
40
."+K]+ og@ 9001. "1NO].Np 162. ;&9P/!"1QD R3S]trans. 9001.
WB#V"]WB#l" 162. ?1Z]?1g 162. WB?[\ !B4*U]WBT*U $ !WB?[W 162.
!FB]8N]!FB:G8 162.
41
@"=]!B"= 9001 (20 25 35 44). G"`.P]G"`qP 162.
38

74

(23) And if ravens become white like the pelican, then know that I love you and I will
make peace with you. May you be cut off and your children be cut off. There will be no
peace for you.
(24) And then Jacob saw that he brought forth evil against him from his heart and from
his entire soul in order to kill him. And he came bounding like a boar which comes upon a
spear that pierces him and kills him and he does not turn back from it.
(25) And then he told his sons and his servants to attack him and all of his companions.

The Opening Plea
According to Jubilees, Hebron is a developed city with a tower.42 Abraham first comes to
Hebron in Jub. 13:10 and the city is built at that point. It is listed several times as the dwelling of
the ancestors,43 but the tower of Hebron is only mentioned explicitly in 36:12, 20 and in the
narrative of the war between Esau and Jacob. There is also a mention of a tower in 29:19-20 and
31:6. Kugel believes these refer to the tower of Eder (r®dEo_lå;d!gIm), the only tower mentioned in the
ancestral narratives in Genesis.44
Jacob begins his rebuke of Esau with sarcasm: "A beautiful consolation!" The fact that Esau is
attacking Jacob during his time of mourning makes his sin even more egregious. Jacob reminds
Esau of his double-oath, identifying his current aggression as a sin or transgression against it. The
phrase here is likely howbCb htafj.45 Interestingly, it is not at this present moment that Esau is
convicted/condemned, but in the hour which he swore it.46 There is a sense here that his violation
was inevitable, just as Isaac predicted. It is important to note that Jacob does not actually make a

42

T. Jud. does not tell us where the battle occurred. M.W. places Jacob and his sons within a
"fortress" (h"ryI;b; 37.1) but does not identify Hebron as its location.
43
Jub. 13:21; 14:11; 19:1-7; 22:4; 45:15-16; 46:11.
44
Kugel, A Walk through Jubilees, 142.
45
Cf. Eccl 9:2
46
Cf. John 3:18: oJ de« mh\ pisteu/wn h¡dh ke÷kritai.

75

request for peace with Esau.47 By referring back to the oaths they swore, however, he is implicitly
asking Esau to remember the terms of that oath and observe peace with him.

The Speech
Humans and Snakes
Esau responds to Jacob's invocation of their earlier oaths by questioning the very validity of the
practice. Isaac's earlier skepticism about the ability of an oath to deter Esau's evil behavior has been
confirmed. Neither "sons of men" nor "snakes" have a "faithful oath" which is eternally valid: no
one keeps an oath forever. What are we to make of the invocation of both human beings and
snakes? In our discussion of Achilles' speech we noted two ways that Achilles' lion simile could be
read: (1) that there is no faithful oath between lions and men (an interspecies comment), or (2) that
lions and men are analogous because neither makes faithful oaths (an intra-species comment). In
our discussion there we opted for the first reading. In Esau's speech we face the same question. Is
he saying that there is no faithful oath between human beings and snakes?48 Or is he saying that
neither human beings nor snakes make faithful oaths? In favor of the former reading is the
traditional enmity between human beings and snakes (Gen 3:15 and Isa 11:8), as well as the fact
that interspecies animosity comes into view later in the speech.49 However, if this were the intended
meaning we might expect to see NˆyA;b, which is used to express a covenant/agreement/oath between
47

These do not seem to be the "words of peace, friendship, and brotherhood" to which M.W.
37.3 refers.
48
This is the interpretation adopted by Livneh ("Can the Boar Change Its Skin?", 80-81).
49
Note, however, that Jubilees' rendition of the curse in the Garden does not include enmity
between the seed of the woman and the serpent (3:23-25). Beyond a possible allusion to the
curse in Gen 3:15, Esau's words may also be reflecting the deceptiveness of the snake in the
garden (Gen 3:13). Deception and oath-breaking are related to each other, as each are
untrustworthy acts and a false oath often has the purpose of deceiving. It should be noted that
Charlesworth has questioned the traditional depiction of the serpent in the garden as a deceiver.
James H. Charlesworth, The Good and Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became
Christianized (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 275-324. However, regardless of what

76

two parties,50 strife between parties, 51 and most notably the enmity between humans and
serpents.52 Instead, the Hebrew uses a lamed of possession for "sons of men" and presumably for
"snakes" as well.53 There are no examples in the Hebrew Bible of this pattern54 that we can consult
for comparative data. Since NˆyA;b was not used it might be more natural to take the second reading,
that neither humans nor snakes have faithful oaths. However, if our passage really is modeled on
Achilles' speech, then it is possible that it is mirroring the syntax of Il. 22.262. This may make the
absence of NˆyA;b less significant as it would merely reflect the absence of such a term in Achilles'
speech. As we argued above, Achilles' speech envisions interspecies animosity.
After claiming that snakes and humans do not have a faithful oath that they swear forever, Esau
goes on to say this: "Everyday they seek out evil, these against these, and how one might kill his
enemy and adversary."55 Not only is there a failure to observe oaths forever, but "they" actively try
to harm each other. Something as civilized as an oath-bound covenant has no place in a "dog-eatdog world." Who is the "they" that is seeking evil and who is the "they" seeking evil against? Are
serpents and humans both still in view here, or has Esau merely used serpents as a poignant
analogy before shifting to focus entirely on the human world?56 Is this a picture of enmity between
the original story may have meant, Charlesworth himself agrees that some early interpreters saw
the serpent as a negative, deceptive character (292; e.g., Philo, QG, 1.33).
50
Gen 9:12, 15; 17:2, 7, 10; 26:28; 31:44, 48, 51; Exod 22:10; Lev 26:46.
51
Gen 13:7-8.
52
Gen 3:15.
53
While the Hebrew is missing in this spot we do find a la- preposition in the Ethiopic. On the
lamed of possession see Bruce K. Waltke and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew
Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 206-207. The lameds of possession do not, in and
of themselves, carry the sense of “between. ” This relationship would need to be implied by the
context.
54
Lamed of possession + noun + vav conjunction + lamed of possession + noun.
55
The plural demonstrative pronouns hlal hla seem to be functioning reciprocally with the lamed
preposition indicating (dis)advantage: "against each other" (cf. Isa 6:3).
56
Kugel (A Walk through Jubilees, 177) notes that Esau's words sound "a bit like a popular
saying or proverb: Do not trust people any more than you trust snakes!" Cf. Pss. Sol. 4:9-11:
"And their eyes are on a man's peaceful house, as a serpent destroys the wisdom of others with
criminal words. His words are deceitful that (he) may accomplish (his) evil desires . . . he
deceived with words; (as if) there were no one to see and to judge . . ." (Wright; cited in Livneh,

77

humans and serpents as they seek evil for each other, or a picture either of humans exclusively
seeking evil for other humans or even humans and serpents seeking evil for their own respective
enemies? There is a level of ambiguity here, but the primary point still stands: Esau has a vision of
the world in which oaths and civility are ultimately meaningless. Esau has thus rejected Jacob's
invocation of the oaths, rejecting in the process the very possibility of an eternal oath.
As we will see below, this sets him in opposition to God's covenants. Esau's statements reflect a
pessimism about the efficacy of oaths that arises in ancient literature.57 As Philo would later make
clear, oaths are only necessary because there is some existing distrust.58 If someone asks you to
swear an oath, it is because your word alone is not good enough for them. This naturally raises the
question: if someone's word is not trustworthy, how can we trust their word even if it is bound by
an oath? Esau taps into this tradition of pessimism regarding the usefulness of oaths, just as Isaac
did earlier (Jub. 35:15). However, both Philo and Isaac argue that even if oaths do not deter
unfaithful behavior, their built-in curse is still ultimately effective.59 Esau will die for his
transgression.
After making generic statements Esau brings them to bear on the immediate situation (v.19).
There will be no brotherhood between him and Jacob. It is interesting that he has placed the blame
for this on Jacob, thus attempting to distance himself from the unflattering picture he has just
created of humanity. It is Jacob who hates Esau and his sons ("And you will indeed hate me and
my children forever . . ."; v.19a). Thus even though Esau seems to be impiously challenging the
validity of oaths, he wants to imply that it is Jacob, not himself, who is ultimately transgressing the
oath. In a sense, he tries to cast Jacob as the snake, while the reader recognizes that it is Esau who
is ultimately deceptive and faithless.
"Can the Boar Change Its Skin?", 81 n.20). It is worth noting that there is a reference a few
verses earlier to the wicked swearing falsely: ". . . his tongue lies when swearing a contract" (4:4;
Wright). It is likely a coincidence, but ravens also appear in this chapter (4:20).
57
Albert J. Harrill, "Divine Judgment against Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11): A Stock Scene
of Perjury and Death," JBL 130 (2011): 358-361.
58
Decal. 84.
59
Decal. 86-87, 95.

78

The Conditional Statements
Esau continues to elaborate on the impossibility of peace between himself and Jacob, using a
series of animal images (vv.20-23). The basic goal here is to draw on proverbial impossibilities in
the natural world in order to illustrate the impossibility and even ridiculousness of peace between
the two brothers. They take the form of conditional statements, and can be summarized as follows:
(1) If a pig (a) changes its hide and (b) grows horns like a ram or sheep, then Esau will
honor brotherhood with Jacob.
(2) If wolves make peace with lambs then there will be peace in Esau's mind towards
Jacob.
(3) If the lion befriends the ox, then Esau will make peace with Jacob.
(4) If ravens turn white like the pelican, then Esau will love Jacob and will make peace
with him.
All four of these statements have a similar effect to our English expressions "when pigs fly" or
"when hell freezes over." Such sayings are used to illustrate the impossibility and ridiculousness of
some course of action, and are an example of adynaton,60 a common rhetorical technique in many
cultures.61
60

Tuffin's definition of adynaton may be a little narrow, but it fits well with what we see in
Esau's speech: "a form of expression which brings into close relation a natural or physical
impossibility and an impossibility in the speaker's or writer's mind, and in which the
impossibility of this second element becoming either true or false is made clear by its relationship
with the natural or physical impossibility." Paul Tuffin, "The Whitening Crow: Some
ADUNATA in the Greek Tradition," Epeteris tou Kentrou Epistemonikon Ereunon 6 (1972-1973):
80. Cf. Danforth's comments: "This convention, which is put to powerful use in Greek funeral
laments, involves the equation of a natural or physical impossibility with an impossibility in the
mind of the person who employs the adynaton." Loring M. Danforth, The Death Rituals of Rural
Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 151. Coon prefers to call this
phenomenon "reversal of nature" because "we have not what is impossible but what is
unnatural." Raymond Huntington Coon, "The Reversal of Nature as a Rhetorical Figure,"
Indiana University Studies 80 (1923): 4.
61
See Coon, "The Reversal of Nature" for examples.

79

The Physical Transformation Statements
While these four conditional statements all include pairs of animals and ultimately serve the
same rhetorical purpose, there are two distinct sets of logic at work. In the first and fourth protases
(pigs and ravens) Esau highlights distinctive and unchangeable physical features of a particular
animal, and then envisions a transformation of this feature that would make the animal similar to
another animal which is quite different in regard to that specific feature. To illustrate this we might
modify two common English sayings: "If a pig grows wings and flies like a crow" or "if a zebra
changes its stripes so it looks like a horse." The contrast between the animals in each statement is
purely physical. Esau's first and fourth conditional statements illustrate the impossibility of peace
with Jacob by pointing to something else that seems quite far-fetched and impossible: pigs with soft
hair and horns, and white ravens. On the surface it seems that the only analogy between the
protases and apodoses is the fact that both are things which are impossible. While this remains the
primary analogy, the unchanging nature of these physical features is also analogous to Esau's
unchanging, wicked nature.62
The pig and raven statements find one of their most significant logical antecedents in Jeremiah
13:23.63 There the prophet says:

:AoérDh yäédU;mIl byIfyEhVl …wlVk…w;t MR;tAa_MÅ…g wyDtOrU;b!rAbSj rEmÎn"w wørwøo yIv…w;k JKOpShÅySh
Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good
who are accustomed to do evil (RSV).
As in the pig and raven statements, the prophet points to unchangeable physical features —
specifically the skin — in order to illustrate the impossibility of something. A leopard cannot
62

"Like the boar and the ravens, Esau has demonstrated that he cannot change his nature and
behave righteously." Livneh, "Can the Boar Change Its Skin?", 88. Isaac already knew this (Jub.
35:15). Wisdom of Solomon portrays the Canaanites in a similar way: "But judging them little by
little thou gavest them a chance to repent, though thou wast not unaware that their origin was evil
and their wickedness inborn, and that their way of thinking would never change" (12:10 RSV).
63
Livneh similarly identifies Jeremiah 13:23 as one of the key inspirations for Esau's speech,
going so far as to say that in the pig statement the author of Jubilees "paraphrases" Jeremiah's
rhetorical question ("Can the Boar Change Its Skin?", 86). Livneh is basing his point primarily

80

change his spots and a Cushite cannot change his skin, so neither can the people, who are
accustomed to evil, do good. Both are dealing with a subject (sinful Judah/Esau) whose wickedness
seems beyond remedy. Beyond the rhetorical similarities there is an important lexical connection
between this passage and Esau's speech. Both use the verb JKApDh to express the hypothetical
transformation, a verb that Holladay notes is rarely used to express change.64
The syntax of the Jeremiah passage is different from our text, as it uses an interrogative he
("Does the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?") followed by MÅ…g ("also/neither you
. . ."), rather than our conditional if/then formula (za . . .Ma). However, Holladay notes that this
unique construction in Jeremiah 13:23 is really the functional equivalent of a conditional
statement.65 The passage is thus quite similar to what we see in Esau's speech, with the primary
difference lying in the fact that Esau speaks of a transformation that would make a creature look
like another creature, while Jeremiah merely speaks of a transformation.
If the author of Esau's speech was intentionally drawing upon this Jeremiah passage, then we
have to ask why the specific examples (Cushite and leopard) were changed to a pig and a raven.
Was this to veil the reference? Or did pigs and ravens carry important connotations that the
Cushite and leopard lacked? These are questions we can keep in mind as we examine the text
further. We need to entertain the possibility that our author wanted to take advantage of earlier
sources, alluding to or echoing them, but without quoting them directly. He may have changed
them just enough that they would still remind the attuned reader of the earlier texts, but seem like

on parallel concepts and content. Our argument for linguistic similarities below furthers
demonstrates the connection with Jeremiah.
64
William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah
Chapters 1-25, (ed. Paul D. Hanson; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 414. Notice also that
the LXX does not translate this as a question, but uses an ei˙ . . . kai« construction.
65
Holladay, Jeremiah 1, 415.

81

original compositions. If this is the case with Jeremiah 13:23, then it may help to explain the
differences between our passage and the Iliad as well. The author of Esau's speech has included
enough elements to bring Jeremiah 13:23, Isaiah's peaceable kingdom visions (see below), and
Achilles' speech to mind, but altered the sources so that it still seems like an original
composition.66
This does still leave us with a question about the origins of the particular images that the author
67

68

69

chose for the first and fourth protases. The individual animals—the ryzj, lya, Nwax, brwo,

66

70

Some might object that such a subtle approach is not fitting for an author who unabashedly
mimics biblical texts like Genesis and Exodus. However, (1) the author does in fact differentiate
his text from Genesis-Exodus through modifications and through a narrative framework which
conceals the work's later literary dependence on these earlier texts by attributing it to direct
revelation, and (2) there is a difference between a semi-verbatim reproduction of a text that is
describing the same event (something about Jacob, for instance), and the (semi)verbatim
reproduction of a text from a different time and context. Within the context of Esau's speech an
overt dependence on a later prophetic text would damage the fiction/illusion the author is trying
to create. We might also expect, as Philip Alexander suggests, that intertextual connections in
narratives will tend to be less explicit. Philip Alexander, "A Typology of Intertextual Relations
Based on the Manchester-Durham Typology of Anonymous and Pseudepigraphic Jewish
Literature of Antiquity," in Between Text and Text: The Hermeneutics of Intertextuality in Ancient
Cultures and Their Afterlife in Medieval and Modern Times (ed. Michaela Bauks, Wayne
Horowitz, and Armin Lange; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 72.
67
The pig (ryˆzSj) is mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. It is an unclean animal (Lev
11:7 and Deut 14:8) and the consumption of its flesh is one of the dark deeds of Third Isaiah’s
rebellious ones (Isa 65:4; see also 66:17). The use of its blood in worship is abominable (Isa
66:3). Its feral version ravages Israel, the vine God planted (Ps 80:13). The sage likens a gold
ring in its snout to a beautiful woman lacking in wisdom (Prov 11:22). We see from these
examples that the pig receives a consistently negative portrayal in the Hebrew Bible.
68
There is some ambiguity with the term lya, which can be read as either "ram" or "stag." See the
discussion of v.20 in Appendix I, where we argue that "ram" is the preferable reading. The ram
appears quite frequently in the Hebrew Bible as livestock (e.g., Gen 31:38, 32:14, Ezek 27:21)
and a sacrificial animal (e.g., Gen 15:9, 22:13, Exod 29, Lev 5:15-18, Lev 6:6, 8:2, 8:18). Its skins
are used (Exod 25:5, 26:14, 35:7, 35:23, 36:19, 39:34) and its wool is mentioned (2 Kgs 3:4).
69
Nwax ("flock") is a common and flexible word in the Hebrew Bible, which refers to small
livestock, specifically sheep and goats (G.Waschke, "Nax," TDOT 12:198). Both species are
capable of growing horns.

82

and taq—71 do all appear within the Hebrew Bible. However, some of the physical features which
Esau highlights are either entirely absent or rarely mentioned, and there are no other examples of
adynaton in the Hebrew Bible that make use of them. It will be helpful to give some attention to
possible sources and parallels to the imagery in these statements. We will give brief attention to
each animal pairing in turn.
Esau envisions two transformations for the pig: its hide becoming like wool, and it growing a
horn like the ram and the flock (»N[waxw] [ly]|a). The horns of the ram and flock are highlighted in
literature contemporary to Jubilees.72 The bristly nature of swine hide is something that is
apparent to anyone who has been around pigs or wild boars, but nowhere in the Hebrew Bible
are its hide or lack of a horn emphasized. The only discussion of its physical features are its
split hoof and the fact that it does not chew the cud (Lev 11:7 and Deut 14:8). Livneh suggests
that the emphasis on the pig's hide is an allusion to Jeremiah 13:23, which we noted above

70

Ravens (Mybrwo) make several appearances in the Hebrew Bible. They play a key role in the
narratives of the Flood (Gen 8:7) and Elijah's exile (1 Kgs 17:4-6). God's care for their young is
highlighted in Ps 147:9 and Job 38:41 and the species in general in Luke 12:24. According to
Rabbinic tradition these young are abandoned by their parents for being born white, and God
cares for them as a reward for the ancient ravens who taught Adam how to bury Abel (Pirqe
Rabbi Eliezer 21 and Yalqut Shimoni 8:2. Quoted and cited in Gershon Brin, "The Idea and
Sources of Esau's Speech in Jubilees 37 according to 4QpapJubileesh, Unit 2, Col. IV" (in
Hebrew), in Studies in Bible and Exegesis, Vol. VI: Yehuda Otto Komlosh — In Memoriam (ed.
by Rimon Kasher and Moshe A. Zippor; Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2002), 22.
Ravens are listed as one of the animals along with the pelican/taq, porcupines, owls, and ravens
that will inhabit Edom after God's judgment has made it desolate (Isa 34:11). Along with
vultures they play a role in the judgment of disobedient children whose mocking eyes will be
plucked out and eaten by ravens and vultures (Prov 30:17; scavenging is one of the roles of
ravens, as we see in this passage and in T. Jud. 21:8. Ravens plucking out eyes is also seen in
Pss. Sol. 4:20). Both Lev 11:15 and Deut 14:14 list them as unclean birds.
71
See discussion in Appendix I.
72
The ram in Dan 8:3, 7, 20; 1 En. 89:43 and 90:9-16. The male goat in Dan 8:5 has a horn.

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similarly highlights the unchanging skin of the Cushite and the leopard.73 The choice of a pig as
the substitute for the Cushite/leopard may be due to the connection between Esau and boars in
early Jewish tradition, a point we will return to below. Livneh also draws our attention to a
saying in the Syriac version of Ahiqar, which similarly mentions a transformation of the pig's
hide to wool:
My son, not when thou hadst killed me, wouldst thou have been able to stand in my
place; for be well aware, my son, that even if the tail of the swine should grow to seven
ells, he would never take the place of the horse: and even if his hair should become soft
and woolly, he would never ride on the back of a free man.74
The texts and traditions relating to Ahiqar are diverse and complicated, making any firm
judgments on the relationship between Esau's speech and Syriac Ahiqar difficult. However, it is
interesting to note that Ahiqar traditions were known to Palestinian Jews, and that Sirach
contains some sayings that bear resemblance to sayings from Syriac Ahiqar. 75 Additionally, the
pig skin adynaton occurs within Ahiqar's speech to his nephew who had violated the demands of

73

Livneh, "Can the Boar Change Its Skin?", 85-86.
F.C. Conybeare, J. Rendel Harris, and Agnes Smith Lewis, The Story of Ah!ik!ar from the Syriac,
Arabic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Greek and Slavonic Versions (London: C.J. Clay and Sons, 1898),
80. The authors note that we should probably expect "the free man would never ride on his
back" (80 n.3). This tradition seems to be absent from Aramaic Ahiqar.
75
Jonas C. Greenfield, "The Wisdom of Ahiqar," in Wisdom in Ancient Israel: Essays in Honour
of J.A. Emerton (ed. John Day, Robert P. Gordon and H.G.M. Williamson; Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995), 46-47, 50. Ahiqar is named in Tobit 1:21-22; 2:10; 11:18;
and 14:10. Charles notes a parallel between Sirach 4:26 ("Stand not against the stream") and
Syriac Ahiqar ("Stand not against a river in its flood"), as well as Sirach 22:14-15 ("What is
heavier than lead? And what is its name but 'Fool'? Sand and salt and a weight of iron (are) easier
to bear than a senseless man" // "My son, I have carried salt and removed lead: and I have not
seen anything heavier than that a man should pay back a debt that he did not borrow. My son, I
have carried iron and removed stones, and they were not heavier on me than a man who settles in
the house of his father-in-law"). R.H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old
Testament in English: With Introductions and Critical and Explanatory Notes to the Several
Books (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 1:296.
74

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filial piety by trying to frame his uncle, a context that has interesting resonance with Esau's
speech. It is possible, then, that the author of Jubilees had some familiarity with a form of
Ahiqar similar to the Syriac version, and drew from it in his construction of Esau's speech.
However, it is also possible that both are drawing upon popular sayings and are entirely
independent of each other. In fact, given the evolving character of Ahiqar texts and traditions, it
is possible that the parallel sayings to Jubilees actually became a part of the Ahiqar tradition
sometime after Esau's speech was composed.
Based on all of these observations, it is possible that Jubilees' swine transformation
statement is influenced by Jer 13:23, the early Jewish equation of Esau and swine (see further
below), and a popular saying or perhaps an earlier form of Syriac Ahiqar. None of these sources,
however, account for the additional emphasis on growing a horn. We will offer some additional
information in the following chapter which might help to explain the emphasis on both the hide
transformation and the growing of a horn.
In the second physical transformation pair Esau envisions a presumably black raven
becoming white like a pelican.76 The whiteness of the pelican seems to be otherwise absent from
the Hebrew Bible and early Jewish tradition.77 Interestingly, though the black colour of the raven
is an obvious physical characteristic, it is not one which the Hebrew Bible focuses on. The only
passage in the Hebrew Bible which draws attention its blackness is Song of Songs 5:11:

:bérwøoD;k twørOjVv My$I;lA;tVlA;t wyDtwø…x…wVq z¡DÚp MRtR;k wøvaør
76

See Appendix I for a discussion of the term taq, which we are translating as "pelican."
The fact that pelicans appear together with ravens in several passages (Lev 11:15; Deut 14:14;
Isa 34:11), and the fact that they are white probably led our author to pair them with the raven
here.
77

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His head is the finest gold; his locks are wavy, black as a raven (RSV).
While the blackness of the ravens was not strongly emphasized in the Hebrew Bible, it
became more important in later sources and is an element in a tradition that used the raven as a
negative type. 78 For instance, Philo emphasizes the raven's colour in his symbolic interpretation
of the bird: ". . . as a raven is a black, and arrogant, and speedy animal, it is a sign of wickedness,
which brings night and darkness over the soul, and it is also swift to meet all the things of the
world in its flight."79 For our purposes, traditions which deal with the colour transformation of
the raven are particularly important. Augustine's Adnotationes in Iob 38 is interesting, since it
may imply that the blackness/sinfulness of ravens/sinners may be turned white through
forgiveness of sins.80 This may be one of our only examples in Jewish and Christian sources of
the possibility of ravens turning white, although it must be emphasized that Augustine is
speaking metaphorically. Brin points us to a Rabbinic text of particular relevance for our passage
that emphasizes the impossibility of this happening:
78

". . . it may well be that the raven's greatest disadvantage lay merely in the fact of its colour.
Black signified evil . . . Thus, merely from the fact of their colour, ravens became symbolic of
sinners themselves and worse." Richard Hillier, Arrator on the Acts of the Apostles: A Baptismal
Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 77. Hillier lists as examples Gregory of
Elvira, De Arca Noe 25; Augustine, Adnot. in Iob 38; Cassiodorus, Expos. in Ps. 146.9; and
Eucherius, Form. Spirit. Intell. 3: De Animantibus (77). Additional examples of negative
appraisals of the raven can be found in Jub. 11:1-24; Philo, QG, 2.35-38; 4 Bar. 7:8; Augustine,
Tractates on John VI. The Animal Apocalypse depicts some of Israel's enemies as ravens, which
is possibly a reference to the Seleucids. Daniel C. Olson, A New Reading of the Animal
Apocalypse of 1 Enoch: "All Nations Shall be Blessed," (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 129-143. For a
general discussion of the raven in early Christian interpretation see Hillier, Arrator, 73-91.
79
QG, 2.35.
80
Hillier, Arrator, 77. It is noteworthy that the symbolic colour scheme of the Animal
Apocalypse identifies certain wicked individuals and peoples with the colour black and the
righteous with the colour white. See the discussion of the Animal Apocalypse below.

86

twmwa lk Mysnktm Ma Kk Nylwky Nnya brwo lC dja Pnk Nyblhl Mlwoh twmwa lk Mysnktm Ma81
Nylwky Nnya hrwthm dja rbd rwqol Mlwoh
If man with all his knowledge and wisdom were to try his utmost to alter so little of
nature or of creation as even to make the wing of the raven white, he would utterly fail in
his efforts. Equally would they fail, if all nations of the world were to endeavor to annul
one word of the Torah" (Leviticus Rabbah 19.2).82
Livneh draws our attention to another saying from Syriac Ahiqar and a counterpart in
Armenian Ahiqar which also emphasize the impossibility of such transformations:83
My son, if the waters should stand up without earth, and the sparrow fly without wings,
and the raven become white as snow, and the bitter become sweet as honey, then may the
fool become wise (Syriac).84
Son, if the rivers pause in their courses or the sun in its career, or if the gall become sweet
as honey, or the raven turn white as the dove, even so will the senseless man abandon his
want of sense and the fool become sensible (Armenian).85
Ravens do not change from black to white. Indeed, in folklore and mythology the reverse is
generally the case, as etiological tales try to explain how the ravens came to be black in the first
place. For instance, a Syriac source attributed to St. Ephrem preserves a tradition about the
colour transformation of ravens, claiming that Noah cursed the raven on the ark for not returning,
and both it and its descendants after it became black.86

81

Hebrew quoted and cited in Brin, "The Idea and Sources of Esau's Speech," 22.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/mhl/mhl07.htm
83
Livneh, "Can the Boar Change Its Skin?", 84.
84
Conybeare, Harris, and Lewis, The Story of Ah!ik!ar, 65.
85
Ibid., 33.
86
David M. Goldberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 100 and 286-287 n.43. Goldberg notes that
this tradition is also found in Mandaean tradition and later Arabic and Palestinian folklore, but
that it is not found in Jewish sources (287 n.43).
82

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We see that though there is not a great deal of precedent in the Hebrew Bible for Jubilees' use
of the raven in one of Esau's adynata, there are some parallels in later sources. In Jewish and
Christian literature the blackness of the raven received increased emphasis and was part of a
negative appraisal of the bird. A hypothetical colour transformation for the raven is found in
adynata in Rabbinic literature as well as some versions of Ahiqar. The parallel in Armenian
Ahiqar is especially noteworthy, as it mentions the raven turning white like another bird,
although it is the dove not the pelican that is mentioned. The presence of such parallels indicate
that the author of Esau's speech may have been drawing on popular sayings or proverbs in his
invocation of the raven, and the further parallels with the Ahiqar traditions increases the
possibility that Jubilees may have drawn on a precursor to the Syriac and/or Armenian forms of
Ahiqar. In the next chapter we will discuss other parallels in the Greek tradition.

The Social Transformation Statements
In the second and third protases Esau does not draw attention to physical features of a particular
animal, but rather social relations between two species.87 The impossible transformation that is
envisioned involves a natural predator entering into peaceful and even productive domestic
relationships with its natural prey. Like the first and fourth statements, the impossibility of this
transformation is analogous to the impossibility of peace between the two brothers. However, there
is a much deeper analogy in the middle statements because the protases envision peace between two
rivals, just as Jacob is hoping for peace between himself and Esau. In a sense these conditional

87

We thus have a sandwich pattern: Physical transformation — social transformation — social
transformation — physical transformation. Livneh points out that there is also an interesting
grammatical pattern, in which the number of the animals alternates between the statements: pig
(singular) — wolves (plural) — lion (singular) — ravens (plural) ("Can the Boar Change Its
Skin?", 85). These two different patterns give a sense of integration to the whole.

88

statements are more appropriate for what Esau is trying to communicate to Jacob than the pig and
raven statements, although the latter statements are appropriate illustrations of Esau's intransigence.
While the imagery in the physical transformation pairings lacks significant precedent in the
Hebrew Bible, the imagery in the social transformation statements has strong parallels in both the
Hebrew Bible and early Jewish tradition. To review, the protases of these statements set forth these
conditions: ". . . if the wolves make peace with the lambs, so that they do not eat them or oppress
them, and if their hearts are towards them and they treat (them) well . . . And if a lion becomes a
friend and a confidant to an ox, and if it is yoked with him and plows (with) one yoke . . ." (37:2122). Esau thus envisions positive relations between between wolves and lambs, and between lions
and oxen.
The predatory nature of lions and wolves is seen throughout the Hebrew Bible. We have many
texts that present lions as enemies of the human and domestic worlds.88 References to wolves are
less common, but we do see them portrayed as a predator in passages like Genesis 49:27 and
Ezekiel 22:7.89 In some cases lions and wolves appear together.90 These examples all provide
88

Judg 14:5-6; 1 Sam 17:34-37; 2 Sam 23:20; 1 Kgs 13:24-28, 20:36; 2 Kgs 17:25-26; Isa 31:4,
35:9, 38:13; Jer 50:17; Ezek 19:6; Dan 6; Amos 3:12, 5:19; Prov 22:13/26:13. Note in particular
the presentation of nations as lions that devour Israel: Jer 4:7 and 50:17. The lion is a prominent
symbol in the broader Ancient Near East, and the visual tradition often portrays the creature in
conflict with humans and both wild and domestic prey: "Among images of wild animals and
perhaps among images of all animals, the lion is the most common . . . The lion is almost the only
animal represented in official monumental architecture, at the gates of cities and temples. It
frequently occurs on luxury objects or cult furniture . . . Depending on its position in the
figurative scenes, the lion symbolized the equivalence between the king of animals and the earthly
king, which was asserted at the city gate. Alternatively, it is the adversary of the royal power.
The lion is thus engaged in combat against a human being, the so-called hero . . .sometimes in the
midst of pacific parading animals. These scenes can be read as cosmic battles between the hero, a
mythical royal ancestor, and the lion, the embodiment of the forces of the wild that threaten
cattle. The lion also attacks wild animals, such as deer and gazelles, which it always dominates.
The frequent combat scenes between the lion and the bull again emphasize the ambiguity of the
status of these animals, linked as they are to the concepts of kingship and to the storm god."
Annie Caubet, "Animals in Syro-Palestinian Art," in A History of the Animal World in the Ancient
Near East (ed. Billie Jean Collins; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 223.
89
The wolf's natural animosity toward sheep is a more common theme in early Jewish and
Christian literature. In the Animal Apocalypse wolves representing Egyptians oppress sheep

89

interesting parallels to Esau's speech, but the texts that offer the most striking similarities are the
"peaceable kingdom" visions in Isaiah:
The wolf91 shall dwell with the lamb,92 and the leopard93 shall lie down with the kid94, and
the calf95 and the lion96 and the fatling97 together, and a little child shall lead them. The
cow98 and the bear99 shall feed; their young shall lie down together; and the lion100 shall
eat straw like the ox.101 The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp, 102 and the
weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's103 den (Isa 11:6-8 RSV).
The wolf104 and the lamb105 shall feed together, the lion106 shall eat straw like the ox;107
and dust shall be the serpent's 108 food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy
mountain, says the LORD (Isa 65:25 RSV).

representing Israel (1 En. 89:15, 55). In the New Testament false prophets are wolves in sheep's
clothing (Matt 7:15), Jesus' disciples are presented as sheep sent out amongst wolves (Matt
10:16//Luke 10:3, Acts 20:29), and Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the
sheep, unlike the hired person who does not risk his own life to protect the flock from wolves
(John 10:11-13). The proverbial animosity between both wolves/lambs and lions/oxen continues
in Rabbinic literature, like this saying from Aggadat Bereshit 79.9:
rwvh rja yra hlfh rja Pdwr bazh hzh Mlwob ( "In this world the wolf pursues after the lamb, the
lion after the ox . . ."; Hebrew cited and quoted in Brin, "The Idea and Sources of Esau's Speech,
23).
90
Jer 5:6; Zeph 3:3.
91
baz/lu/koß/!"#
92
cbk/aÓrh/n/$%&
93
rmn/pa¿rdaliß/'()
94
ydg/e¶rifoß/*+
95
lgo/mosca¿rion/#,(
96
rypk/le÷wn/-.$/
97
ayrm/tauvroß/nothing
98
hrp/bouvß/#,(
99
bd/a‡rkoß/01
100
hyra/le÷wn/-.$/
101
rqb/bouvß/#,(
102
NTtp/aÓspi÷ß/nothing
103
ynwopx/aÓspi÷ß/2)3 (0)
104
baz/lu/koß/!"#
105
hlf/aÓrh/n/$%&
106
hyra/le÷wn/-.$/
107
rqb/bouvß/#,(

90

The portrayal of shalom in these passages is so poignant precisely because it represents a
dramatic reversal of typical social relations between creatures. It makes use of the same
proverbial assumptions as our passage (the fundamental animosity between predator and prey)
but for a different rhetorical effect. What is particularly interesting about these passages is the
fact that they contain all three of the animosity pairs that emerge in Esau's speech: wolf and
lamb, lion and livestock, and serpent and human. As in Esau's speech, the lion is not only
presented as being at peace with livestock ("the calf and the lion and the fatling together"), but is
presented as a domestic animal that takes on the behaviors of livestock ("the lion shall eat straw
like the ox"). Notably, Jubilees uses the same rare word for the lamb that we find in Isa 65:25
(hlf).109 The term for serpent used by Jubilees (vjn) is also the same as Isa 65:25. Despite the
similarities, however, there are differences between Esau's invocation of these animals and the
Isaiah texts. For instance, there are creatures present in Isa 11:6-8 that are lacking in Esau's
speech (leopard, bear, asp, and adder), and likewise creatures in Esau's speech that are missing in
Isaiah (pigs, ravens, and pelicans). There are also readily observable differences in order,
structure, and vocabulary for describing these creatures, their relationships, and their potential
transformations. Esau's speech is clearly not a quotation of these Isaiah passages, but it is
difficult to avoid the conclusion that our author is alluding to them, particularly Isa 65:25.110

108

vjn/o¡fiß/nothing
Cf. 1 Sam 7:9 and Isa 40:11.
110
Jubilees exhibits interaction with Isa 65 and Third Isaiah in general in other passages, including
the apocalypse in chapter 23. For connections between Jubilees and Third Isaiah see John C.
Endres, Biblical Interpretation, 56-8; James M. Scott, On Earth as in Heaven: The Restoration of
Sacred Time and Sacred Space in the Book of Jubilees (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 121-125, 138-139;
and Todd R. Hanneken, The Subversion of the Apocalypses in the Book of Jubilees (Atlanta:
Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), 166, 229-233. In discussing the potential connection
109

91

A similar pairing of wolves and sheep comes up in another second-century B.C. E. Jewish text.
Sirach 13:15-19 reads:
Every creature loves its like, and every person his neighbor; all living beings associate by
species, and a man clings to one like himself. What fellowship has a wolf (baz) with a lamb
(Cbk)? No more has a sinner with a godly man. What peace is there between a hyena (owbx)
and a dog (blk)? And what peace between a rich man and a poor man? Wild asses (arp) in
the wilderness are the prey of lions (yra); likewise the poor are pastures for the rich.111
Sirach emphasizes intra-species fidelity, which is analogous to the intra-class fidelity in the
human world.112 He offers three examples of hostile pairs of animals which he compares to
relationships between groups/classes within human society: wolf/lamb = sinner/godly man;
hyena/dog = rich man/poor man; and wild asses/lions = poor/rich (Cf. Ps 10:9). This is a
particularly significant parallel for us, since (1) it is a Palestinian Hebrew text from roughly the
same time period as Jubilees, and (2) it uses one of our pairs (wolf/lamb) and one of our other

between Isa 65:25 and Jub. 23:29 Hanneken notes: "We cannot be too confident that the audience
would have made the comparison, but if they did, the implied differences are as striking as the
similarities. Here the variations are not linguistic twists but implications at the level of ideas.
First, if the wolf is read to represent a foreigner and the lamb an ethnic Jew (as in the Animal
Apocalypse), then Third Isaiah says they will co-exist in Jerusalem, whereas Jubilees says God
will remove foreigners from the land of Israel (Jub. 23:30)" (232). This is a fascinating
observation, given the fact that Esau's speech similarly subverts the peaceable kingdom vision of
Isa 65:25 by emphasizing the eternal incompatibility of these creatures rather than envisioning
their future reconciliation. One of the functions of Esau's speech may be a rejection of the idea
that there can ever really be peace between Israel and the nations, even those nations that share a
common descent from Abraham. This is not due to Israel being xenophobic or misanthropic — it
is because the wolves and lions of the world refuse to lie down with the lambs and oxen.
111
Livneh also notes the parallels between our text and this passage from Sirach ("Can the Boar
Change Its Skin?", 91-92).
112
Skehan and Di Lella point to examples of the theme "like loves like" in other languages and
cultures. Patrick W. Skehan and Alexander A. Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira: A New
Translation with Notes. (New York: Doubleday, 1987), 254.

92

animals (lions) to communicate the fundamental incompatibility of two groups. 113 It should be
noted, however, that while there are similar images and a similar function, the form is different.
We have here rhetorical questions, rather than conditional statements. Also, the lists of animals
and most of the animal pairings are different from our text. While Esau's speech has arguably
been directly influenced by Isaiah 65:25, it is unclear whether a genetic relationship exists
between Sirach 13:15-19 and the Jubilees text.
Our brief discussion of the animal imagery used by Esau has shown that our author exhibits
both continuity and discontinuity with the Hebrew Bible and extant contemporary Jewish
literature. Each animal mentioned does make an appearance in the Hebrew Bible, and in the case
of the three animosity pairings (human/snake, lion/oxen, wolf/lamb) there are significant parallels
in both Isaiah and Sirach. However, when it comes to the physical transformation pairings
(pig/ram and flock; raven and pelican) precedents in the Hebrew Bible are somewhat lacking and
only some elements of the imagery have parallels in contemporary Jewish literature. The pig's
hypothetical skin transformation may be rooted in an allusion to Jeremiah 13:23 and might be
based on a popular proverb or an earlier form of Syriac Ahiqar, but the horn transformation is
without precedent. Apart from a single verse (Song 5:11) the Hebrew Bible does not identify the
raven's colour. The blackness of the raven does gain stronger emphasis in Jewish/Christian
literature in the Greco-Roman period, and there are notable parallels in Ahiqar and Rabbinic
literature. The whiteness of the pelican is missing from the tradition, although its inclusion in

113

Note that the word used for "lamb" is cbk, which parallels Isa 11:6-8 but contrasts with the
hlf of Isa 65:25 and Jub. 37:21.

93

Esau's speech is likely based on the pairing of the bird with ravens in some biblical texts. In our
next chapter we will further parallels in the Greek tradition.

Separated Breasts
Esau's four conditional statements are interrupted by a somewhat odd remark following
the pig statement: "The breasts have been separated from their mother, for you have not
been a brother to me" (v. 20). In the Ethiopic of VanderKam's edition it reads: !"#$
%&'( )*)+, )-. /0,12 )34 5 VanderKam and Milik's proposed Hebrew
114
original reads: yl ]|ja htyh a»w[l yk Nmam MydC wdrpn. There are two issues here. First is
the location of this statement, and second is its meaning. In its current context it seems to
be an interruption of the flow of the four conditional statements. Indeed, Charles
considered it to have been displaced, "for the tristichs before and after deal with ideas
taken only from the animal world. Nor do the words as they stand form a distich. If they
belong to the text at all, they are corrupt. It is not improbable that originally they
followed immediately after ver. 19a 'thou dost hate me and my children for ever.' By
transposing the two clauses and by reading 'em'ama tafalta atbu'e 'em'emomu instead of
wa'ema tafalta 'atbat 'em'emon, we should get the following sense in ver. 19 'And thou
dost hate me and my children for ever; for thou hast not been a brother to me since the
twins were separated from their mother. Yea, there is no observing the tie of brotherhood
with thee.'"115 However, the Hebrew seems to have a similar line in the same place as the
Ethiopic. If it is displaced, it happened at some point in the Hebrew manuscript
tradition.116
The meaning is difficult to determine. We are not helped by the fact that the statement is
lacking in the Syriac and only partially preserved in the Hebrew. Regardless of how we
construe the text, Kugel rightly notes that Esau is alluding to the oracle Rebekah received
regarding the futures of a fetal Jacob and Esau in Gen 25:23: "And the LORD said to her,
'Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples, born of you, shall be divided (…wdérDÚpˆy); the
one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.'"117 Charles
114

VanderKam and Milik, "223-224. 4QpapJubh," 118.
115
R.H. Charles, The Book of Jubilees or The Little Genesis: Translated from the Editor’s
Ethiopic Text and Edited, with Introduction, Notes, and Indices (London: Adam & Charles Black,
1902), 218.
116
Livneh believes that if this statement is original, it was displaced in the Hebrew manuscript
tradition ("Can the Boar Change Its Skin?", 83-84).
117
Kugel, A Walk Through Jubilees, 178.

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suggested that we emend the text to !"#$ %&'% #()* !"!+,, "for thou hast not
been a brother to me since the twins were separated from their mother." Kugel considers
this favorably, but offers this possible reconstruction of the Hebrew instead: wnma ydvm
wndrpn zam, "since we were separated at our mother's breasts."118 Although Kugel does
not note it, there is some support for this kind of reading in the Ethiopic manuscript
tradition. VanderKam's MS 44 (Collegeville, EMML 1945, mid 18th c. 55a-133a) reads:

!-$ %&./0 !" #/1% !"0 , "Because/since we have been separated from the breasts
of our mother . . ." While VanderKam claims that this "idiosyncratic" manuscript does
contain some valuable readings,119 he ultimately dismisses "the various words that
precede %&'2 in the mss." because they "are found only in later copies and are unlikely
to be original."120 He does not, however, comment on the potential originality of the
other variants in 44. The lateness of the ms. and the uniqueness and ease of this reading
can certainly weigh against its originality. 121 However, it would make much more sense
than other readings, and would fit well in the Qumran manuscript. It also aligns quite well
with Kugel's proposal. The evidence, however, urges us to hold any conclusions we come
to on this passage lightly. If such a reading is original, then Esau is saying that since an
early time (weaning) Jacob has not been a brother to him.122
The Speech's Conclusion
In his speech Esau has thoroughly rejected the possibility of peace with Jacob. After his
final curse in v.23 ("May you be cut off and your children be cut off. There will be no peace for
you") our narrator makes Jacob the focalizer. Jacob sees that Esau has brought forth evil from
within his entire being and that he desires to kill him. The animal imagery now emerges outside
of Esau's speech, as Jacob sees that Esau's behavior is like a boar that impales himself on a spear
and does not turn back (v.24) — Esau's aggression towards Jacob is an act of suicide.
Recognizing the impossibility of rapprochement with his brother, Jacob orders his sons and
118

Ibid.
VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, xxii.
120
Vanderkam, The Book of Jubilees, ad loc.
121
This reading is not found in the two additional manuscripts we collated above.
119

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servants to respond with force. Jubilees is careful to show that Esau is the aggressor, that
repentance for him is impossible, and that Jacob is ultimately acting in self-defense.

The Resolution
Jacob's command is not immediately obeyed by his children. His son Judah hesitates,
expressing his unwillingness to kill his uncle, since "he is near to [Jacob] and . . . equal to [him] in
honor" (38:1; VanderKam). Judah expresses the filial piety that Esau's sons are so sorely lacking.
Jacob accedes to Judah's request, and makes the opening shots of the battle:123
Jacob then stretched his bow, shot an arrow, pierced his brother Esau [on the right
breast], and struck him down. He shot another arrow and hit Aduran the Aramean on his
left breast; he drove him back and killed him (38:2-3).124
With that brief notice, Esau dies. Jubilees 38:4-14 narrates the remainder of the battle, which
involves the sons of Jacob and squads of fifty slaughtering their adversaries on all four sides of
the tower. Judah, Naphtali, and Gad, take fifty men to the south; Levi, Dan, and Asher go with
fifty to the east where they kill the Moabites and Ammonites; Reuben, Isaachar, and Zebulun

122

Note that removal from breasts is spoken of in Isa 28:9 (Mˆyá!dDÚvIm yäéqyI;tAo) as an expression for
weaning.
123
Contra M.W. which has Esau shooting arrows at Jacob and his sons first (37.3).
124
T. Jud. reads: "And [Esau] fell by the bow of Jacob and was taken up dead on Mount Seir;
and as he went he died above Eiramna" (9.3). Hollander and de Jonge note the contradictory
accounts in this verse and attribute it to two different traditions (The Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs: A Commentary, 199). M.W. reads: ". . . [Jacob] bent the bow, and killed Adoram the
Edomite. And again he drew his bow, and hit Esau in the right shoulder (? or loin ?). Then Esau
became ill from the arrow, and his sons took him up and carried him on a mule, and he went and
died in Arudin. Others say he did not die there" (37.4-5). The location of Esau's wound in M.W.
is a difficult question. translation from Hollander and de Jonge's volume reads "right shoulder"
with "loin" parenthetically raised as another option. The Hebrew here reads: tynmy askb, literally
"in the right chair/seat." Himmelfarb ("Midrash Vayissa'u," 157) translates this phrase as "right
buttock," noting that she finds no other examples of this this anatomical use of ask.

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take fifty to the north to kill the Philistines; and Simeon, Benjamin, and Reuben's son Enoch lead
fifty to the west (38:5-8). The victory of the Israelites is quite remarkable, since their opposition
numbered over four thousand soldiers. Jacob's sons defeated a force approximately five times
their size. Six hundred of the Edomites/Horites escape, including Esau's four sons. They
continue to show their filial impiety by leaving their father's corpse behind, which Jacob then
buries (38:8-9).125 The Israelites pursue the Edomite foe to Mt. Seir, where they force their
surrender. Jacob chooses to make peace and subjugate them to eternal tribute, rather than
annihilate them (38:11-13).126 Jubilees tells us that this arrangement continues down to its own
day (38:14).127

Characterization
In the previous chapter we gave attention to what Achilles' speech and surrounding events
revealed about his character. We now ask similar questions about Esau's speech, focusing on the
implications of his animal imagery and what his identity as an oath-breaker means within the
context of Jubilees.

125

T. Jud. does not tell us about Esau's burial. According to M.W.: "The sons of Jacob pursued
them [presumably the four sons of Esau and the six hundred valiant men just mentioned] up to
the city Arudin. There in Arudin they left to their father the body of Esau lying on the ground,
and they ran away to Mount Seir, to the place leading up to Aqrabim. The sons of Jacob entered
and encamped there over night. Finding there the body of Esau, they buried him out of respect
for their father (Jacob). Some say he did not die there, but left Arudin, though ill, and fled with
his children to Mount Seir" (37.14).
126
Cf. T. Jud. 9.4-8 and M.W. 37.6-14 for comparable accounts of the combat following Esau’s
death.
127
This statement seems to betray the narrative setting of the book. The angel is supposed to be
narrating at Sinai before the people of Israel have returned to the land to start receiving tribute
again.

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Animals
In our discussion of Achilles the question was raised whether or not he was trying to identify
himself with specific animals in his similes (lion, wolf). A similar question can be raised here. Is
Esau being equated with the serpent, the predators in the second and third statements (wolves and
lions) and the unchanging animals in the first and fourth statements (pigs and ravens)? If the
deception of the snake is in view, then Esau's oath-breaking behavior can be identified with the
serpent.128 His behavior also certainly seems like that of a ravening wolf or lion, as he tries to prey
on Jacob and his sons. 129 His descriptions of the lion and the wolf both focus on the cessation of
the predators' aggression towards their prey and are followed in the apodoses by the impossibility
of Esau treating Jacob benevolently. This seems to suggest some level of identification between
Esau and the lion/wolf. It is also likely that he is being identified with the pig and the raven, since
the unchangeable nature of these animals is analogous to the unrepentant nature of Esau.130 Esau is
certainly identified with swine outside of his speech, as his behavior is compared to an aggressive
boar in Jub. 37:24.
It is interesting that most of the conditional statements identify Esau with an unclean and/or wild
animal that is being contrasted with clean, domestic animals. The uncleanness of the swine is well
known, and the Jewish aversion to pork was a matter of discussion in the broader Greco-Roman
world.131 The pig is contrasted with the ram and the flock, which are clean, domestic animals.
Lions and wolves are technically unclean (Lev 11:27), although the Hebrew Bible does not
emphasize their uncleanness in the same way it does with the pig.132 More important, perhaps, is
128

See the note above on Charlesworth's argument. "Esau should perhaps be associated with the
'hurting and destroying' snake and Jacob with the human race." Livneh, "Can the Boar Change Its
Skin?", 81 n.20.
129
Recall that Sirach portrayed the rich who prey on the poor as both lions and wolves.
130
There is also other Jewish evidence for an identification between Esau and swine, which we
will take a closer look at below.
131
Peter Schäfer, Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1997), 66-81.
132
Note that it also has no problem identifying Israelite figures with wolves and lions (Gen 49:9,
27).

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the role of lions and wolves as predators of domestic creatures. The raven is also an unclean animal
that is associated with urban desolation (Lev 11:15; Deut 14:14; Isa 34:11), although it is paired
with the pelican, another unclean bird that is also associated with urban desolation (Lev 11:18; Deut
14:17; Isa 34:11), which makes the contrast less stark.133
We can similarly ask whether Jacob and his sons are being identified with the other creatures in
Esau's statements. In the middle conditional statements (lion/oxen and wolf/lambs) this is likely the
case. Jacob and his sons are the prey; Esau and his sons are the predators.134 In the first and
fourth conditional statements an identification with Jacob is less clear, since these statements do not
mirror the social relationship between Jacob and Esau in the same way the middle statements do.
Logically it may not make as much sense that Esau would be presented as a creature that cannot
transform into the kind of creature that represents Jacob.135 The potential identification of Jacob
and the pelican might also be somewhat odd, considering the unclean nature of this bird. That said,
the Animal Apocalypse does depict certain Israelite heroes as rams (and thus horned) and
consistently portrays the righteous as white animals (specifically sheep and bulls) as opposed to red
or black animals, thus providing potential parallels of Israelites being figuratively described with the
specific physical characteristics in view in Esau's first and fourth statements.136
We see from all of this that Esau's words contrast him with his brother and depict himself as a
deceptive predator who is incapable of change. He is a snake who will not keep his word. He is an

133

Livneh, "Can the Boar Change Its Hide?", 88-89.
We will see below that the identification of Israel with domestic animals who are the prey of
outsiders identified with unclean predators is paralleled in other Jewish texts.
135
Although there is a sense in Rebekah and Isaac’s earlier conversation that Esau is just not
capable of becoming the kind of good son that Jacob is (35:9-17). The Animal Apocalypse does
admit the possibility of the nations undergoing a positive transformation from unclean wild
beasts into the primeval white cattle as part of its eschatological vision (90:38), but Jubilees is
not so optimistic about Esau.
136
Jacob, David, Solomon, and Judas Maccabeus are the only Israelites that are called rams, as
opposed to sheep (Patrick Tiller, A Commentary on the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch [Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1993], 306). Regarding colors, Cain is black, Abel is red, and Seth is white (85:38), and Jacob is white while Esau is black (89:12).
134

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unclean, wild figure who exists outside the realm of domesticity and human civilization.137 He is a
predator who is interested in devouring others — even his own brother — rather than seeking
peace. What is particularly fascinating is that this negative image of Esau emerges through his own
words. While he is trying to lay the blame on Jacob and his sons for the conflict, he is
inadvertently casting himself in a negative light. The narrator has used Esau's own words to
condemn him.

It is worth noting that this identification of Israel's enemies with unclean and
wild/predatory animals and the righteous/Israel with clean domestic creatures (cattle and
sheep) is also seen throughout the Animal Apocalypse.138 David Bryan has argued that
the portrayal of Israel's enemies as unclean animals in the work is both intentional and
meaningful.139 An allegorical retelling of world history, this brief apocalypse tells us that
before the flood all human beings were cattle, with their righteousness differentiated by
their colour. After the flood, however, humanity is divided into various wild and unclean
species (89:10). It is interesting that each of the animals Esau is identified with also
appears in the allegory. The lions represent the Babylonians, the wolves the Egyptians,
and the ravens the Seleucids. 140 Swine actually represent Esau and his descendants
(89:12). This indicates that Jubilees may have either been influenced by this work in its
construction of Esau's speech, or was at least tapping into some common traditions.
The identification of Esau with swine in both Jubilees and the Animal Apocalypse calls
for a special note. We have already seen that Esau is arguably identified with swine in his
first conditional statement, and is definitely identified with swine in v.24 ("And then Jacob
saw that he brought forth evil against him from his heart and from his entire soul in order to
kill him. And he came bounding like a boar which comes upon a spear that pierces him and
kills him and he does not turn back from it"). In the Animal Apocalypse the righteous line
137

Cf. The description of him in Jub. 19:13-15. We may have to exercise some caution in
emphasizing the distinction between wild and domestic animals. Caubet points out that in SyroPalestinian art there is no major distinction made between wild and domestic bovids and caprids
(Caubet, "Animals in Syro-Palestinian Art, 222).
138
On Israel's enemies, see for instance: 1 En. 89:42, 89:55, and 90:11. Swine, lions,
wolves/hyenas, and ravens are all identified as enemies of Israel. It is possible that the author of
Jubilees was aware of and used the Animal Apocalypse (Jub 4:19//1 En. 85:1). See the discussion
in Livneh, "Can the Boar Change Its Hide?", 92-93.
139
David Bryan, Cosmos, Chaos and the Kosher Mentality (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1995).
140
Olson, New Reading, 129.

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continues to be identified as (white) cattle until the generation of Jacob and Esau. The white
bull Isaac then becomes the father of a white ram (Jacob) and a black boar (Esau) (89:12).
The colour and species of Esau serve to distance him from the ancient line of the faithful
and the inheritors of the covenant.141 Within the Animal Apocalypse there is some level of
permanence in the use of animal symbols to portray Israel's neighbors, such as asses being
used fairly consistently to represent Ishmael and his descendants, bears/hyenas142 being
equated with Egypt, and Philistines being equated with dogs. This holds true for Esau as
well, since his descendants, the Edomites and Amalekites, are identified throughout as
boars. 143 The boars, along with the other wild animals, ravage Israel.144
The identification of Esau/Edom with a swine/boar continues to appear in Jewish
literature of the Roman period, along with the additional identification of Esau/Edom with
Rome.145 The reference in Psalm 80:13 to the boar ravaging Israel is interpreted as
referencing Edom/Rome. Feldman notes that the Roman standard had a boar as an
emblem, and implies that this is the source of the Rabbinic identification of Rome with
the boar in Ps 80:13.146 However, since the identification of Esau with the boar seems to
precede the Roman period, we must wonder if (1) the identification of Rome with the
Psalmist's wild boar is a natural result of the Rome/Edom connection, or (2) the
identification of Rome and Esau/Edom in the first place was the result of Esau/Edom's
symbolic connection with the boar and the presence of the boar on Roman standards.

141

"This color contrast — reminiscent of the contrast between Cainites and Sethites — reflects
the bitter rivalry between Israel and Edom. Obviously pejorative is also the depiction of Esau as
a wild boar — the swine being notorious as an unclean animal (Lev 11:7; Deut 14:8)." George
W.E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1-36; 81-108,
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 377.
142
See Tiller’s discussion in Animal Apocalypse, 28-36 for the question of bears versus hyenas.
143
1 En. 89:42-43, 49, 66.
144
Ibid.
145
Gen. Rab. 65.1, cited and quoted in Brin, "The Idea and Sources of Esau's Speech," 23. For a
discussion of the Edom/Rome association see Louis H. Feldman, Remember Amalek! Vengeance,
Zealotry, and Group Destruction in the Bible According to Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus,
(Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2004), 62-67.
146
It was a specific legion that had the boar as one of its emblems: Legio X Fretensis. This legion
was stationed in Aeilia Capitolina following the Bar Kokhba revolt, and we occasionally see the
boar on the reverse of coins minted for Aeilia Capitolina, as figures 2 and 3 show.

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Figure 2. Meshorer, Aelia 30.147

Figure 3. Meshorer, Aelia 169.148

Oaths
While Esau's identification with various animals is important, the most noteworthy element
of characterization in his encounter with Jacob is his decision to flagrantly violate the oaths he
swore to his parents. Esau is an intentional oath-breaker who calls into question the efficacy of

147

This coin was struck for Aelia Capitolina (Roman Jerusalem) between 138-161 C.E. The
reverse portrays a boar, one of the symbols of Legio X Fretensis. Used with permission:
Classical Numismatics Group; cngcoins.com
148
From Aelia Capitolina, 249-251 C.E. Reverse displays boar under eagle. Used with
permission: Classical Numismatics Group; cngcoins.com

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the practice, and ultimately suffers the consequences for his unfaithfulness and impiety. This
portrayal of Esau is not an isolated incident, but is a particularly poignant example of a theme
that runs throughout Jubilees.149 For the author of Jubilees the faithful observance of an oathbound covenant is one of the most basic markers of righteousness, and the violation or misuse of
the oath is likewise a basic marker of wickedness and a precipitant of both individual and
tribal/national destruction whether in the present or through a future judgment.150
Jubilees emphasizes the oath as an integral element of the Noahic and Mosaic covenants, 151
which are made with all of humanity and the people of Israel respectively. This means that oathkeeping and covenant faithfulness are closely related in the book. By portraying Esau as a
flagrant oath-breaker who calls into question the very institution of oath-making itself, our author
is not only demonizing him, but emphasizing the place of Esau outside of God's covenant people.
Esau not only proves himself incapable of filial devotion, but also shows that he is incapable of
being faithful to oath and covenant and is therefore fit only for uprooting/destruction.152 His
forgetfulness of his oath demonstrates the kind of covenant forgetfulness that YHWH warns his

149

Jub. 6:10-12; 9:14-15; 10:28-34; 13:29; 18:15; 23:21; 24:5, 10, 24-26; 29:7-8; 46:5-6a.
Note the promises of destruction in 6:12 and 10:30-32. False/broken oaths are a marker of
righteousness/wickedness in the Hebrew Bible as well (Lev 19:12). Cf. discussion of false oaths
in Livneh, "Can the Boar Change Its Skin?," 78-79. Livneh points to texts like Lev 5:20-26; Zech
8:17; Jer 5:2; Zech 5:3-4; Ps 24:4; and Jer 7:9.
151
Jub. 6:10-12.
152
Isaac said as much to Rebekah: ". . . [Esau] lacks (the ability to do) what is right. For the
entire way he acts is (characterized by) injustice and violence and there is no justice about him . .
. Neither he nor his descendants are to be saved because they will be destroyed from the earth
and be uprooted from beneath the sky" (Jub.35:13-14).
150

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people against,153 and puts him in the company of biblical villains like land-robbing Canaan or the
Gentile nations that disregard the primeval oath not to eat blood.
In summary, Esau's actions and speech are not very flattering. The author of Jubilees has
characterized Isaac's eldest son as an unclean and wild figure who flagrantly disregards filial
devotion and the sacred institution of the oath. If there was ever any doubt that the promise and
the covenant passed to the right child of Isaac, Esau's final moments put that doubt to rest.

153

Deut 4:23.

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CHAPTER FOUR
COMPARISON

We have already made some passing remarks on the similarities and differences between
Jubilees and the Iliad. We now turn to a more thorough comparative analysis of the two texts.
The comparison and contrast of two texts without regard for historical or genetic relationship is a
worthwhile endeavor in its own right. The very act of reading and comprehension always
involves comparison and contrast, as new data becomes meaningful and intelligible to us based on
its similarities to and differences from our existing knowledge and experience. For the historian,
non-genetic comparative work can lead to fresh and deeper perspectives on a text, raising
questions that might not otherwise have been asked and fueling one's historical imagination.1 It is
our hope that the comparison below offers this kind of value in the study of both the Iliad and
Jubilees. As we will claim in the following chapter, a non-genetic comparison of our two texts is
1

Jonathan Z. Smith argues for the importance of comparative work that is not consumed by
questions of genealogy, or homology, but rather focuses on analogy. The act of comparison is to
be understood as something that occurs within the mind of the scholar for a specific theoretical
purpose: ". . . the enterprise of comparison, in its strongest form, brings differences together
solely within the space of the scholar's mind. It is in the individual scholar, for his or her own
good theoretical reasons, who imagines their cohabitation, without even requiring that they be
consenting adults — not processes of history, influence, or diffusion which, all too often, have
been held to be both the justification for and the result of comparison." Jonathan Z. Smith,
Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 115. He argues that the privileging of genetic
comparative work in the study of early Christianity has been driven by Protestant apologetic
motives. Genetic relationships between earliest Christianity and "pagan" religions are seen as a
threat to a vision of pristine Christian beginnings, and thus are granted a high level of importance,
if only to deny that they exist. Analogies — similarities that are not instances of influence or
borrowing — are not as threatening, and are less significant (see especially 48-49). Though
apologetic interests have certainly played a role in the privileging of genealogy, this is also likely
due to the nature of the historical enterprise, which is largely focused on issues of cause and
effect and thus tends to organize historical data not only chronologically but causally as well.

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just as significant as, and from a certain perspective even more significant than a genetic
comparison for our the argument that Jubilees needs to be read within the context of the broader
Hellenistic world. However, though we recognize the value of such non-genetic comparative
work, we believe the evidence points towards the existence of a genetic relationship between
Homer's Iliad and the Book of Jubilees, and we will attempt to make that argument throughout
the following comparison.
Such arguments can take us into dangerous and disputatious academic waters, particularly
when they involve the influence of a Greek text on a Palestinian Jewish text, as the level and
nature of Greek influence in Palestine continues to be debated.2 On the one hand there is the risk
of setting the evidentiary bar so high that we lose our ability to detect subtle (and sometimes notso-subtle) allusions. Along with this there is the danger of prematurely rejecting the possibility
of influence because of our preconceptions about the relationship between Jewish writers and the
non-Jewish Greek literary and cultural tradition. Such preconceptions can be particularly
troubling because they are self-fulfilling: literary evidence that could challenge them is dismissed
out of hand since it is seen as improbable. On the other hand, there is the danger of being
overzealous in the analysis of similarities between texts in the hopes of forging genetic

2

For works that argue for a good deal of Hellenistic influence in Palestine see Martin Hengel,
Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine During the Early Hellenistic
Period (trans. John Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974); John J. Collins and Gregory E.
Sterling, Hellenism in the Land of Israel (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001).
For criticisms of these works see Louis Feldman's various articles: "Hengel's Judaism and
Hellenism in Retrospect," JBL 96 (1977): 371-82; "How Much Hellenism in Jewish Palestine?,"
HUCA 57 (1986): 83-111; "How Much Hellenism in the Land of Israel?," in Judaism and
Hellenism Reconsidered (Leiden: Brill, 2006): 71-101. Lester L. Grabbe also provides a useful
summary and evaluation of major criticisms of Hengel's work: Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian;
Volume One: The Persian and Greek Periods (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 150-153.

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connections that simply are not there. In a rush to prove influence, readers can overlook the
serious differences between texts and give inadequate attention to other explanations for the
similarities. This is a phenomenon that Sandmel popularized as "parallelomania," which he
defined as "that extravagance among scholars which first overdoes the supposed similarity in
passages and then proceeds to describe source and derivation as if implying literary connection
flowing in an inevitable or predetermined direction."3
Like any other argument, the question should ultimately come down to methods and
evidence. In the absence of an explicit citation how does one determine whether or not there is a
genetic relationship between two texts? What criteria can we use to determine the plausibility
and probability of influence? In his work on mimesis in early Christian literature Dennis
MacDonald has developed six criteria to help us determine whether or not an author is dependent
on and intentionally reworking an earlier text, and we will employ these criteria in our
comparison. These criteria are:
1. Accessibility. Is it likely that the proposed source text was available to the author?
2. Analogy. Did other authors also make use of the source text?
3. Density. Are there enough parallels to make influence likely (a question of quantity)?
Are these parallels significant (a question of quality)?
4. Order. Do the alleged parallels between the texts follow a similar order?
5. Distinctive traits. Are there unusual or distinctive words, phrases, or other elements
that appear in both texts?
6. Interpretability. Does the hypertext's alleged use of the hypotext make sense? Is
3

Samuel Sandmel, "Parallelomania," JBL 81 (1962), 1. This is the published text of Sandmel's
SBL presidential address. He notes that he did not coin the term, but encountered it in a French
publication he cannot recall.

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there an understandable purpose for the author's particular use and transformation of
an earlier text?4
We will touch on each of these criteria below, although not in order. We begin with a
comparison of our two target texts, which will demonstrate density, order, and distinctive traits.
We then discuss some points of comparison between the Jubilees passage and other texts/themes
in the Iliad and the broader Greek tradition, which strengthens our case for Jubilees' interaction
with Greek literature in general and the epic tradition in particular. Following this we make a case
for accessibility, outlining some of the evidence for (1) the ubiquity of Homer's works in the
Hellenistic world and (2) the influence of Homer's works in Palestine. Since our argument is not
for the general influence of Homer but rather the influence of a particular passage from the Iliad,
we will explore other examples of the quotation, use, and re-appropriation of Achilles' speech,
thus demonstrating analogy. Finally, we will give attention to interpretability by exploring the
meaning of Jubilees' use of the Iliad. These criteria are not intended to provide us with an
objective checklist that we can use to conclusively prove Homeric influence on Jubilees. Instead,
they are intended to function as guides that can help frame our investigation, providing us with
useful questions that we can ask in our attempt to understand the relationship between two texts.
It should be noted that MacDonald's specific application of the six criteria to his work on
the New Testament has not always been well-received.5 We affirm the usefulness of
4

For a discussion of the criteria see Dennis R. MacDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of
Mark, 8-9; "Introduction," in Mimesis and Intertextuality in Antiquity and Christianity (ed. Dennis
R. MacDonald; Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001), 2-3; Does the New Testament
Imitate Homer?: Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2003), 2-7. For the use of these criteria by another scholar see Serge Frolov, "Homeric and
Ancient Near Eastern Intertextuality in 1 Samuel 17," JBL 130 (2011): 451-471. Frolov uses

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MacDonald's criteria as well as his very helpful work (to be interacted with later) on the role of
Homer in the Greco-Roman world and patristic Christianity, as well as the importance of
bringing a knowledge of Homer to the study of Jewish and Christian texts. However, we do want
to distinguish the arguments we are making here from the arguments he makes in his work on the
Gospel of Mark. There he makes fairly broad and aggressive claims about the influence of Homer
on the earliest Gospel. In her critique of MacDonald, Margaret M. Mitchell affirms the need to
explore the relationship between Homer and the New Testament, but argues for a smaller-scale
approach:
The excessive claims of MacDonald's book, and the problematics of his procedure
nevertheless should not close off the important line of research into Homeric influence on
the New Testament . . . But future studies on the gospels and acts <sic> should avoid the
'all or nothing at all' bargain MacDonald sets up . . . and instead of seeking grand schemes
for whole compositions, investigate the possible influences of Homeric themes and
characterizations on smaller narrative units about Jesus and the apostles, which were told
and retold both before and after their literary casting . . .6
She continues to say that what is needed is "a study of how early Christian authors
incorporated — sometimes integrating, sometimes merely juxtaposing — a range of cultural
references, fragments, artifacts, and concepts into their writings . . ."7 The kind of analysis that
Mitchell envisions for the New Testament is what we are attempting to carry out in our study. 8

these criteria to argue against the influence of Homer on 1 Sam 17 and to argue for the influence
of different Ancient Near Eastern sources.
5
For useful evaluations and critiques of Dennis MacDonald's The Homeric Epics and the Gospel
of Mark, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), see Karl Olav Sandnes, "Imitatio Homeri?
An Appraisal of Dennis R. MacDonald's 'Mimesis Criticism'" JBL 124 (2005): 715-732 and
Margaret M. Mitchell, "Homer in the New Testament?" The Journal of Religion 83 (2003).
6
Margaret M. Mitchell, “Homer in the New Testament?”, 255.
7
Margaret M. Mitchell, “Homer in the New Testament?”, 256.
8
Another key point of difference between our analysis and MacDonald’s work is that we are
giving attention to both the Jewish and classical backgrounds of Esau’s speech, exploring the

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Literary Context
In our earlier discussions we placed both speeches in their broader literary context. While it
is certainly possible that Jubilees could have used elements from Achilles' speech in an entirely
different context, this does not seem to be the case. While they are not identical, the settings of
both speeches are similar, since in both texts we see a one-on-one conversation between two
arch-enemies in the midst of a siege against a city. Like Achilles, Esau is the one laying siege to
the city, and Jacob — like Hector — is defending. In both cases the attacking army is
significantly larger than the defending army. 9 Beyond all of this, there is a parallel transformation
in the hearts of Achilles and Esau before they seek out their prey. Remember that throughout
most of the Iliad Achilles is absent from battle, having withdrawn from the Achaian army
because Agamemnon dishonoured him. In Book IX the Achaians try to rectify this situation and
bring Achilles back to the fight, but they are faced with a disillusioned hero who has no interest in
returning to combat. It ultimately takes the death of Achilles' beloved Patroclus to make him take
up his spear again. Achilles' wrath towards Agamemnon over dishonour transforms into a
vengeful wrath towards the Trojans in general and Hector in particular, a wrath that leads him to
the gates of Troy and to his one-on-one encounter with Hector.
Interestingly, we also find a pattern of disengagement and reengagement in Jubilees' narration
of the war of the Israelites and Edomites. As we saw earlier, Esau initially resists his sons'

ways in which the author of Jubilees creatively integrated the Jewish and Greek traditions.
MacDonald, on the other hand, does not always give adequate attention to these twin
backgrounds of early Christian literature, as he focuses almost solely on Homeric parallels.
9
Jub. 37:14; 38:5-8; Il. 2.123-133.

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planned offensive against Jacob. His "anger and wrath" (37:12) are directed towards his sons
who are coercing him into battle. But then Esau undergoes a transformation:
But afterwards he remembered all the bad things that were hidden in his mind against his
brother Jacob, and he did not remember the oath that he had sworn to his father and
mother not to aim at anything bad against his brother Jacob throughout his entire lifetime
(37:13).

Esau's speech shows that his wrath has been transformed and is now directed against his
brother.
We noted earlier that Kugel initially identified this abrupt transformation as a literary seam,
and later attributed it to Jubilees' mixed characterization of Esau. However, within the context of
our current argument we should entertain the idea that Esau's abrupt transformation is modeled
on Achilles' similar transformation in the Iliad.10 This would not be unparalleled, as Alexander
the Great engaged in a similar pattern of withdrawal and reengagement that was arguably modeled
on Achilles' behaviour in the Iliad.11

10

Based on the parallel texts in Testament of Judah and Midrash Wayissa'u, the source behind
Jubilees' account likely emphasized Esau's initiative and role in attacking Jacob. Placing the
initiative on the sons and portraying Esau as initially resistant seems to be an invention on the
part of Jubilees. Our author has intentionally created a scenario where Esau needs to undergo a
transformation from unwilling participant to aggressor. Why? One reason is that it gives the
opportunity to show the filial impiety of Esau's children. But the parallel with Achilles offers an
additional explanation.
11
Carney points to three such occasions: (1) Alexander's killing of Cleitus (Plut. Alex. 50-52.4;
Arr. 4.8.1-9.9; Curt. 8.1.19-2.13; Just. 12.6.1-18) ); (2) his army's refusal to cross the Hyphasis
(Diod. 17.93.2-95.2; Just. 12.8.10-17; Plut. alex. 62; Curt. 9.2.1-3.19; Arr. 5.25.1-29.1; Strab.
15.1.27, 32) and (3) the army's disobedience at Opis (Arr. 7.8.1-12.4; Diod. 17.108.3, 109.1-3;
Plut. Alex. 71.1-5; Just. 12.11.5-12.10; Curt. 10.2.8-4.2). Elizabeth Carney, "Artifice and
Alexander History," in Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction (ed. A.B. Bosworth and E.J.
Baynham; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 200), 273-274. She argues that these accounts are
based on historical events (273) and that Alexander's actions were modeled on those of Homer's
Achilles (274-276).

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While there are definite similarities in the literary context and setting, there are differences as
well. First, the reasons for the siege and for Esau's wrath towards Jacob are different from the
Trojan war and Achilles' vendetta. Esau and his children are motivated by their sense of injustice
over Jacob receiving the birth right and the blessing. The Achaians are attempting to restore the
honour of Menelaus by reclaiming Helen and are seeking the glory and spoils of war. Achilles
ultimately engages Hector in order to avenge the death of Patroclus. Even though in both cases
the attackers are reacting against a perceived wrong, the specific situations are different.12
Second, the make-up of the armies is different. Though both texts present a much larger attacking
army, in the Iliad it is the defending Trojan army that is the more composite international force,
whereas in Jubilees it is the attacking army that is made up of different nations.13 This, however,
is a difference of reversal, which we will see at other points in our comparison as well. Third, in

12

Note, however, that the continuance of the war after the failed single-combat between
Menelaus and Paris is the result of a broken oath (Il. 4.68-222). Additionally, both the Achaians
and the Edomites are trying to reclaim something that they believe is rightfully theirs.
13
Jub. 37:9-10; Il. 2.130-132. It is interesting, however, that Jubilees identifies the Kittim as one
of the mercenary nations that Esau's sons enlist (37:10; note, however, that some read !"#$
here as "Hittite." See VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, ad loc. The Kittim are descendants of
Javan, a Japhethite (Gen 10:4), and were associated with the Greeks and the Romans (Dan 11:30)
in early Jewish literature. Scott notes 6th century B.C.E. Hebrew inscriptions that identify the
Kittim with the Greeks (Scott, Geography, 240 n.20). According to 1st Maccabees, Alexander
the Great came from the "land of the Kittim" (1:1; see also 8:5). Jubilees may also connect this
people with the Greeks. Kugel and VanderKam both suggest that the Kittim of Jub. 24:28-29
refers to the Greco-Macedonians (Kugel, Walk through Jubilees, 135; VanderKam, Textual and
Historical Studies, 237 n.53). Eshel notes that the presence of Greek mercenaries in Israel
beginning as early as the Bronze Age and the lack of Italian mercenaries suggest that Jubilees has
Greeks rather than Romans in mind as the Kittim. Hanan Eshel, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the
Hasmonean State (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 164-165. VanderKam also claims that the
Kittim in Jub. 37:10 refer either to the Greek mercenaries in the Seleucid army, or the Seleucids
themselves (Textual Studies, 237). Thus, the presence of the Kittim among the multi-national
mercenary force may be another similarity between our two texts: in both cases the city is being
besieged by Greek forces.

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the Iliad the encounter between Achilles and Hector occurs outside the city, while in Jubilees
Esau is outside the city and Jacob remains in the tower.

The Opening Plea
In the two encounters it is the representative of the besieged people that begins the verbal
exchange. Both Jacob and Hector make an appeal of sorts involving an oath to their aggressor,
although Jacob's appeal comes in the form of a chastisement. One of the differences between the
two texts is that Jacob is calling Esau to be faithful to an oath he has already sworn, whereas
Hector is attempting to get Achilles to swear a new oath. Esau will become an oath-breaker,
while Achilles will become one who rejects a proffered oath and then violates the dead. A second
difference is that Jacob is attempting to avoid violence altogether, but Hector is committed to
fatal combat and is merely making arrangements for the burial of the inevitable loser. Despite
these differences, both Jacob and Hector initiate verbal contact, both are making appeals for
pious behavior from their aggressor, and both are speaking positively about oaths. Literarily,
both provide a set-up for the rage-filled speeches of their interlocutors.

The Speech
A comparative analysis of the speeches of Esau and Achilles is more complex. Here we find
both startling similarities and points of contact, as well as clear differences and points of
divergence. The overall thrust and purpose of both speeches is very similar: a refusal to respond
to the appeal they have just heard, specifically a refusal to enter into (Achilles) or honour (Esau)
an oath-bound agreement with their enemy. The tones are likewise quite similar, as both Esau

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and Achilles' words are dripping with antagonism and the desire to see their opponent perish.
Both men also use the same rhetorical mechanism in their refusals of any rapprochement: bestial
adynata. In order to illustrate their point they invoke animal imagery that draws on proverbial
knowledge of the natural world to vividly underline the impossibility of agreement or
brotherhood/friendship of any kind. A bird's-eye-view of the passages thus reveals some strong
similarities. But what do we find as we dig deeper into the details of the respective speeches?
When we look at the specific forms that Esau and Achilles' respective uses of adynaton take
we find one of our first differences. Achilles uses a double-vehicle simile ("just as . . ."), while
Esau primarily uses a sequence of four conditional statements ("if . . . then . . ."). The rhetorical
effect is ultimately the same, but different tools have been used to achieve it. That said, Esau's
opening statement about the lack of oaths among/between humans and snakes could be read as a
quasi-simile that is akin to what we find in Achilles' speech. While the verbal connectors are not
quite as explicit ("just as . . . so . . ."), it is clear that Esau is bringing his claims about humans and
serpents to bear on his situation with Jacob, just as Achilles brings the relationships between his
animals to bear on his situation with Hector. Unlike his subsequent conditional statements,
Esau's opening line negatively expresses a present reality ("there is not . . .") that is comparable
to his relationship with Jacob, just as Achilles does in his simile.
The use of animals is another place where we find both similarities and differences between
the two speeches. We see both similarities and differences in the choice of creatures, the pairing
of creatures, the forms in which these pairs are used, and the nature of the relationship within
each pair. These tables help to visualize the comparison between creature images/pairs within
Esau and Achilles' speeches:

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Creatures Common to
Jubilees and the Iliad

Creatures Unique to
Jubilees

Humans
Lion
Wolf
Lamb

Snake
Pig
Ram
Flock
Ox
Raven
Pelican

Common Pairs
Wolf and lamb

Incompatibility:
Snakes and humans (?)
Wolves and lambs
Lions and oxen
Physical dissimilarity:
Pigs and ram/flock
Ravens and pelicans
Analogous:
Snakes and humans (?)

None

Pairs Unique to Jubilees
Humans and snakes
Pigs & ram/flock
Lions and oxen
Ravens and pelicans

Nature of Relationship within Pairs in
Jubilees

Creatures Unique to the
Iliad

Pairs Unique to the Iliad
Humans and lions

Nature of Relationship within Pairs in the
Iliad
Incompatibility:
Humans and lions
Wolves and lambs

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We encounter common images between the two, but in slightly different forms. We also
encounter common forms, but with slightly different images. We just mentioned that Jubilees
primarily utilizes conditional statements to communicate the impossibility of peace with Jacob,
while the Iliad uses similes. Despite this formal difference, it is interesting to note that of the
four conditional statements Jubilees makes, two of them express the impossibility of peace by
pairing two creatures that are proverbial enemies. Thus even though the form is different from
the Iliad, the function of the pairing of creatures is the same. Both texts are bringing together
creatures (wolves/lambs in both texts, lions/oxen in Jubilees, lions/humans in Iliad) that are
natural enemies in order to illustrate the impossibility of an agreement between the two human
parties. The specific creatures in one of these pairings (wolves/lambs) is identical, whereas the
other contains agreement on one of the creatures (lions). The other creature from the lion pairing
in the Iliad (humans) appears earlier in Esau's speech where it is paired with snakes.
Jubilees of course diverges from the Iliad in its swine and raven statements, which envision a
physical transformation of an animal so that it becomes like another animal, rather than a social
transformation between animals. Achilles' speech has nothing comparable. The specific animals
used in these statements are also absent from Achilles' speech (with the possible exception of the
"flock"). The animals that are unique to Jubilees come almost entirely from the two statements
that are most conceptually distant from Achilles' statements.
When we compare the animals we see that Jubilees offers a different arrangement and a more
elaborate text than the Iliad, but still bears some remarkable similarities in its choice and use of
animal imagery. There are differences, however, which require an explanation. What do we make
of these? First, we should expect that there will be differences. As MacDonald observes,

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concealment is a key element in mimesis.14 An author can demonstrate their literary and
rhetorical prowess by simultaneously drawing attention to and concealing their use of and
dependence upon an earlier text. Another reason to conceal dependence on another text is to
preserve the narrative fiction, as we mentioned in our discussion of Esau's speech in the previous
chapter. Second, some of these differences can be explained through recourse to the Hebrew
Bible. We noted above that Esau's speech has similarities to the peaceable kingdom visions in Isa
11:6-8 and 65:25, as well as the Cushite/leopard text in Jer 13:23. We believe that our author
engaged in a creative synthesis of multiple traditions, drawing both from the well of Homeric epic
and Hebrew scripture, something that we saw in Jub. 8-9 as well.15 The detachment of the Iliad's
lion/human pairing in Esau's speech reflects an attempt to bring the specific animal pairings in line
with the Isaiah texts, in which we encounter human/snake, lion/oxen, and wolves/sheep.
14

"Texts discussing rhetorical imitations frequently mention the practice of occulting or
disguising one's reliance upon a model, for servile imitation could lead to charges of boorish
pedantry and even of plagiarism. These disguises included altering the vocabulary, varying the
order, length, and structure of sentences, improving the content, and generating a series of formal
transformations" (The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, 5). This raises an important
methodological issue. If concealment is par for the mimetic course, then any scholar who wants
to argue for influence or dependence between two texts can easily explain away the differences as
the expected subtlety of the ancient author. How can one truly prove or refute such an
argument? In order to avoid this danger we must focus on evaluating the strength of the
similarities between two texts: are the points of contact compelling enough to make up for the
differences? Additionally, we need to look for persuasive explanations for the specific shape of
the differences. Can we provide good reasons why the author chose to conceal his or her
dependence on an earlier text in the specific way s/he did?
15
"Although students usually imitated a single work, the experienced author borrowed from
many, like the painter Zeuxis who, when commissioned to paint a portrait of Helen, assembled
the most beautiful girls of a city and from their combined features composed a 'perfect image.'
Such eclecticism also disguised reliance on the primary target of imitation. Skilled authors were
bees that took the best nectar from many blossoms to produce textual honey. According to
Seneca, such apian authors should 'blend those several flavours into one delicious compound that,

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Conversely, we could see the formal differences between Esau's opening statement
(humans/snakes) and the subsequent conditional statements as an attempt to incorporate
elements from Achilles' speech into a text originally modeled on Isaiah. The use of conditional
statements rather than a simile as well as the physical transformation pairings (pig/ram and flock,
raven/pelican) may have been based on the Jeremiah passage. The source of the specific choice of
the animals is possibly due to the influence of Enoch's Animal Apocalypse (or traditions the two
texts shared) and a precursor to Syriac/Armenian Ahiqar or popular proverbs. We will also see
below that the animal imagery has significant points of contact with the Greek tradition.
An additional similarity to consider is the portrayal of the animals' subjective experiences. In
the parallel passages from Isaiah and Jeremiah there is no mention of the feelings, thoughts, or
perspectives of the animals. The focus is instead on their external, observable, physical and
social characteristics. However, in Esau and Achilles' speeches we encounter animals that feel,
intend, and even think. In Il. 22.263 Achilles tells us that the wolves and lambs do not have
oJmo/frona qumo/n, but instead are thoroughly evil-minded (kaka\ frone/ousi) towards each

other.16 Jubilees 37:21 speaks of the (im)possibility of wolves' "hearts" being "upon" the lambs
to do good for them (!" #$%&'( )*+,'( -#./0). Both texts refer to the internal,
subjective life of the wolf. We may see something similar in Jub. 37:18. If the "they" who seek
out evil in v.18 include snakes, then Esau attributes intention to serpents. Additionally, the idea

even though it betrays its origin, yet it nevertheless is clearly a different thing from that whence it
came'" (MacDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, 5-6).
16
Cf. Ready, Character, Narrator, and Simile, 65, on the anthropomorphizing of the wolf and
lamb.

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of seeking evil (!"#) parallels the evil-mindedness (kaka\ frone/ousi) of the wolves/lambs
towards each other.17
Beyond the similarities in animal language and imagery, we also find similarities in both
syntax and non-animal vocabulary. The syntax in Esau’s and Achilles' opening lines is virtually
identical:

wJß oujk e¶sti le/ousi kai\ ajndra/sin oºrkia pista/

hnm]|a»n howbC MyC|j[nlw Md]|ah ynbl ØNØya
Ignoring the opening wJß, we see this pattern: negative particle + stated or implied copula +
noun/dative of possession + conjunction + noun/dative of possession + noun + noun modifier.
The Greek naturally uses the dative case whereas the Hebrew uses the lamed preposition, the
Greek states the copula whereas it is implied in the Hebrew, and the noun modifier in the Greek
is an adjective whereas in Hebrew we find a participle functioning adjectivally. Beyond these
minor differences we are looking at something so similar that the Hebrew could have been a
direct, literal translation from the Greek with different vocabulary for the two parties substituted.
Perhaps one of the most important similarities between the two texts, and arguably the one
that bears a lion's share of the evidentiary weight, is the common phrase faithful oath/faithful
oaths. In both speeches the speaker expresses the impossibility of a faithful oath within the
context of their opening pair of creatures. Achilles claims that "As between lions and men there
are no oºrkia pista/ . . .", while Esau says "Neither the sons of men nor snakes have a

17

The reciprocal ajlllh/loisin parallels hlal hla.

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hnm]|a»n howbC . . ."18 There seems to be a difference between the ways that this phrase is
understood in each text, with Achilles meaning an oath/agreement that results in faithful relations
between two parties, and Esau meaning an oath/agreement that the two parties keep forever.19
However, in both cases the speakers are referring to an oath in the context of potential civilized
relations between two parties.
Interestingly, this particular phrase occurs nowhere in the Hebrew Bible or elsewhere in
Qumran literature, making it relatively unique.20 Indeed, in the Hebrew Bible hDo…wbVv rarely takes a
modifier like this. The verb Nma in the nif'al participle form does occur fairly frequently and in
nearly every case the Greek translators have chosen pisto/ß. Similarly, while oºrkion does not
appear to be used in the LXX, the related term oºrkoß is frequently used to translate hDo…wbVv. 21
This establishes a strong translational equivalency between the two phrases. Given the rarity of
this Hebrew phrase, its similarity in both form and meaning to the Greek phrase used by
Achilles,22 the evidence for a Hebrew-Greek translational equivalence between the key words,
and the similarity in the context of usage, it seems quite possible that this phrase in Jubilees

18

"Righteous oath" (!"# $%&) in the Ge'ez version. The Syriac has the plural "oaths"
()tM8wM).
19

See our earlier discussions on these phrases. ". . . the compound hnman howbC refers to the
lasting fulfillment of a sworn obligation" (Livneh, "Can the Boar Change Its Skin?, 78).
20
Livneh explains this unique phrase as the antonym of the false oath in Zech 8:17 ("Can the
Boar Change Its Skin?", 78-79). This is an interesting suggestion, but the Iliad provides a better
explanation.
21
Gen 24:8; 26:3; Exod 22:10; Lev 5:4; Num 5:21; 30:3, 11, 14; Deut 7:8; Josh 2:17, 20.
22
The phrase is not as unique in the Greek tradition, and Achilles is not the only one to use the
expression. But as we discussed above, the phrase is distinctively Homeric, and its appearance
in a Jewish text that bears so many other similarities to Achilles’ speech strengthens the
connection.

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reflects influence from the Iliad. The single notable difference is that the Greek uses the plural,
while the Hebrew uses the singular.
A final similarity between the two speeches is the envisioning of destruction. Achilles states
that there will be no forging of oaths until "one or the other shall have fallen, and glutted with his
blood Ares, the warrior with tough shield of hide" (22.266-267). Esau places a final illwish/curse upon Jacob: "May you be cut off and your children be cut off. There will be no peace
for you" (37:23b). Achilles' statement leaves open the possibility for either his or Hector's death,
while Esau envisions only the possibility of Jacob's demise. Both men, however, emphasize the
death and destruction of one of the parties.

The Resolution
What happens after the speeches of Achilles and Esau? In the Iliad combat immediately
ensues, ultimately leading to the death of Hector by spear. Achilles' speech is the speech of the
victor. In Jubilees combat also ensues, with Jacob ordering engagement with the enemy,
personally killing Esau with an arrow. Esau's speech is the speech of the vanquished. Thus
while both exchanges end in the violent death of one of the interlocutors at the hands of the other,
the roles are reversed. This reversal may be intentional, something we will explore below. It is
also important to note that while Achilles does not die in this particular combat, he does die soon
afterwards: something which is foreshadowed in Hector's dying words. While the Iliad does not
narrate Achilles' death, the broader Greek tradition offers some details, including the idea that
Achilles was killed by an arrow. It would be inappropriate to place much evidentiary value on

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this connection, but it is at least worth noting that according to tradition Esau and Achilles both
died from a bow shot.23
A similar reversal is seen in the fate of the cities of Troy and Hebron. While it happens after
the end of the Iliad, the besieged city of Troy is eventually destroyed by the Achaians. Hebron,
however, remains, and the besieging forces are decimated and driven back until it is the Edomites
who are under siege and forced to surrender.
Perhaps one of the most important elements of the resolution to note is the burial of the
defeated. We discussed Achilles' defilement of Hector at length in our section on his
characterization above. We saw that the burial of the battle-dead was one of the most important
themes in the Iliad, and that one was expected to fight for the body of his comrade. This sheds
some interesting light on the fate of Esau's body in Jubilees.
After the sons of Jacob decimate their attackers, Esau's four sons flee the battle with six
hundred others. They do not, however, bring their father's body with them: "They left their slain
father just as he had fallen on the hill that is in Aduram" (38:8). It is not Esau's sons that bury
him, but Jacob, who performs the task while his sons pursue the retreating army to Mt. Seir.
Jacob buries his brother on the hill where he fell.24

23

See the discussion of traditions surrounding Achilles' death in Jonathan Burgess, "Achilles'
Heel: The Death of Achilles in Ancient Myth," Classical Antiquity 14 (1995): 217-244.
24
We saw in the previous chapter that M.W. contains a similar comment about Esau's body being
abandoned, although there it was Jacob's sons who buried him out of respect for their father
Jacob. This does not mean, however, that the Edomites' neglect of Esau's body belonged to the
earlier source(s) upon which Jubilees and the parallel accounts rely. As we noted before, the
dependence of Jubilees and M.W. on a common source or pool of tradition does not mean that
M.W. is completely independent of Jubilees. Indeed, M.W. recognizes the existence of multiple
traditions surrounding Esau's death (37.5, 15). Some of these traditions may ultimately have had
their origins in Jubilees.

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This is certainly a point of contrast between our Jubilees and Iliad passages. Rather than
being a point of divergence, however, it is another example of reversal. In the Iliad the victor
defiles the body of his foe, while in Jubilees the victor buries the body of his foe. Esau's sons
continue to exhibit their filial impiety by not fighting for or concerning themselves with the body
of their father, which certainly places them in contrast to the Homeric heroes who fight for the
bodies of their fallen comrades. Jacob, on the other hand, gives to Esau the very thing that
Hector had requested of Achilles: a proper burial. In this he becomes like Antigone, the tragic
heroine who insisted on burying her dead brother even though he had participated in the siege
against Thebes, and Teucer in Sophocles' Ajax who insists on burying his fallen brother even
though he has fallen out of favour with the Achaian leadership.
What emerges from comparing the resolutions of the two texts is a strong sense of difference
through reversal. If Jubilees is drawing from Homer's well, the author is writing an alternative
history of sorts, one in which the wrath-filled combatant is the one who dies, the body of the
vanquished is shown honor rather than mutilated, and the defending city successfully repels its
attackers.25

Characterization
In our discussions of Achilles and Esau we asked questions about how their respective
speeches contributed to their characterization. On this point we again find points of similarity
and dissimilarity. One point of similarity is the identification of both figures with some of the

25

Note that other non-Greek peoples saw the Trojans as the protagonists and the Achaians as
the antagonists. Virgil’s Aeneid is a particularly prominent example.

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animals in their speeches. We have argued that Achilles identifies himself with the lion and the
wolf, while Esau is arguably identified with the snake, pig, wolf, lion, and raven. While we urged
some caution on the subject, we did see that a case could be made that Achilles' use of animal
imagery identifies him as a character who has overstepped the bounds of civilized humanity.
Esau, likewise, is portrayed as an animalistic character, and his identification with unclean
animals places him outside the boundaries of the covenant people. In both cases the characters
unintentionally condemn themselves with their own words.
There is a point of difference in the portrayal of these two figures in relation to oaths. We
argued that Achilles is not rejecting the institution of oaths entirely, but only oaths with Hector.
Esau, on the other hand, is calling into question the very validity of oaths and covenants. More
notable than Achilles' rejection of Hector's proffered oath are the specifics of the agreement he is
rejecting: the return of the loser's looted corpse for proper burial. We again urged caution about
hasty moral judgments, but saw that a case could be made that Achilles' vengeful treatment of
Hector's corpse and obstinate initial refusal to ransom the body were a departure from his
normal, more civilized pattern of behavior, and that in this departure he was transgressing the
boundaries of acceptable heroic behavior. This is how Achilles' actions were received and
interpreted by some ancient readers.
Esau's specific actions are different, but he too is portrayed as one who violates the
boundaries of acceptable behavior. Esau does not excessively defile the body of his foe (though
we do not know what he would have done to Jacob had he succeeded in killing him), but instead
flagrantly disregards sworn oaths and filial piety. Not only did he neglect to honor his parents,
but he also tries to kill his own brother. In the process he violates not one, but two oaths sworn

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in the presence of God and his parents. We saw that these are quite serious offenses within
Jubilees, and that they mark Esau and his descendants as ones who are outside of the covenant
community. Like one interpretation of Achilles, Esau has transgressed boundaries of pious and
civilized human behaviour and condemned himself in the process.

Additional Points of Contact with Homeric Epic and the Broader Greek Tradition
Our study has focused on the comparison of a specific passage in the Iliad with a specific
passage in Jubilees. To this point we have seen that there are a number of significant parallels
between the speeches of Achilles and Esau in their literary settings, rhetorical purposes, use of
adynata, animal imagery, the syntax of their opening statements, key vocabulary, and
characterization. While Achilles' speech is one of the primary candidates for Greek influence on
Jubilees' account of the war with Edom, it is not the only one. There are a handful of other
points of similarity between Esau's speech, the Iliad, and the broader Greek tradition. The
similarities are interesting in their own right, but also have evidentiary value for our argument. If
our Jubilees passage displays other signs of Greek and Homeric influence then it increases the
probability of influence from Achilles' speech.
Some of these similarities are found in the animal imagery in Esau's speech and the concluding
comment in Jub. 37:24. We noted in the previous chapter that the physical characteristics Esau
identifies for some of the animals in his first and fourth conditional statements do not have strong
parallels in the Hebrew Bible or in contemporary Jewish literature. The texture of the pig's skin
and its lack of a horn, and the colours of the raven and pelican are mentioned rarely or never. We
did see that slightly later Jewish literature begins to emphasize the blackness of the raven, and

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that Rabbinic literature invokes a colour transformation of the raven in an adynaton. Perhaps
more importantly, we saw that there were striking parallels for the pig skin and raven colour
transformations in Syriac and Armenian Ahiqar, perhaps indicating that Jubilees was drawing on
common sayings that have also been preserved in these versions of Ahiqar or that the author was
aware of a form of Ahiqar. It is thus possible that these elements of Esau's speech are
completely independent of the Greek tradition. However, there are some interesting parallels
that are worth noting.
While the pig was considered an unclean animal in some parts of the Ancient Near Eastern
world,26 it was held in greater esteem in the Greek tradition. The wild boar played a role in Greek
myth, particularly in the tales of the Calydonian and Erymanthian boars, which were the
ferocious victims of heroic hunts. What is particularly interesting are the physical features which
are highlighted by the literary and visual evidence for these myths and for boars in general. We
see at least four such traits: (1) the bristles of the boar, particularly on its crest;27 (2) the boar's
tusks;28 (3) its red/burning eyes;29 (4) its foaming mouth.30 The first two are particularly relevant
for us, since hair/bristles are explicitly highlighted in our text, and tusks — as a potential contrast
to horns — may stand in the background. We can see these features in two descriptions of art
portraying boar hunts by Philostratus the Elder and Philostratus the Younger respectively:

26

Joann Scurlock, “Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Mesopotamian Religion,” in A History of the
Animal World in the Ancient Near East (ed. Billie Jean Collins; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 393.
27
Il. 9.548 references the Calydonian boar's "hairy skin" (de/rmati lacnh/enti). Ps.Apollodorus'
Bibliotheca 1.66 identifies the boar's skin as the prize for the hunt. Seneca, Medea 643; Seneca,
Hercules Furens 228; Statius, Thebaid 2.469.
28
Statius, Thebaid 2.469; Callimachus, Hymn 3 to Artemis 218.
29
Il. 13.471.
30
Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 6.220.

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qauma/zeiß oJrw!n ejß tosouvton ajg w!na k/orhn o˚rmw!san, ajg ri/ou te ou"tw suo\ß kai\
tosou/tou o˚rmh\n u˚fistame/nhn; o˚raøvß ga/r, w˚ß u"faimon me\n aujtwø! to\ o¡mma lofia/ tw
fri/ttousa kai« polu\ß o˚ kata\ tw!n ojdo/ntwn ajfro\ß ejß polu\ ajnesthko/twn kai« th\n
aijcmh\n ajtri/ptwn, to/ te eu•roß, w˚ß pro\ß lo/gou thøv ba/sei, h¢n dh\ kai\ ta\ i¡c nh tauti\
dei/knusi tau/rwn ajpode/onta oujde/n.

Are you surprised to see a girl [Atalanta] entering into so great a contest and withstanding
the attack of so savage and so huge a boar? For you see how blood-shot is his eye, how
his crest bristles, and how abundant is the foam that drips from his long upright tusks,
which are unblunted at the point; and you see how the beast's bulk is proportional to his
stride, which indeed is indicated by these tracks that are as large as those of a bull.
(Philostratus the Younger, Imagines, 15.1)31
o˚rw! de« aujto\n kai« th\n cai/thn fri÷ttonta kai« puvr ejmbl\e/ponta, kai« oi˚ ojdonteß aujtwø!
patagouvsin ejf# u˚mavß . . .

I see the creature [the boar], its mane bristling, its eyes flashing fire, and it is gnashing its
tusks at you . . . (Philostratus the Elder, Imagines, 1.28.13-15)32
Extant Greco-Roman art visually echoes the descriptions of the Philostratuses, as we can see
from the select examples below:33

31

Fairbanks, LCL.
Ibid.
33
In addition to pictured examples, consider also: Malibu 86.AE.154/Beazley 10149. This Siana
cup dates to circa 580-570 B.C.E. Side A pictures the Calydonian boar hunt. The boar is quite
large, and is shown with red eyes, large tusks, and prominent bristles/crest. Six spear-wielding
men and three dogs are attempting to subdue it, illustrating the creature's formidability. Also,
Boston 01.8110/Beazley 300334. This tripod kothon from circa 575-550 B.C.E. features scenes
of animal and human combat. The sides feature humans wrestling and boxing, as well as lions
facing each other. The top, pictured above, has several pairs of creatures facing each other in
combat, including a lion and a boar. The boar is smaller than the lion. The tusks are present,
though not too prominent, and the bristles/crest run along the entire back of the creature.
32

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34

Figure 4. Florence 4209/Beazley 300000 . Photo Credit: Scala/Art Resource, NY. Used with permission.

This sixth-century B.C. E. krater from Erutria features the Calydonian boar hunt. The number of
people and dogs required to subdue the boar illustrate its strength as an opponent. The
bristles/crest are emphasized. Particularly relevant for our discussion below is the fact that the
boar is going headfirst into the spear.

34

http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/35ACBA5B-7FF1-4572-BA34-6AC260F62A33

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Figure 5. Capitoline Museums, Rome. Inv. scu 00917. Photograph © Vanni Archive/Art Resource, NY. Used
with permission.

This sarcophagus relief (ca. 201-250 C.E.) portrays the Calydonian boar hunt. The boar not only
has the characteristic crest, but is bristled throughout his body. Modest sized tusks are also
portrayed. Particularly interesting for our discussion below is the boar facing the hunter's spear
head-on.

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Figure 6. Berlin F 2538. Photo Credit: Berlin/Staatliche Museen/Johannes Laurentius/Art Resource, NY. Used
with permission.

Side A of this vase from Etruria (ca. 430 B.C.E.) shows the Calydonian boar hunt. No hounds are
present. One man holds a spear. The boar's crest cannot be seen due to damage, but some hair
marks can be seen around its head.

Figure 7. HN Italy 642. Photograph © Classical Numismatics Group; cngcoins.com. Used with permission.

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This coin from Arpi, Apulia is dated 325-275 B.C.E. The coins of this Italian city reflect Greek
influence, and include Greek mythological figures as well as Greek lettering in the legends. The
obverse has a laureate bust of Zeus left and the reverse has a (Calydonian?) boar right, with a
spearhead above him right. The tusks of the boar are not overly prominent on this coin, but the
bristles are strongly highlighted, both in the crest (which extends the full length of its back) and
around its head.

35

Figure 8. Boston 99.518/Beazley 302569 . Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

35

36

http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/D67A6196-DBBC-4F22-8A1C-101D60420B9A
Used with permission. Museum object description:
"The Painter of the Boston Polyphemos
Drinking cup (kylix) depicting scenes from the Odyssey
Greek, Archaic Period, about 560–550 B.C.
Place of Manufacture: Greece, Attica, Athens
Ceramic, Black Figure
Height: 13.2 cm (5 3/16 in.); diameter: 21.7 cm (8 9/16 in.)
36

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This cup (ca. 550-525 B.C.E.) portrays the encounter of Circe and Odysseus' crew, showing the
metamorphosis in progress. The boar-headed men feature bristled/crested heads. The tale in the
Odyssey of some of Odysseus' crew being transformed into swine by Circe is a noteworthy
parallel to our text, since it is an example of swine metamorphosis (though in the wrong direction)
that highlights, among other features, the hair of the pig (Od. 10.239-240: "They had the head,
voice, hair, and shape of pigs . . .").
Based on this evidence we can say that Esau's conditional statement about the swine,
which highlights the texture of its hair and its lack of a horn, has resonances in the Greek
tradition. This does not have strong evidentiary weight for our argument that the Iliad has
influenced Jubilees, as there is no way to know whether or not Greek portrayals of swine
influenced Esau's conditional statement, particularly when there are non-Greek parallels like
Syriac Ahiqar for us to consider. However, the resonance is still worth noting as part of our
comparative work.
A stronger case can be made that the Greek literary and artistic tradition lies behind the
swine simile in Jub. 37:24. There we read: "And [Esau] came bounding like a boar which comes
upon a spear that pierces him and kills him and he does not turn back from it." The aggressive
behavior presupposed in this verse will resonate with those familiar with wild boars. Their
agricultural destructiveness has made them an adversary of humans throughout history, and has

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Henry Lillie Pierce Fund
99.518"

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led (along with the desire for the challenge and glory of sport) to a long hunting tradition.37 As
game they can be very aggressive, often turning against the hounds and humans that pursue
them.38 The aggressive boar who turns on the hunter and is killed in the process is an apt
description for Esau's behaviour in our passage. Like the hide and lack of horns, the
aggressiveness of boars is not highlighted in the Hebrew Bible. Psalm 80:13 does refer to the wild
boar who ravages, but the boar is engaging in agricultural destruction of Israel the vine, not
attacking human beings.
Some of the artistic portrayals of the Calydonian boar hunt show the boar charging
headfirst into a spear (see above), the exact image that Jubilees seems to be evoking. Striking
literary parallels can be found in the Iliad, which has particular relevance for our current study.
The wild boar is a familiar character in the epic, where the ferocity and strength of the creature is
made clear. What is particularly significant is the emphasis on the boar fearlessly striking back at
its hunters. The boar is not a typical prey which flees from its predators until they finally
overpower it. Instead it proudly lunges at the hounds and humans who pursue it. 39 A few
examples of this are:

37

Psalm 80:13 presents the boar as ravaging the vine Israel. Philostratus the Elder, Imagines,
1.28: ". . . I see the devastation wrought by the [wild boar] — it has burrowed under the olive
trees, cut down the vines, and has left neither fig tree nor apple tree or apple branch, but has torn
them all out of the earth, partly by digging them up, partly by hurling itself upon them, and
partly by rubbing against them" (Fairbanks, LCL). Cf. Tyler A. Campbell and David B. Long,
"Feral swine damage and damage management in forested ecosystems," Forest and Ecology
Management 257 (2009): 2319-2326.
38
Paul Garner, "Pick Sticking Injuries Are No Joke," British Medical Journal 311 (1995): 878.
39
Cf. Philostratus the Elder, Imagines, 1.28: "The boar cannot bring himself to keep out of sight,
but leaps from the thicket and rushes at the horsemen" (Fairbanks, LCL).

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They left these to lie there, since they had ended their fighting, then went into the ranks
and wrought havoc, as when two wild boars hurl themselves in their pride upon the
hounds who pursue them (Il. 11.324-325).
But Hektor, as he had before, fought on like a whirlwind. As when among a pack of
hounds and huntsmen assembled a wild boar or lion turns at bay in the strength of his
fury, and the men, closing themselves into a wall about him, stand up to face him, and
cast at him with the volleying spears thrown from their hands, and in spite of this the
proud heart feels not terror, nor turns to run, and it is his own courage that kills him;
and again and again he turns on them trying to break the massed men and wherever he
charges the masses of men break away in front of him; such was Hektor . . . (Il. 12.40-45).
. . . but he stood his ground like a mountain wild boar who in the confidence of his
strength stands up to a great rabble of men advancing upon him in some deserted place,
and bristles his back up, and both his eyes are shining with fire; he grinds his teeth in his
fury to fight off the dogs and the men . . . (Il.13.471).
. . . and made a rush against them like dogs, who sweep in rapidly on a wounded wild
boar, ahead of the young men who hunt him, and for the moment race in raging to tear him
to pieces until in the confidence of his strength he turns on them, at bay, and they
give ground and scatter for fear one way and another . . . (Il. 17.725-729).

It remains possible that the author of Jubilees is merely drawing on firsthand observations of
the behavior of swine. However, we should strongly entertain the possibility that Jubilees is
additionally or alternatively drawing on the Greek literary and artistic tradition, including Homer's
Iliad, for its portrayal of swine in 37:24.

Esau's invocation of the raven also resonates with traditions from the broader Greek world,
although it does not have the same strong connection with the Iliad that we saw with the boar
simile.40 In the Greek tradition we do actually find evidence of white ravens, which are naturally

40

For a useful catalogue of Greco-Roman sources on the raven, see W. Geoffrey Arnott, "Korax,
Korakiskos" in Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z (London: Routledge, 2007), 163-167. Our
discussion here is indebted to this work.

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considered anomalies. Aristotle offers explanations for this and bird colour changes in general,
citing either diet or climate.41 Thus transformation from black to white (but not the reverse) is
something that is scientifically possible. It is also possible in the realm of mythology, in the
legend of Lycius' short-lived transformation into a white raven.42 While the possibility of white
ravens is given in some of the sources, Arnott alerts us to the proverbial assumption that these
birds are quite rare or even impossible: "In ancient Greece . . . a 'white raven' came to be used as a
proverbial expression for something that did not exist."43 Indeed, the white raven is a classic
example of adynaton.44 For instance, Athenaeus quotes a story from Ergias of Rhodes in which
the Phoenicians in Ialysus had received an oracle that they would occupy the territory e¢wß
ko/rakeß leukoi\ ge/nwntai kai\ ejn toivß krathvrsin ijcqu/eß fanw!sin ("Until the ravens become

white and fish appear in wine bowls").45 The Greek Anthology 11.417 preserves an anonymous
saying from a man being accosted by an older woman. After rejecting her as an unripe apple, he
asks her why she does not try to see a white raven (w¢ste ti/ peira/zeiß leuko\n ijdei"n ko/raka;)

41

de Coloribus 799b 1-3 (cited in Arnott, "Korax," 164). "With regard to winged animals, such as
birds, no creature is liable to change of colour by reason of age, excepting the crane. The wings of
this bird are ash-coloured at first, but as it grows old the wings get black. Again, owing to special
climatic influences, as when unusual frost prevails, a change is sometimes observed to take place
in birds whose plumage is of one uniform colour; thus, birds that have dusky or downright black
plumage turn white or grey, as the raven, the sparrow, and the swallow; but no case has ever yet
been known of a change of colour from white to black. (Further, most birds change the colour of
their plumage at different seasons of the year, so much so that a man ignorant of their habits
might be mistaken as to their identity.)" (Aristotle, HA 3.12).
42
Antoninus Liberalis 20.7.
43
Arnott, "Korax," 165.
44
For a survey of examples in both the ancient and more modern Greek world, see Paul Tuffin,
"The Whitening Crow: Some ADUNATA in the Greek Tradition," Epeteris tou Kentrou
Epistemonikon Ereunon 6 (1972-1973): 79-92.
45
Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, 360e. When Iphiclus sieged their city he learned about the oracles
and painted some ravens white to trick them into surrender.

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— because that would be just as impossible as seducing him. A few lines later Lucian is quoted
as saying that one would have a batter chance of finding white ravens (leukou\ß ko/rakaß) and
winged turtles than a skilled Cappadocian orator (11.436).
As with the Greek resonances with the swine imagery in Esau's conditional statement, these
raven parallels do not have much evidentiary weight in our argument for influence, as they may
just be examples of a broader theme in the ancient world. Still, it is worth noting that Esau's
raven adynaton fits quite comfortably with the Greek tradition.

Of the Greek raven texts we noted above the story from Athenaeus' Deipnosophists is
particularly interesting, since it dealt with the siege of a city. We encounter another interesting
example of an adynaton within the context of a city siege in Herodotus 3.151:46
When Darius heard of this, he collected all his forces and led them against Babylon, and he
marched up to the town and laid siege to it; but the Babylonians thought nothing of the
siege. They came up on to the ramparts of the wall and taunted Darius and his army with
gesture and word, and one of them uttered this mot: "Why loiter there, Persians, and not
go away? You will take us when mules give birth." One of the Babylonians said this, by
no means expecting that a mule would give birth (Godley, LCL).
Mules are the offspring of horses and donkeys, and are almost always sterile. The nameless
Babylonian is thus using an adynaton to mock the Persians and express the impossibility of them
taking the city. Unfortunately for him, some time later the mule of Zopyrus gave birth, which
was interpreted as a portent and encouraged the hatching of a plan to take the city (3.153.1).

46

The parallel between this passage and Esau’s speech was noted in James M. Scott, On Earth
as in Heaven, 124 n.117.

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This use of a bestial adynaton within a taunt in the context of a city siege is a noteworthy parallel
to Esau's speech.47

We continue to find other connections with the Greek tradition, specifically the Iliad, in the
resolution to Esau's speech. The most notable examples are Esau's death and burial (see
discussion of burial above). Esau is of course killed by Jacob's arrow:

!"# $ %& $ '() $ *+,- $ )./ $ '01' $ 23 $ '145 $ 6789 $ ":; $ '<4= $
'4<> $ 01' $ 23 $ '?@ $ ABCDE $ ACFG $ HI $ JKFG $ '(4L $ ')#= M
Jacob then stretched his bow, shot an arrow, pierced his brother Esau [on his right
breast], and struck him down. He shot another arrow and hit Aduran the Aramean on his
left breast; he drove him back and killed him (38:2-3).

As VanderKam notes, and as we can see from the versional evidence, there is widespread
testimony outside the Ethiopic version for the inclusion of a phrase like "on his right breast" in v.
2.48 Aduran is then struck on his left breast. These anatomical specifications may have
significance for our study. One of the major characteristics of the Iliad is its often detailed
anatomical descriptions of where a spear, sword, or arrow penetrates a man's body in combat.49

47

We see another example of a taunt from a besieged city in 2 Sam 5:6, although it does not have
an adynaton. Jubilees may be tapping into a broader tradition of battle taunts in the midst of a
siege.
48
VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, ad loc. The versions include: touv dexiouv mazouv;
mammillam dextram; and )NYMYd hBG. As noted above, it is possible that M.W. has been
influenced by traditions that Jubilees initially created.
49
Christine F. Salazar (The Treatment of War Wounds in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, [Leiden: Brill,
2000], 129) notes that the Homeric descriptions of fatal blows "emphasize the effectiveness of
the blow and the competence of the slayer." The competence of Jacob is clearly emphasized, as
he kills two of his chief foes with two shots from his bow.

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Included among these many descriptions are examples of breast/chest penetration, often with a
directional or locational term used. We have at least eleven examples in Homer of someone's
masto/ß being penetrated by a weapon, with locational words like para/ (Il. 4.480; 8.121, 313;
15.577; 17.606; 22.82), uJpe/r (Il. 4.528; 5.145; 11.108), and kata/ (Il. 5.393; 11.321). In 4.480481 it is the right (dexio/ß) masto/ß that is specified, while 11.321 specifies the left (ajristero/ß)
masto/ß. The sthvqoß is penetrated at least twenty-two times.50 The right w•moß is often
struck as well.51 It is possible that Jubilees' narration of Esau's death reflects such Homeric
descriptions. This would not be without precedent, as we see other Jewish portrayals of battle
scenes influenced by the epic tradition.52

Accessibility
We have outlined the major points of similarity and difference between our two passages, and
have explored some points of contact between the Jubilees passage and the broader Homeric and
Greek traditions. We believe that the various similarities between the target passages provide
compelling evidence for a genetic relationship. These similarities certainly pass MacDonald's
criteria of density, order, and distinctive traits. They are not narrow or superficial parallels that
can easily be dismissed.
The additional similarities between the Jubilees passage and other traditions in the Iliad and
broader Greek world, particularly the boar simile in Jub. 37:24, provided more evidence that

50

Il. 5.19, 41, 57, 317, 346; 8.121, 259, 303, 313; 11.108, 144, 448; 13.186; 15.523, 577, 650;
16.597, 753; 17.606; Od. 20.62; 22.82, 93
51
Il. 5.46, 98; 11.507; 14.450; 16.289, 343; Od. 19.452.
52
The Epic of Theodotus, for instance.

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Jubilees was conversant with the Greek world and Homeric epic. We continue now in this same
vein, by making a general case for accessibility. If a writer is making use of an earlier source s/he
clearly needs to have some kind of access to it. This does not necessarily mean s/he has a copy
of the text, but there has to have been some kind of exposure to it. Can a plausible case be made
that Jubilees would have had access to/knowledge of Book XXII of Homer's Iliad? In some
respects this is one of the most important points for us to establish, as it is not only logically
necessary for our argument, but it may constitute the primary barrier to accepting our case for
influence. A simple thought experiment can illustrate this latter point. If our Iliad passage came
from First Samuel instead of Homer, would many doubt that our Jubilees passage had been
influenced by it? I suspect that there would be little resistance to an argument for influence in
this case, just as I suspect that our argument for the influence of Isaiah on Jubilees has not given
any readers pause. The primary reason for this is simple: we easily assume that a Palestinian
Jewish writer of the second century B.C. E. would have a great chance of exposure and access to
most of the texts that constitute the Hebrew Bible. When we're dealing with a non-Jewish text
like the Iliad, however, there is no widespread scholarly assumption that a second-century B.C. E.
Palestinian Jew would have access to the text. Our claim here is that the similarities between our
two texts are strong enough that if we were dealing with a text from the Hebrew Bible (other than
a second-century text like Daniel) rather than the Iliad, then a claim of influence would be largely
accepted. If this is true, then we merely need to show that it is plausible that the author of
Esau's speech had access to Iliad XXII to make our argument compelling.

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We begin by noting the broad importance and accessibility of Homer's works in the
Hellenistic world.53 While the analogy is conceptually misleading in some respects, Homer was
"the Bible" of the Greek world.54 His influence was felt in many different realms of society. 55
Even those like Plato who objected to Homer's content were forced to engage with him. Indeed,
Plato felt the need to criticize Homer precisely because of the prominent role of the epics in
classical Athenian society. In the Hellenistic era Homer's canonical status was maintained by
using exegetical/text-critical and allegorical interpretations to make troubling texts more

53

Dennis MacDonald has brought together evidence for the prominent role of Homer in the
Greco-Roman world in several of his works, including: The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of
Mark, 4-5; Christianizing Homer: The Odyssey, Plato, and The Acts of Andrew, (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1994), 17-19; and Does the New Testament Imitate Homer?: Four Cases from
the Acts of the Apostles, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 1-4.
See also Karl Olav Sandnes, "Imitatio Homeri?", 716-717. Sandnes affirms MacDonald's
arguments about the general accessibility of Homer and the prominent place of his epics in
Greco-Roman society, before criticizing his work on Mark. Cf. Sandnes' The Gospel 'According
to Homer and Virgil': Cento and Canon (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 6-11.
54
Hengel (Judaism and Hellenism, 66) calls it "almost canonical" and notes its prominence in
Greek education. MacDonald (Does the New Testament Imitate Homer?, 3) notes: "If an ancient
Greek reader knew only one work of literature, it probably was the Iliad." Finkelberg articulates
the results of the research group on Mechanisms of Canon-Making in Ancient Mediterranean and
Near Eastern Societies, which distinguished between two types of canon: "a stronger canonicity
as embodied in foundational texts and a weaker one represented by various cultural sub-canons,
the literary canon being the most obvious example" (Margalit Finkelberg, "Canonising and
Decanonising Homer: Reception of the Homeric Poems in Antiquity and Modernity," in Homer
and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters [ed. Maren Niehoff; Leiden: Brill, 2012],16). She
argues that Homer's role in the ancient world meets all three of the criteria for the stronger form
of canonicity: (1) it occupied the central place in education; (2) it was the focus of exegetical
activity aimed at defending it from any form of criticism; and (3) it was the vehicle by which the
identity of the community to which it belonged was articulated (16-20).
55
". . . the Homeric epics constituted the literary 'classics' of the ancient world — the school
textbooks, literary exemplars, theological sourcebooks, and moralizing fodder for generations of
educated men (and some women)." Margaret M. Mitchell, "Homer in the New Testament?", 245.

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palatable.56 Only an influential text receives such revisionist treatment. Homer's Iliad may have
had special influence on the one who ushered in the Hellenistic age, as Plutarch tells us that
Alexander the Great carried a copy of the text on his conquests and kept it under his pillow.57
Homeric influence can be seen in a variety of Hellenistic genres, but perhaps most notably in the
rise of Hellenistic epics written in Greek ("Homeric") hexameter. Even prose writers alluded to,
quoted, and appropriated Homer in various ways. The manuscript tradition shows the
prominence of Homer, with a catalogue of Greco-Roman manuscripts listing over six hundred
copies of Homer (mostly the Iliad), over twice as many as Demosthenes, Euripides, and Hesiod
combined.58 Homer was a primary subject of grammatical, lexical, and text-critical study by
Hellenistic scholars.59 But he was not limited to scholars: he also played an important role
throughout the various stages of Greek education.60 The importance of Homer throughout the
life of the literate ancient is summarized well by a quotation from Heraclitus:
From the earliest stage of life, our infant children in their first moments of learning are
suckled on [Homer]; we are wrapped in his poems, one might also say, as babies, and
nourish our minds on their milk. As the child grows and comes to manhood Homer is at
his side. Homer shares his mature years, and the man is never weary of him even in old

56

MacDonald, Christianizing Homer, 18-19; Finkelberg, "Canonising and Decanonising Homer,"
17-19. For a discussion of Homer's reception history see Nicholas Richardson, The Iliad: a
Commentary, 25-49.
57
Plut., Alexander 8.2, citing Onesicritus as his source. Elizabeth Carney, "Artifice and Alexander
History," in Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction (ed. A.B. Bosworth and E.J. Baynham;
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 280 n.46.
58
MacDonald, Does the New Testament Imitate Homer?, 3.
59
Eleanor Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 18-28.
"Ancient scholarship on Homer was extensive and of high quality, for the best scholars of
antiquity devoted much of their time and energy to the Homeric poems" (18).
60
Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 66-67. Ronald F. Hock, "Homer in Greco-Roman Education,"
in Mimesis and Intertextuality in Antiquity and Christianity (ed. Dennis R. MacDonald;
Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001), 56-67.

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age. When we leave him, we feel the thirst again. The end of Homer is the end of life for
us.61
Given the prominence of Homer in Hellenistic culture it is difficult to imagine that any Jews
who undertook formal Greek education or were involved in the higher echelons of society in
places like Alexandria would have been unfamiliar with him. Indeed, it is clear that Jews in
Hellenistic Egypt were conversant with Greek literature in general and Homer in particular, and
that they were adopting distinctively Greek forms and styles in their own writings. Ezekiel the
Tragedian recasts Jewish content in Greek dramatic form. The Third Sibyl is written in Greek
hexameter and interacts with Greek mythology. Philo the epic poet writes in the Homeric epic
tradition, and we might assume that Sosates "the Jewish Homer" did as well.62 Aristobulus
claims that Homer learned from the Torah.63 Moving into the Roman period we find Jewish
authors like Philo of Alexandria explicitly mentioning and interacting with Homer.64 To claim
that a Hellenistic-Jewish work with Alexandrian provenance reflects Homeric influence is
relatively uncontroversial. The question for us is this: to what extent were Palestinian Jews in
the Hellenistic era similarly familiar and conversant with Greek literature in general, and Homer in
particular? This is still an open issue in scholarship, and we will not try to be comprehensive.
First, we should be cautious about making too strong of a distinction between Alexandrian
and Palestinian Judaism. While these are certainly two distinct environments, there were

61

Quoted in Karl Olav Sandnes, "Imitatio Homeri?", 716.
See Shaye J.D. Cohen, "Sosates the Jewish Homer," HTR 74 (1981): 391-396; R.W. Burgess,
"Another Look at Sosates, The 'Jewish Homer.'" JSJ 44 (2013): 195-217.
63
5:13-15.
64
Conf. 4; Abr. 10; Contempl. 17; Legat. 80.
62

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exchanges and visits between the Jewish communities in Alexandria and Jerusalem.65 We see this
reflected in the opening materials of Second Maccabees, for instance.66 Jubilees itself may betray
knowledge of Jewish traffic between Egypt and Palestine, including the ways such travel could be
interrupted by conflict between the Ptolemies and Seleucids. 67 We can also point to common
traditions that emerge in Palestinian Hebrew and Alexandrian Greek texts, including Jubilees. We
noted earlier that there are some remarkable parallels between Jubilees 8-10 and the Third Sibyl,
which is typically assigned an Egyptian provenance. It is possible that any Palestinian Jewish
author writing in Hebrew would have traveled to Alexandria or conversed with Jews who had,
and such travel or conversations could have included exposure to Greek literature.
Second, we can point to evidence for Hellenistic education within Palestine itself.68 The most
notable example is of course the gymnasium project that was initiated in Jerusalem in the mid170s B.C.E (1 Macc 1:14-15; 2 Macc 4:9, 12). The gymnasium was a Hellenistic educational
institution, and while we do not know as much about its curriculum as we might like, it is
possible that Homer played a role in the curriculum in Jerusalem.69 Even if this is granted, some
might object that Jubilees represents those Jews who were opposed to the construction of the
gymnasium and saw it as a capitulation to Gentile culture. Indeed, the accounts of this cultural
initiative in First and Second Maccabees are quite negative and link it to the illicit adoption of
foreign customs. We noted in our earlier history of scholarship that the comments on nudity in

65

Hengel also points to these "cross-connections with Judaism in Alexandria" (Judaism and
Hellenism, 76).
66
2 Macc 1:1-2:18.
67
Jub. 46:7, 11.
68
See Hengel’s overview in Judaism and Hellenism, 65-83.
69
Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 66.

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Jub. 3:30-31 are customarily interpreted as a polemic against the nude athletics of the Jerusalem
gymnasium. Such observations, though important, do not ultimately weigh against our argument
for accessibility. Even if the author of Jubilees was among those voices opposed to the
gymnasium and what it represented, it still remains possible that the gymnasium itself and/or the
broader "Hellenizing" impulses in Jerusalem that led to its construction helped facilitate the
dissemination of Homeric epic into Palestinian Judaism. This means that even if the author of
Jubilees abstained from any contact with the gymnasium he might still have been affected by it.
If he was aware of and responded to the nudity associated with the activities there, is it not also
possible that he was aware of and responded to the literary and cultural studies that may have
been undertaken there? Even beyond the gymnasium we need to consider the role that Greek
tutors may have played in introducing Greek literature to aristocratic Jews. 70
Third, the so-called Hellenism crisis in Palestine was probably not a completely spontaneous
occurrence, but built upon processes of "Hellenization" that had begun far earlier. Hengel notes
that the controversial events of the Hellenistic reform attempt "were only conceivable on the
basis of a lengthy period of preparation, in which Hellenistic influences in Jerusalem had long
been at work, though we do not know much about them . . . A man like Jason could only
introduce his reform in Jerusalem and lead ephebes as 'gymnasiarch' because he himself had also
undergone a certain degree of Greek education"71
Fourth, we should keep in mind the evidence of Greek influence on Jubilees mentioned in
chapter one. There we saw that the author was aware of and made use of Greek geographical

70
71

Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 75-76.
Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 75.

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traditions, including the Ionian map and the klimata tradition. We also noted Cana Werman's
arguments that Jubilees reflects Greek influence in its obsession with chronology, its use of the
culture hero theme, and its identification of Nimrod with king Ninus.
Finally, we can point to Palestinian Jewish literature written in both Greek and Semitic
languages that exhibits Homeric influence. We will highlight three primary examples: the Epic of
Theodotus, Tobit, and Sirach. We will also briefly note evidence from the Rabbis.

The Epic of Theodotus
We already noted Diaspora authors like Sosates the "Jewish Homer" and Philo the epic poet
who were familiar with and shaped by the epic tradition. Particularly important for us, however,
is the work of Theodotus the epic poet, since it may have a Palestinian provenance. Like Philo's
epic, the Epic of Theodotus comes to us in fragmentary form via Alexander Polyhistor and
Eusebius. It is written in Greek hexameter and is indebted to the Homeric epic tradition. One
example of this indebtedness is the graphic description of Simeon and Levi's massacre:
At that time Levi, also irresistible in might, seized Sychem [Shechem] by the hair; the
latter grasped his knees and raged unspeakably. Levi struck the middle of his collarbone;
the sharp sword entered his inward parts through the chest; and his life thereupon left his
bodily frame (frag. 8; Fallon, OTP).
Compare this with a passage like Il. 21.116-120:
. . . Achilleus drawing his sharp sword struck him
beside the neck at the collar-bone, and the double-edged sword
plunged full length inside. He dropped to the ground, face downward,
and lay at length, and the black blood flowed, and the ground was soaked with it.

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The title, as preserved by Alexander Polyhistor, is On the Jews, although Eusebius offers an
alternative title Concerning Jacob.72 The extant fragments focus on Jacob and his family,
particularly the events at Shechem in Genesis 34. The dating of the epic has varied, with scholars
proposing the first half of the second century B.C.E., the second half of that century, or the early
part of the first century B.C.E. Alexander Polyhistor's date in the mid-first century B.C.E. sets
that as a terminus ante quem. Scholarship has been divided on the authorship of the epic.
Freudenthal's argument that a Samaritan wrote the epic set the tone of scholarship for the late
nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries.73 In the 1970s and 1980s scholars like Collins
and Pummer challenged this, arguing instead for Jewish authorship. 74 Recently there has been a
defense of the older Samaritan hypothesis. 75 Jewish authorship is certainly more significant for
our argument; however, it is worth noting that whether one accepts Jewish or Samaritan
authorship, most scholars place Theodotus in Palestine rather than the Diaspora. This means we
have a Palestinian text of the second century B.C. E. written by a Jew or a Samaritan that reflects
careful interaction with Homeric epic.

72

Robert Doran, "Theodotus," in The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism (ed. John J. Collins
and Daniel C. Harlow; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 1305.
73
J. Freudenthal, Alexander Polyhistor und die von ihm ehaltenen Reste jüdischer und
samaritanischer Geschischtswerke, (Breslau: Grass, 1874). For a list of authors who held this
view see Reinhard Plummer, "Genesis 34 in Jewish Writings of the Hellenistic and Roman
Periods," HTR 75 (1982): 177-88, 177 n.2.
74
John J. Collins, "The Epic of Theodotus and the Hellenism of the Hasmoneans," HTR 73
(1980): 91-104; Reinhard Pummer, "Genesis 34 in Jewish Writings of the Hellenistic and Roman
Periods," HTR 75 (1982): 177-188.

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Tobit
Tobit is a Palestinian Jewish narrative written in Hebrew/Aramaic. In 1911 Carl Fries noticed
similarities between Tobit and Homer's Odyssey, although he did not argue for Tobit's
dependence on Homer.76 More recently Dennis MacDonald and George Nickelsburg have both
explored these connections, arguing that the author of Tobit did draw on the Odyssey, although
Nickelsburg directs our attention to the complexity of intertextuality in Tobit and urges us to also
consider the influence of Genesis on the book.77 The identified parallels between the two works
include a connection between Raphael and Athena as immortals taking on the guise of a family
friend or relative in order to guide a son on his journey, similarities in the details of the journey,
dogs who follow the sons around,78 a wedding, a feast following baths, anguished mothers at

75

Michael Daise, "Samaritans, Seleucids, and the Epic of Theodotus," JSP 17 (1998): 25-51;
Doron Mendels, The Land of Israel as a Political Concept in Hasmonean Literature, 110-116.
76
Carl Fries, "Das Buch Tobit und die Telemachie," ZWTh 53 (1911): 54-87. Cited in Dennis R.
MacDonald, "Tobit and the Odyssey," 11.
77
Dennis MacDonald, "Tobit and the Odyssey," in Mimesis and Intertextuality in Antiquity and
Christianity, (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2001), 11-40 and George W.E.
Nickelsburg, "Tobit, Genesis, and the Odyssey: A Complex Web of Intertextuality," in Mimesis
and Intertextuality in Antiquity and Christianity, (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International,
2001), 41-55. Anne M. O'Leary considers this evidence favorably (Matthew's Judaization of
Mark: Examined in the Context of the Use of Sources in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (London: T&T
Clark, 2006), 58-65, and argues that Tobit is a "literary mimetic 'sandwich' with the "filling"
(Tob. 2:11-12:16) the result of a conflation of materials from the Odyssey and Genesis, and the
bread being the "deuteronomized narrative" at the beginning and end of the book (68). Her point
on conflation is noteworthy: "The cumulative evidence . . . indicates a substantial literary
relationship between the book of Tobit and both Genesis and the Odyssey. The dependence of
the book of Tobit upon the Odyssey affirms the reality of literary conflation of Jewish and
classical Greek writings by the second century" (65) Such a conflation is exactly what we are
seeing in Esau's speech.
78
The connection with the dog was noted earlier in an essay by Jonathan Swift ("Thoughs on
Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting," [1706]): "The expression in the Apocrypha about Tobit
and his dog following him, I have often heard ridiculed; yet Homer has the same words of
Telemachus more than once: and Virgil says something like it of Evander. And I take the book of

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home, similar farewell scenes, and the comparable disclosures of Odysseus and Raphael's
identities.79 Evidence for the influence of the Odyssey among Semitic Jewish writers in Palestine
does not necessarily mean the Iliad would have been known as well, but given that the Iliad was
the more popular and widely read and copied of Homer's epics, use of the Odyssey does increase
the probability that someone was aware of the Iliad.

Ben Sira
Ben Sira is an example of a Palestinian Jewish writer who composed his work in Hebrew and
likely made use of material from the Iliad. While the extent and nature of Ben Sira's interaction
with Greek literature and culture is debated, many scholars readily admit the influence of Il.
6.146-149 on Sir 14:18.80
Sir 14:18 (MS A)

{jmwx} lmwg rjaw lbwn hzC / Nnor Xo lo hlo jrpk
lmwg81 djaw owg dja Mdw rCb twrwd Nk
Tobit to be partly poetical." Printed in The Works of Jonathan Swift (ed. Laing Purves;
Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo, 1869), 516.
79
MacDonald, "Tobit and the Odyssey," 16-39; Nickelsburg, "Tobit, Genesis, and the Odyssey,"
42-46; O'Leary, Matthew's Judaization of Mark, 62-64.
80
Th. Middendorp, Die Stellung Jesu Ben Siras zwischen Judentum und Hellenismus (Leiden:
Brill, 1973), 19, claims that the Ben Sira passage "stammt aus Ilias VI, 148f." R.A.F. MacKenzie,
Sirach (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1983), 69 considers it a "paraphrase" of Il. 6.146.
Benjamin Wright, "Ben Sira on Kings and Kingship," in Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers
(ed. Tessa Rajak et al.; Berkeley: University of California, 2007), 90 n.4, thinks it probable that
Sirach "quotes Homer." West, The East Face of Helicon, 365 n.37, claims the passage is "almost
certainly influenced by the Iliad passage." Patrick W. Skehan and Alexander A. Di Lella, The
Wisdom of Ben Sira: a New Translation with Notes (New York: Doubleday, 1987), 260, note that
Homer "employs a similar image" but do not make any claims about a genetic relationship.
81
Pancratius C. Beentjes, The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 43. The second
line was written in the margin. Beentjes mistakenly has rja rather than dja. See S. Schechter
and C. Taylor, The Wisdom of Ben Sira (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1899) for correct transcription.
jmwx is a supralineal correction of lmwg.

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As with the leaves that grow on a vigorous tree: one falls off and another sprouts —
So with the generations of flesh and blood: one dies and another flourishes (Skehan and di
Lella, 258).
Sir 14:18 (LXX)
wJß fu/llon qa¿llon e˙pi« de÷ndrou dase÷oß, ta» me«n kataba¿llei, a‡lla de« fu/ei,
ou¢twß genea» sarko\ß kai« aiºmatoß, hJ me«n teleuta!ˆ, e˚te÷ra de« genna!tai.

Like a sprouting leaf on a thickly leaved tree, some it sheds, but others it puts forth; so is
a generation of flesh and blood, the one dies and the other is born (NETS).
Il. 6.146-149
oi¢h per fu/llwn geneh\ toi/h de\ kai\ ajndrw!n.
fu/lla ta\ me/n t' a¶menoß cama/diß ce/ei, a¶lla de/ q' uºlh
thleqo/wsa fu/ei, e¶aroß d' ejpigi/netai wºrh
wºß ajndrw!n geneh\ h" me\n fu/ei h± d' ajpolh/gei.

As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity.
The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber
burgeons with leaves again in the season of spring returning.
So one generation of men will grow while another dies.
Sanders joins the voices that affirm a genetic relationship between the two texts, noting that
"the manner of expression and the movement of thought in these two passages is strikingly
similar." He points to specific verbal connections, such as: jrp/fu/llon, hlo/thleqa/w/fu/w,

jmx/fu/w, rwd/genea/, djaw . . .dja/me/n . . . de/.82 Sanders' claim is particularly noteworthy, since
he spends considerable time criticizing Middendorp's argument that Ben Sira made use of a
chrestomathy that contained quotations from Homer, Hesiod, Xenophon, Sophocles, Euripides,
and other Greek authors. Though he ultimately agrees with Middendorp that Ben Sira directly
used Theognis, Sir 14:18 is the only other text where Sanders believes a case for influence from a

82

Jack T. Sanders, Ben Sira and Demotic Wisdom (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1983), 39.
Sanders accidentally switched two of his word pairings. We have presented the corrected
pairings.

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non-Jewish Greek work is likely. 83 He doubts, however, that Ben Sira had a chrestomathy with
these Homeric lines or had read Homer himself. Rather, this is an unintentional echo of a
memorable saying that had worked its way from Homer into the cultural air Ben Sira was
breathing.84 Where Ben Sira may have breathed in this Homeric air is an open question. He
implies that he has traveled (Sir 34:10-12), making it possible that he encountered the Iliad
passage outside of Palestine. If so, then Ben Sira may not actually provide us with evidence that
the Iliad was in the Palestinian air. Still, he would illustrate the fact that Palestinian Jews were
capable of travel and could be exposed to and ultimately import passages from Greek literature
back into the land.
It is worth noting that there are other texts that make use of the ideas and images we see in Sir
14:18 and Il. 6.146-149, both within and outside the Jewish tradition, which indicates that this
was a common way of speaking about human mortality. 85 This might weigh against a genetic
relationship between the two texts. However, given the connections between the texts pointed

83

For his interaction with Middendorp and the question of Hellenic influence on Sirach, see Ben
Sira and Demotic Wisdom, 27-59. Middendorp, Die Stellung, also identifies Sir 4:20-21 with Il.
24:44 (14) and Sir 13:16 with Il. 22.262-266 (18). Sanders rejects both of these identifications,
arguing the former two passages are not the same "since Homer means that being ashamed of an
impropriety may lead one to harm oneself in penance, whereas Ben Sira means that improper
shame may lead one away from wisdom and righteousness" (40). For the latter pair of passages
which deal with the wolf/lamb antipathy he notes "although this might well be a matter of
universal observation, [Ben Sira] could have learned of the incongruity of such cohabitation from
its miraculous reversal in Isa 11:6. Sir 13:17, however, compares wolf and lamb with wicked and
righteous, which is not to be found either in Il. 22.262-66 or in Isa 11:6; so that the situation here
is quite different from that in the case of Sir 14:18 and Il. 6:148-49, where the parallelism went
quite beyond what might have been universally observed. Here the universally observable
phenomenon is the only connection, and the most likely conclusion is that the contrast is
independent." (40)
84
Sanders, Ben Sira and Demotic Wisdom, 55.
85
West, East Face of Helicon, 365; Skehan and Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 260-261.

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out by Sanders, and the fact that Sirach/Iliad are closer to each other than the other texts, it seems
that there is a good possibility that Sirach exhibits specifically Homeric influence in 14:18. We
can conclude that while the nature of the borrowing/influence here may be less intentional than
what we are envisioning for Esau's speech, it at least demonstrates that passages from Homer's
Iliad were capable of influencing Palestinian Jewish texts composed in Hebrew in the early
second century B.C. E.

Rabbinic Literature
The Rabbinic literature postdates Jubilees, but it is at least worth noting in passing that there
is a handful of references in this Hebrew corpus to srymh yrps. 86 The meaning of this expression
is disputed, but it is possible that it should be read as "books of Homer," which may reflect
knowledge of Homer among Hebrew speaking, Rabbinic Jews in Palestine.87 Lieberman has gone
as far as suggesting that "although Rabbinic acquaintance with the Homeric epics cannot be
proved, [the sources] give the impression that some of the Rabbis who knew Greek most likely

86

See, for instance, m. Yadayim 4.6.1 and y. Sanhedrin 10.1.28a. For a discussion of these and
other alleged references to Homer see Saul Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine; Hellenism in
Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1994), 105-114.
87
Gordis lists six options that have been proposed: "1) srymh = 'The books of Homer,' 2) 'works
of heretics, who exchange true religion for falsehood,' 3) ÔHmerh/sia Bi/blia = 'chronicles,' 4) from
iºmeroß — 'love, charm,' hence 'books of entertainment,' 5) from mw/roß = 'fool' hence 'foolish
books,' a cacophemism for heretical writings, 6) Hamiram, an unknown person for whom secular
books are named, like Ben Sira, Ben Tagla and Ben La'ana." Robert Gordis, "'Homeric' Books in
Palestine," JQR 38 (1948): 359. After considering an additional argument that srymh is a
transliteration of me/roß and a reference to Judeo-Christians he notes that "All in all, the most
plausible view is still the traditional interpretation of srymh as 'Homer'" (361).

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did read Homer."88

However, the phrase may not be specifying the Iliad and the Odyssey, but

rather functioning as a generic term for Greek and/or other non-Jewish literature.89 Even if it is
merely a generic term this is still significant, since using "Homer" in such an all-inclusive way
indicates that Hebrew-speaking Jews were well aware of the fundamental nature of his epics in
the ancient world.
Motivation
We have made a case in the preceding paragraphs for accessibility, meaning that it is plausible
that the author of Jubilees would have had some sort of access or exposure to portions of
Homer's Iliad. An additional comment may be called for on the question of motivation. We will
give more attention to this in the discussion of interpretability below, but we can briefly raise the
issue here. Even if we grant that our author had access to Homer, would he have been
comfortable drawing on Greek epic in his own composition? For some, the general caricature of
Jubilees as a composition that draws a hard line between the covenant people and the nations
might weigh against this possibility. However, even though there is a level of cultural antagonism
in Jubilees, we may need to be a little more nuanced in our assessment of the book's interaction
with non-Jewish culture.

88

Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, 114. Naeh is not as optimistic: "While it is quite
certain, then, that Palestinian rabbis allowed the reading of Homer, we have no hint about actual
reading of these books by the rabbis." Shlomo Naeh, "Reception, in Rabbinic Judaism," in The
Homer Encyclopedia (ed. Margalit Finkelberg; Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001),717.
89
"Because of their stereotypic character, these references may testify to the rabbis' recognition
of the Homeric books as the basic, or even holy, literary corpus of the Greeks, but cannot supply
us with any further information about actual knowledge of Homer among the rabbis." Naeh,
"Reception, in Rabbinic Judaism," 716-717. Cf. Gordis, 362: "The meaning of the phrase has,
however, been extended, so that it refers not to the Homeric epics alone, but to Greek literature
as a whole." See also Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 75.

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First, we would be wise to give ear to Martin Hengel's words about Hellenism and the Essene
community: "!The Essenes were . . . probably the sharpest enemies of the new Greek wisdom in
Eretz Israel. But even they could not escape the penetrating Zeitgeist of the new era. It is a law
of the history of thought that the enemy is often influenced by the opinions against which he is
fighting.!"90 Second, it is possible that an author can make use of a cultural source that s/he feels
antagonism for in order to ultimately critique that source and the culture or group it represents.
Third, cultures are complex and multifaceted social entities, and interactions between and within
different cultures cannot be accurately described with simple binaries. We should expect to find
mixed and varied levels of interaction, appropriation, and rejection even among those Jews who
expressed higher levels of antagonism towards the nations. John Barclay notes that: "Like any
cultural complex, [Hellenism's] ingredients were multiple, and when treating the topic of
'Hellenization' (that is, cultural engagement with 'Hellenism'), it is valuable to recall the many
different aspects involved."91 For instance, a Second Temple Jewish writer could write in Greek,
thus adopting the language of the Hellenic world, while still refusing to participate in foreign
cults. We might also encounter someone like the author of Jubilees rejecting the sinful ways of
the nations, but still drawing upon Greek scientific and literary traditions.92

90

Martin Hengel, "Qumran and Hellenism," in Religion in the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. John J.
Collins and Robert A. Kugler; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 55.
91
John M.G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323
B.C. E.-117 C. E.) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 88-89. Barclay goes on to
identify seven cultural components for us to consider in an analysis of Judaism in its Hellenistic
environment: political, social, linguistic, educational, ideological, religious, and material (89-90).
92
We saw in our opening chapter that the author of Jubilees made use of Greek geographical
traditions, indicating some familiarity with Greek "science." Some might be quicker to admit
Jubilees' use of such seemingly secular knowledge than admitting the use of a text like the Iliad,

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Analogy
Our comments above apply to the general accessibility of Homer's epics to our Palestinian
Jewish author. Homer's epics are quite lengthy, however, and knowledge of/access to some of
the contents of the Iliad in some form does not necessarily mean an author would have access to
or use a specific passage, like Achilles' speech to Hector. MacDonald's criterion of analogy urges
us to look for other examples in the ancient world of a supposed hypotext being utilized by later
authors. We do not have other clear examples of our specific passage being used by Palestinian
Jews writing in Semitic languages in our general time period. However, there are illuminating
examples from the broader Greek tradition. If a particular Homeric passage or episode was
familiar in this broader tradition then it increases the possibility that non-Greek Hellenistic
peoples would have been exposed to it.
In our discussion of the characterization of Achilles we explored some of the reception
history of Achilles' interactions with Hector. It became clear that Achilles' combat with Hector
and subsequent treatment of his body were quite famous in the ancient world, and were the
subjects of ethical reflection, literary re-appropriation, and artistic presentation. To that
discussion we can now add some additional references to and appropriations of Achilles' speech
to Hector.
One such example comes from Lucian's Revivescentes sive piscator 3 where we read this
quotation of Il. 22.262: wJß oujk e¶sti le/ousi kai\ ajndra/sin oºrkia pista/. In the context Plato
and the other revivified philosophers are trying to lynch Frankness, who represents Lucian in the
work. Frankness offers a plea for mercy: "No, no! In the name of Him who hears the suppliant
with its many references to foreign gods. It should be noted, however, that for the ancients

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[Zeus], spare me!" Plato rejects the plea: "Your doom is sealed: you cannot be let go now. You
know, of course, what Homer says: 'Since between lions and men there exist no bounds of
alliance.'"93 Frankness responds with his own Homeric reference, echoing Adrestos' appeal to
Menelaus in Il. 6.46-50. Plato counters with another Homeric reference, echoing Diomedes'
rejection of Dolon's plea in Il. 10.447-453. Realizing Homer will not help him, Frankness turns to
Euripides.
Lucian's use of Il. 22.262 is technically different from what we find in Jubilees, since his Plato
is explicitly quoting from Homer at the beginning of a battle of Iliadic quotations. It is noteworthy,
however, that this specific line is quoted and that it is used in a way that is in keeping with its
original context in the Iliad. Achilles' simile is used to reject the plea of Hector within the context
of a pursuit, just as Plato uses the simile to reject Franknesses supplication while he is violently
pursued by the philosophers. This shows us that Achilles' lion simile in 22.262, which we have
argued influenced our Jubilees passage, was quoted by an ancient author in such a way that it
reflected knowledge of the original literary context and made use of it in a comparable
contemporary setting.
We find another quotation of the vehicle of Achilles' speech in Maximus of Tyre's
Dissertations 35.6.1-8:
Ti/ß a·n ou•n paraskeuh\ ge/noito ajndri fili/aß ejrasthØv
pro\ß to\ kthvma touvto; calepo\n me\n eijpeivn, rJhte/on de\ oºmwß:
wJß oujk e¶sti le/ousi kai\ ajndra/sin oºrkia pista/.
oujde\ lu/k oi te kai\ a‡rneß oJmo/frona qumo\n e¶c ousin,
ouºtwß ou/k e¶stin oujde\ ajndri\ pro\ß a¶ndra filia/ß oJlkh/,
me/criß aªn aujtwø! oiJ ojfqalmoi\ fanta/zwntai cruso\n kai\ a¶rguron.

Homer was used as a source of "secular" knowledge such as history, geography, and science.
93
Harmon, LCL.

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By what mean then can a man who is a lover of friendship obtain this possession? It is
difficult indeed to say, but at the same time it must be told:
'As men with lions form no faithful leagues,
Nor lambs with wolves possess according souls,'
So neither is there any attraction of friendship between man and man as long as their eyes
are dazzled with silver and gold."94
What is fascinating here is that the the full, double-vehicle of Achilles' simile is quoted sans
explicit citation, and the tenor is then replaced with the author's own composition. We see a
similar example in Atticus the Philosopher 4.21 (preserved in Eusebius' Praeparatio 15.4):

JWß ga\r oujk e¶sti le/ousi kai\ ajndra/sin oºrkia pista
oujde\ lu/k oi te kai\ a‡rneß oJmo/frona qumo\n e¶c ousin
ouºtwß ou/k e¶sti Pla/twni kai\ jAristote/lei fili/a peri\ touv
korufaiota/u tou kai\ kuriwta/tou thvß eujdaimoni/aß do/gmatoß.
Diampere\ß ga/r, eij mh\ kaka\ frone/ousin ajllh/loiß, ta/ ge
uJpenanti/a peri\ twvn eijß touvto diafero/ntwn fai/nontai le/gonteß.

For as "lions and men no safe alliance form, nor wolves and lambs in friendly mind agree,"
so between Plato and Aristotle there is no friendship in regard to the very chief and
paramount doctrine of happiness. For if they have no evil thoughts one towards the
other, yet it is evident that their statements concerning what is important on this point
are diametrically opposite.95
Again we have a full quotation of Achilles' vehicle without an explicit citation, and the
substitution of an author's own tenor. In this case the author has intermixed elements from
Achilles' adversative statement (ajlla\ kaka\ frone/ousi diampere\ß ajllh/loisin) into an
explanatory comment following the tenor. While Achilles used this statement to underline the
incompatibility of the wolves/lambs pair, Atticus uses it negatively with reference to the tenor:

94

Dissertations of Maximus Tyrius. Vol. 2 Trans. Thomas Taylor. London: C. Wittingham, 1804.
Eusebius, The Preparation for the Gospel. Vol. 2. Trans. Edwin Hamilton Gifford. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1903.
95

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Plato and Aristotle do not have evil-mindedness towards each other, while in Achilles' speech the
wolves and lambs did.

In Julian the Apostate's The Heroic Deeds of the Emperor Constantius, or On Kingship
98c we see another use of Achilles' words:

jAnh\r tw!n ejpitacqe/ntwn ejn Galati/aø stratope/doiß (i¶ste
i¶swß kai\ tou¶mona kai\ to\n tro/pon) oºmhron filiaß kai\
pi/stewß ajpe/lipen oujde\n deome/nwø basilei" to\n paivda: ei•ta
h•n ajpisto/teroß twvn leo/ntwn, oi–ß oujk e¶sti, fhsi/, pro\ß
a¶ndraß oºrkia pista/ . . .

A certain man who had been given the command of the garrisons in Galatia — you
probably know his name and character — left his son behind him as a hostage for his
friendship and loyalty to the Emperor, though not at the Emperor's request. Then he
proved to be more treacherous than "lions who have no faithful covenants with man," as
the poet says . . . (Wright, LCL)
This story refers to Silvanus, and uses Achilles' statement regarding lions and humans to
describe the broken faith of an historic person, much as Jubilees has used Achilles' statement to
illustrate the broken faith of Esau.
These examples, in addition to the evidence explored in our discussion of Achilles' reception
history, show us that Achilles' engagement with Hector, including the specific wording of his
speech, continued to be re-appropriated throughout the Greco-Roman literary tradition. Achilles'
words could be seamlessly incorporated into a new composition, being combined with new
elements such as an original tenor in order to accomplish an author's own rhetorical goals. Thus,
we find evidence that satisfies the criterion of analogy. While these are all examples in Greek
works of non-Jewish writers, it shows that our Iliad passage was popular enough that someone

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who was conversant with Greek literature in some way, even second-hand, may have had
knowledge of it.
The evidence we have just cited could also be used to argue against some of our previous
points. We have made the case that Esau's speech is influenced in a more-or-less direct fashion
by the Iliad — i.e., that the author of Jubilees knew he was adopting and adapting materials from
Homer, not just drawing on themes and phrases that were floating about in the cultural "air."
However, when we see that portions of Achilles' speech were often quoted by later writers, it
raises the possibility that these portions could become decontextualized and independent units
that subsequent authors could utilize in their own texts without any knowledge of their ultimate
Homeric origins. Could this be the case in Jubilees?
We believe this is doubtful. We have already noted that Esau's speech and its surrounding
context share multiple similarities with Achilles' speech and its surrounding contexts. We are not
dealing with a single phrase, but a series of phrases and images that are used within a context that
bears notable similarities to the Iliadic context and that seem conversant with broader elements in
the epic tradition. Beyond this, we should note that some of our examples above did explicitly
cite Homer, and those that did not included elements that indicated knowledge of the ultimate
Homeric origins of the saying. If Achilles' line regarding faithful oaths did become a
decontextualized and isolated speech unit, the aforementioned authors are not evidence of this.
This question creates an opportunity to briefly address a broader potential objection to our
overall argument. We have noted the similarities between the Jubilees and Iliad passages. While
these similarities are undeniable, multiple explanations could be offered to explain their origins.
We have opted for an explanation that involves more-or-less direct influence of one text on the

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other. Others might explain the similarities by arguing that the two texts participate in a common
ancient tradition. Indeed, this seems to be what Martin West implies in his brief notes on these
passages. Commenting on Achilles' simile he says:
This must have been a cliche of oriental rhetoric. We have a report of a letter sent by the
twelfth century Elamite king Kutur-Nahhunte to Babylon claiming the vacant throne.
Referring to the traditional enmity between the two countries, he writes:
"Shall livestock and ravening wolf come to terms? Shall firm-rooted thorn and soaring
raven love one another? Shall raven and venomous snake come to terms? [ ] Shall bonegnawing dog come to terms with mongoose? Shall dragon come to terms with bloodletting bandit? What king of Elam is there who provided for Esagila and . . .?" (A.
Jeremias, MVAG 21, 1917, 92. 10ff.; trans. Foster, 284.). There are further excellent
parallels in Hellenistic Jewish writing, as Jubilees 37.21 f. (Esau to Jacob) . . .96
West also notes Sir 13:16-19 and Isa 11:6-8, 65:25. In light of this, might we be safer to note
the similarities and argue that they are non-genetically related examples of broader rhetorical
traditions?
This is a respectable option. However, we do not believe that it does the evidence justice. It
is clear that there was a broader rhetorical tradition in the ancient world in which socially
incompatible creatures were invoked to illustrate the incompatibility of two individuals or
groups. However, the existence of such a tradition does not necessarily mean that specific
examples of the tradition are not genetically related to each other. A comparison of Isaiah's two
uses of the tradition with the Elamite letter quoted above shows what two non-genetically related
examples of the tradition look like: general similarity in concept and even a shared animal pairing,
but otherwise distinct from each other. This is quite different from a comparison of the Isaiah
texts and Jubilees or the Iliad passage and Jubilees, where we see multiple, clear parallels. We
have too many similarities of different kinds between the Iliad and Jubilees to easily dismiss a

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genetic explanation. Shared animal imagery, shared distinctive phrases, similar narrative contexts,
and evidence of Jubilees' knowledge and use of the epic tradition all point towards a genetic
relationship.

Interpretability
We have spelled out our case for the influence of Homer's Iliad on Esau's speech. Now we
can ask the important question: what does this all mean? MacDonald's criterion of
interpretability asserts that the hypertext's use of the hypotext should make some kind of sense,
and should be intelligible and meaningful. We must ask, then, why the author of Esau's speech
would have made use of Achilles' speech as a model, and what this act of re-appropriation means.
Our first answer to this is quite simple: the author of Esau's speech found Achilles' speech
literarily useful for his own rhetorical purposes. We saw above that Achilles' memorable simile
was picked up by later writers who found his poignant statement useful for making their own
points about incompatibility or irreconcilability. A later author's use of an earlier work is often
driven simply by the fact that they find the earlier work good or useful. When dealing with
Jewish appropriations of non-Jewish texts we must be careful that we do not assume that there
is always a deeper, complex, or subversive meaning. Such assumptions may be the lingering
results of apologetic tendencies in biblical scholarship, where the desired uniqueness of JudeoChristian traditions has driven scholars to pit these traditions against their larger cultural contexts
and to interpret evidence of similarity to or influence from these contexts as competitive or

96

West, The East Face of Helicon, 395.

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subversive.97 It is possible, however, that a Jewish or Christian writer made use of non-Jewish
or Christian literary and cultural sources simply because they liked them and found them useful.
In the case of Jubilees, Achilles' speech would be a particularly useful model because it is a
poignant rejection of an oath. While Achilles is rejecting a potential oath and Esau is rejecting an
already sworn oath, Achilles' rejection could easily be adapted to the rhetorical situation of
Jubilees' Esau. We have already argued that oath-making and oath-breaking are central themes in
Jubilees and that oath-breaking stands at the heart of the book's characterization of Esau. Since
this portrayal of Esau as oath-breaker is central to the thrust of the larger episode it makes sense
that the oath-rejection content of Achilles' speech would be one of the primary reasons for its
adoption and adaptation by Jubilees.
We must wonder, however, if something more is at work here. We have argued that Jubilees'
adaptation of Achilles' speech is not a decontextualized pilfering of some famous epic lines, but
that the context of the speech contains echoes of Achilles and the Iliad. We noted, for example,
his dramatic change of heart and his sieging of a city as positive parallels, and his burial by Jacob
as a parallel through reversal. Is it possible that Jubilees is not merely proof-texting some useful
words, but is in some way casting Esau as Achilles? If we answer affirmatively, what might the
source and effect of this association be?
Regarding the source of such a connection, we have just argued that Achilles' speech was
fitting for Jubilees' attempt to portray Esau as an oath-breaker. Beyond this, a Jewish reader
who was aware of the Iliad and traditions about Achilles may have had more general reasons to
associate this hero with the biblical Esau. There are some common elements, both substantive
97

Cf. Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine.

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and superficial, which these two figures share. The primary substantive element is the
importance of anger to the ways they are characterized within their respective traditions. Both
within and outside the Iliad one of the most prominent features of Achilles is his wrath. The
Iliad's proem informs us that this ultimately is the topic of the epic: "Sing, goddess, the anger of
Peleus' son Achilleus and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians . . ."
(1.1-2). Achilles' wrath is what initiates much of the epic's conflict, as his withdrawal from battle
temporarily threatens the success of the Achaians. His wrath leads to the death of his beloved
Patroclus, at which time it is re-channeled into a desire for vengeance against Hector and the
Trojans, a vengeance which dominates the final six books of the epic as Achilles drives the
Trojans back, kills and abuses Hector, and finally lets go of his anger when Priam ransoms
Hector's corpse. Anger is central to Achilles' characterization and to the plot of the Iliad. In
Hobbs' words, "he is clearly the supreme embodiment of anger in Greek literature."98 His anger
is part of a larger constellation of "strong emotional traits," such as "his fierce hatred for his
enemies and deep love for his friends, his aptness to be moved to tears; his tendency to rash
action . . ."99 His anger and general emotionalism invited critique by the Stoic tradition.100
In Genesis Esau is also characterized by his anger, strong emotion, and impulsiveness. We
see this most clearly in Esau's response to Isaac's blessing of Jacob in Gen 27. When he first
hears the news in Genesis he "cries out with a great and exceedingly bitter cry" (v. 34). After
98

Angela Hobbs, Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness, and the Impersonal Good
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 200.
99
Dorothea Sigel, "Achilles," in Brill's New Pauly: Antiquity, Volume I, A-ARI (ed. Hubert Cancik,
Helmuth Schneider, Christine F. Salazar and David E. Orton; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 91.

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further begging his father for an additional blessing Esau weeps (v. 38), and then turns his sadness
and despair into hatred: "Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had
blessed him . . ." (v. 41). Rebekah describes this hatred with wrath/anger language when she tells
Jacob to flee "until your brother's fury (hDmEj/qumo/ß) turns away — until your brother's anger
(PAa/ojrgh) turns away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him" (vv. 44-45).101 The
cries of Esau could easily have reminded a Homerically aware reader of Achilles' own cries,102 his
weeping of Achilles' weeping (an emotionalism critiqued by later readers),103 and his wrath of the
hero's mhvniß.
A more superficial point of contact between the two heroes is the importance of their heels.
Jacob of course grasps Esau's heel as they emerge from the womb, causing him to be named bOqSoÅy
(from béqDo, "heel"). This heel grasping foreshadows the fact that Jacob will ultimately supplant
Esau as the firstborn. The heel/ankle/lower leg of Achilles is also mentioned in the Greek
tradition. The English phrase "Achilles heel" and the term "Achilles tendon" both refer to these
ancient traditions. Early visual and literary evidence indicates that a wound in the lower leg/ankle
was part of traditions about Achilles' death. By the Roman imperial period this tradition was
connected with other traditions about an infant Achilles gaining invulnerability when his mother
100

". . . his rash action makes him, especially to the Stoic philosophers, the counterpart of the
wise person, whose actions are determined by reason and intellect (embodied in Odysseus)."
Sigel, "Achilles,' 91.
101
This is reiterated in Amos' oracle about Edom: "Thus says the LORD: 'For three
transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because he pursued his
brother with the sword, and cast off all pity, and his anger (Pa) tore perpetually, and he kept his
wrath (hrbo) for ever'" (Amos 1:11 RSV). While this refers to the people of Edom after the death
of Esau, we noted above that the prophetic Edom texts like Amos 1:11 may have been read by
Jubilees and other early Jewish readers as references to Esau and the first generation of Edomites.
102
Il. 18.35.

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Thetis dipped him in the Styx, with his only remaining point of vulnerability being the ankle that
she held him by as he was dipped.104 The lower leg thus plays a role in the downfalls of both
Esau and Achilles.
It seems that some Jewish authors in the Hellenistic period were attuned to such possible
connections between figures and themes in their own tradition and figures and themes in the
traditions of their neighbors. An interpretatio Graeca/Judaica could not only include arguing for
a direct equivalent (Atlas = Enoch), but also portraying figures in such a way that they brought
together both Jewish and non-Jewish traditions. An example of this would be the portrayal of
Judah in T. Jud. 2, where his prowess as a hunter arguably draws on both Davidic and Herculean
themes.105
What would some of the intended effects of an association between Achilles and Esau have
been? In our brief discussion of the history of scholarship we noted some other places where
scholars have identified connections between Jubilees and the broader Greek scientific and
literary traditions. We saw two tendencies there: (1) the creative integration of Jewish and Greek
traditions, and (2) the use of Greek traditions to argue for the supremacy of the Jewish people.
We might expect to see these tendencies in other parts of Jubilees, including our passage. We
have already noted the ways in which a creative integration of traditions does in fact occur in
Esau's speech. How might the second tendency be present?

103

Il. 1.346-349; 18.234-235; 24.511-512. For criticism of emotionalism see Plato, Rep. 388a-b.
See the discussion of these traditions in Jonathan Burgess, "Achilles' Heel: The Death of
Achilles in Ancient Myth," Classical Antiquity 14 (1995): 217-244.
105
Robert A. Kugler, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 2001), 57. Kugler is citing the argument of M. Philonenko, "Juda et Héraklès," RHPR 50
(1970): 61-62.
104

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In our discussions of characterization we have identified a level of complexity in the portrayal
of Achilles in the Iliad and in his reception in the ancient world. Achilles was the "best of the
Achaians" and remained an esteemed figure and paradigmatic hero in much of the interpretive
tradition. Yet at the same time there were elements in his Homeric portrayal that invited
criticism in the tradition. There is sometimes a tendency in the reception history of an important
cultural figure to simplify them, turning them either into a flawless hero or a pure villain. We see
this tendency in the reception history of Achilles, but with some interpreters opting for "hero"
and others opting for "villain." This may have been one of the reasons why Achilles would be
associated with Esau, since Esau is a figure who is both respected (as a descendant of Abraham
and Isaac) and denigrated in the broader Jewish tradition.106 But the ambiguity of Achilles may
also have made him an opportune character for Jewish appropriation in other, more polemical
ways. His complex reception history would allow someone like the author of Jubilees to take
advantage of Achilles' darker reception history by associating him with a villain like Esau. Such
an association would be seizing on existing critiques of Achilles in the broader culture in order to
critique another literary figure. However, because Achilles also remained to many a Greek hero
par excellence, taking advantage of these more negative traditions and painting an impious oathbreaker with Achillean strokes could also function as a jab against Greek culture, or against nonJewish culture more generally.
Such a cultural polemic makes sense of Jubilees' description of Esau's burial. We noted above
that this is a parallel through reversal. In the Iliad Achilles is victorious and mistreats the body
106

Cf. Bruce C. Cresson, "The Condemnation of Edom in Postexilic Judaism," in The Use of the
Old Testament in the New and Other Essays: Studies in Honor of William Franklin Stinespring

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of his adversary. In Jubilees the Achilles figure — Esau — is the vanquished, but receives a
proper burial from his adversary, while his own compatriots (his children) abandon his corpse.
We saw that Achilles' treatment of Hector's corpse was one of the points of criticism against the
hero. Through this reversal, Jacob (and thus the Jews) is shown to be pious in a way that
Achilles was not.
It is possible that there may be even more specificity in a subtle critique of Achilles in
Jubilees. Earlier we noted that Achilles' dragging of Hector's corpse has a later parallel in sources
about Alexander the Great. While the historicity of those stories is open for debate, it is still
noteworthy that the ancients told a story about Alexander brutally dragging someone from a
besieged city that was close to Jewish Palestine, and that this dragging was associated with
Achilles' dragging of Hector. This is one example of a larger pattern in the Alexander tradition of
associating the conqueror with the best of the Achaians.107 It is quite possible that a second-

(ed. James M. Efird; Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1972), 125-148.
107
We noted the parallels between Alexander's treatment of Baetis and Achilles' dragging of
Hector in our chapter on Achilles. We also noted the parallels between Achilles' withdrawal and
reengagement in combat and Alexander the Great's own withdrawals. We can additionally note
that Alexander was alleged to be a descendant of Achilles (Curt. 8.24.26), he fought a river like
Achilles (Diodorus 17.97.1-3), and he paid his respects at Achilles' tomb (Arr.1.12.1-2 and
Cicero Pro Archia 24). See the primary sources in Waldemar Heckel and J.C. Yardley, Alexander
the Great: Historical Texts in Translation (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2004), 208, 210-211.
Zeitlin sums up the phenomenon well: "[Alexander's] obsession with Homer manifested itself
especially in his innovative taste for reenactment of Iliadic scenes . . . and for role-playing,
particularly in regard to Achilles, whom he seems to have consciously chosen as his heroic
paradigm . . . On numerous occasions, in fact, Alexander virtually impersonated Achilles in
gesture and costume and manipulated his official portraits to conform to a likeness of his favorite
hero, whose exploits, excellence, and fame (kleos) he yearned to rival and surpass." Froma I.
Zeitlin, "Alexander the Great and Homer," in The Homer Encyclopedia (ed. Margalit Finkelberg;
Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001), 29. See also Carney, "Artifice and Alexander History,"
273-285; Andrew F. Stewart, Faces of Power: Alexander's Image and Hellenistic Politics
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 78-86; Ada Cohen, "Alexander and Achilles —

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century B.C. E. Palestinian Jewish author like the writer of Jubilees would have been aware of such
an association, and perhaps aware of the specific story of Alexander dragging his foe. Achilles
may have represented Greek imperialism not only through his historical role besieging Troy, but
also through his appropriation by Alexander the Great. This creates the possibility that Jubilees'
association of Achilles and Esau may have some anti-imperial/anti-Alexander tones.108
Two additional points can be made regarding this suggestion. First, Jubilees does contain
some strong anti-imperial themes in its presentation of inviolable borders (although it is
interesting to note that Japheth is not strongly polemicized).109 Second, we might speculate that
the importance of oath-keeping in Jubilees may be related to negative experiences with Alexander
the Great's Seleucid successors.110
When read against the background of other early Jewish engagements with Greek texts and
traditions an additional function of Jubilees’ use of Homer becomes possible. One of the ways
that Jewish authors asserted their cultural pride as a minority group in a cosmopolitan world was
by claiming that the culture of their neighbors actually derived from the Jewish tradition. We see
this, for instance, in the fragments of Aristobulus, who argues that Greek philosophers and poets
were familiar with partial Greek translations of Hebrew scriptures that preceded the
Macedonians and 'Mycenaeans'," in The Ages of Homer: A Tribute to Emily Townsend Vermeule
(ed. Jane B. Carter and Sarah P. Morris; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 483-505; B.
Perrin, "Genesis and Growth of an Alexander-Myth," TAPA 26 (1895): 56-68.
108
We noted above that the Kittim in Jub. 37:10 may have referred to Greek forces sieging the
city of Hebron. The association of Alexander the Great with the Kittim (1 Macc 1:1) and the
presence of the Kittim at the siege may provide some support for a subtle anti-Alexander
polemic. The Animal Apocalypse, which we have seen has some interesting affinities to Jubilees,
may offer a negative assessment of Alexander the Great and the Greco-Macedonians in 90:2
(Olson, A New Reading, 202).
109
Jub. 9:14. Cf. The critique of empire in 11:2.

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Septuagint.111 He even specifically claims that Homer was among those influenced by Torah
(5:13-15). We see this dynamic of establishing cultural precedence at work in Jubilees in the
story of Abraham and the ravens, which establishes Abraham as the inventor of an important
piece of agricultural technology.112 It is quite possible that the author of Jubilees was aware of
and willing to engage in this kind of cultural discourse. In his rewriting of the Torah he had the
opportunity to demonstrate the derivative nature of the Greeks’ most esteemed literary
traditions by fabricating a speech that clearly paralleled a Homeric text. Since both the historical
figure of Esau and the giving of the Torah at Sinai preceded both the Trojan war and the writing
of Homer’s epics, the most natural explanation for this parallel would be Homer’s knowledge and
emulation of Esau’s speech. In our current study we are arguing that Jubilees modeled Esau’s
speech on Achilles’ speech. It is possible that the author of Jubilees was making the reverse
argument: that Homer was dependent on Jubilees’ version of the Torah.
Before moving on attention must briefly be given to another element of MacDonald's criterion
of interpretability: does the proposed hypotext offer fresh solutions to issues/problems in the
text?113 We have already argued that Esau's seemingly odd transformation, in which he goes from
coerced participant in the siege to active aggressor, is a good example where the Iliad as hypotext
can provide a solution for an issue in the text. We have also noted that an appeal to the influence
of other texts in the Iliad and traditions from the Greek world in general shed some light on some
of the uses of animal imagery in Esau's speech.

110

1 Macc 6:61-62; 7:15-18; 9:71; 2 Macc 4:34.
Aristobulus, 3:1-2. See the discussion in Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism, 246-253.
112
See our discussion of Cana Werman’s essay and the “culture hero” in chapter one.
113
MacDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, 9.
111

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We have given some attention to sources and motivations for adopting and adapting Achilles'
speech, as well as speculated on an identification between Achilles and Esau in Jubilees. It seems
clear to us that Jubilees' appropriation of Achilles' speech passes the criterion of interpretability.
The proposed hypotext makes sense, and we can identify a number of reasons why the author of
Jubilees would have drawn upon it and a number of possible intended effects.

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CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION
Summary
Our study began with a brief and selective review of the existing scholarship that has
addressed the issue of Jubilees in Hellenistic context. Even though this has been a neglected area
of research, those scholars who have worked on these questions have shown that it is a promising
direction for further study. Taking a cue from these studies, we have ventured a little further
down the path by arguing for the influence of a specific text from Homer's Iliad on a specific text
in Jubilees. Following this brief history of scholarship we engaged Achilles' speech in Il. 22.260272 and Esau's speech in Jub. 37:18-23 individually, trying to first understand them within their
respective literary contexts. Once this foundation was laid, we were able to undertake a
comparison of the two texts, using Dennis MacDonald's six criteria in our argument for a genetic
relationship between them. Even though the speeches are different from each other in many
respects (as we should expect from any two texts), we identified a series of noteworthy
similarities in literary setting, rhetorical purpose, rhetorical mechanism, use of imagery, syntax,
vocabulary, and characterization. To summarize some of our key points in each of these areas:
Literary setting: Both speeches are part of a one-on-one verbal encounter in the midst of
a siege of a city, and both end in the death of one of the interlocutors. Esau's initial
reluctance to engage in battle followed by a dramatic change of heart parallels Achilles'
similar unwillingness to engage in combat until he is transformed by the death of
Patroclus. There is a further parallel through reversal, as Achilles defiles the body of the
vanquished Hector while Jacob cares for the body of his dead brother.
Rhetorical purpose: The purpose of each of the speeches is to communicate the
impossibility of any kind of rapprochement between the two parties, and to specifically
deny the possibility of an oath.

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Rhetorical mechanism: Both speeches make use of bestial adynata to express the
impossibility of an agreement.
Imagery: Both speeches make use of a common animal pairing in their adynata (wolves
and lambs). Lions and humans are also part of each speech, although they are paired with
different animals. There is also a common psychologization of the creatures, as Achilles'
attributes thoughts and intentions to wolves and lambs and Esau attributes similar
thoughts and intentions to humans and snakes.
Syntax: The syntax of the two opening lines is virtually identical, following the pattern:
negative particle + stated or implied copula + noun/dative of possession + conjunction +
noun/dative of possession + noun + noun modifier.
Vocabulary: Beyond the common animal vocabulary is the shared phrase "faithful
oath(s)." We noted the uniqueness of this phrase in the Hebrew tradition, the fact that
the Hebrew phrase is a perfect translational equivalence of the Greek phrase apart from
the difference in number, and that the phrase occurs in sentences that are almost identical
in syntax and concept.
Characterization: Both figures are identified with predatory wild animals and are
depicted as moving outside the bounds of civilized behavior. Both reject the possibility
of oaths. If we take into account the ancient traditions that interpret Achilles' actions
towards Hector negatively, then both figures are engaging in impious and unbecoming acts
of aggression.

In addition to these similarities, we identified other points of contact between Esau's speech
and both Homeric epic and the broader Greek tradition. Most notable here is the depiction of
Esau as a boar in Jub. 37:24 and the description of both his and his compatriot’s wounds.
We then moved past our comparison to argue that it is plausible that the author of Jubilees
would have had access to Homer's Iliad and would have been willing to make use of it in his own
composition. Our exploration of other ancient appropriations of Achilles' speech demonstrated
that it was a well known text in the broader Greco-Roman world and that there were analogous
adaptations of it. Finally, we saw that there are a number of good reasons why the author of
Jubilees would have adopted and adapted Achilles' words.

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We believe that the strength and nature of these various parallels and the other supporting
evidence we have offered make a case for the Iliad's influence on Jubilees not only plausible, but
probable. However, we recognize that not everyone will be convinced by our argument. There
remains a level of subjective judgment when it comes to allusions within texts, and different
readers will naturally have different evidentiary thresholds. Basic assumptions on the larger
questions related to Hellenism and Judaism will also play an important role in how one assesses a
study like ours. Even if our argument for influence does not prove convincing to all, we contend
that there is still value in such a comparative endeavor and that the similarities between our two
texts still call for further examination of Jubilees within a broader Hellenistic literary context.

Directions for Further Research
We will close our study by giving attention to two possible directions for further research. If
what we have argued is correct, then one research trajectory will look for other places where
Jubilees exhibits influence from specific non-Jewish Greek texts. Such a study would naturally
give priority to identifying other traces of Homeric influence, but could also give attention to
other works, such as Hesiod's Works and Days.1 The influence of Homer in Jubilees 37 and the
influence of Greek geographical traditions in Jubilees 8-9 indicate that the author of Jubilees
and/or his sources may have been exposed to a range of Greek literature and traditions, including
but not limited to epic and geographical texts, which means that a full evaluation of Jubilean
dependence on Greek texts would need to be broad in scope.

1

Compare Jub. 23:25 and Works and Days 181.

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Once enough data from this kind of study is amassed we may be able to make some larger
conclusions about the nature and purpose of Jubilees' rewritten history as a whole. If further
research continues to find places where Jubilees exhibits knowledge and use of non-Jewish Greek
texts and traditions, then we will need to ask some serious questions about what our author was
trying to accomplish in his retelling of Israel's earliest history. In answering such questions it
may prove helpful to analyze Jubilees in conjunction with other Jewish rewritten histories that
scholars have more readily interpreted within their Hellenistic contexts. Perhaps what Jubilees is
attempting to do is not all that different from what we see in the works of Theodotus, Ezekiel the
Tragedian, or Josephus. In these authors we see a creative integration of texts and traditions that
are firmly rooted in the history of Israel with themes, traditions, and styles that are firmly rooted
in the Hellenic world. These enterprises were arguably not primarily apologetic in nature, but
were a way for Jews to appropriate, make sense of, and express their heritage in a way that not
only made sense within their contemporary cosmopolitan cultural contexts, but that was
literarily on par (so they hoped) with the esteemed art forms of their day. We may find that
Jubilees was attempting something similar.2
While a continued focus on the influence of specific texts will be interesting and worthwhile,
another research trajectory might ultimately prove even more fruitful. One of our hopes for this
present study is that it will help challenge lingering assumptions in the academy about the
relationship between Second Temple Palestinian Jewish literature and the broader Hellenistic
world. Rather than seeing "Judaism" as something that is distinct from "Hellenism," we should

2

Recall our discussion and critique in chapter one of Cana Werman's contrast between Jubilees'
interaction with Hellenic culture and that of other Jewish writers.

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see Judaism in the Greek period as part of a broader Hellenistic cultural landscape.3 At an
institutional level, the study of early Jewish texts should be found within classics departments,
and the study of texts like Homer, Hesiod, and Euripides should be found within biblical studies
and Jewish studies departments. While our study of the influence of the Iliad on Jubilees
hopefully helps in a small way to chip away at the walls that sometimes separate these worlds,
the way we have framed our study could actually contribute to maintaining the conceptual
separation between them. Focusing on the influence of a particular non-Jewish Greek text on a
particular early Jewish text can give the impression that the Jewish and Hellenistic worlds are
still distinct cultural entities that happen to occasionally impinge on each other. The phrase
"Hellenistic influence," which we have admittedly used in our study, can perpetuate this
conceptual distinction as it implies that "Hellenism" is a distinct entity which can influence
"Judaism."
With this in mind, we suggest that the most fruitful future research will not focus on specific
points of "influence," but will rather start from the assumption that Jubilees is in fact a
Hellenistic literary artifact. From that starting point we can then explore the ways in which this
particular Hellenistic writing reflects, participates in, and contributes to broader cultural
conversations and developments in the ancient Mediterranean world. Such an approach might
bear some similarity to Jonathan Z. Smith's proposed method for the comparison of the dyingrising god motif in early Christianity and other religions of late antiquity, which emphasizes

3

"'Judaism' and 'Hellenism' were neither competing systems nor incompatible concepts." Erich
Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1998), xiv.

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analogous processes rather than fixating on the idea of "borrowing." He is worth quoting at
length here:
This is to argue that we must see the development of a richer and more widely spread
notion of the "dying and rising" of the central cult figure, alongside of the development of
the implications of this for the cult member, in second to fourth century Christianities as
well as in the other contemporary religions of Late Antiquity, as analogous processes,
responding to parallel kinds of religious situations rather than continuing to construct
genealogical relations between them . . .
. . . the question for historically oriented comparison can be reformulated, although its
answer will be the work of a generation. If an increased focus on the 'dying and rising' of
the central cult figure and some notion of a relationship between the individual cult
member and the destiny of the deity is a parallel innovation of the late second to fifth
centuries, in both the Late Antique cults of Attis and Adonis and of Jesus, rather than a
"survival" of an archaic element in these cults, then the issue becomes one of analogy
(possibly even of shared causality) and no longer one of genealogy. Quite different older
traditions, of varying degrees of antiquity and setting, have been reinterpreted in a similar
manner; possibilities latent in the various traditions . . . have moved to centre-stage and
have become manifest. The question is not "which is first," but rather "why both, at more
or less the same time?"4
Future research might thus explore the ways that Jubilees’ appropriation of the Genesis
ancestors and the revelation on Sinai reflect and contribute to broader issues and movements in
the Hellenistic world.
It is our hope that studies like the present one can help establish that Jubilees was conversant
with non-Jewish literature, thus making both of the aforementioned categories of future research
more plausible for historical scholarship. However, even if our thesis that Jubilees has been
influenced by the Iliad is rejected, our study can still provide an impetus for the second category

4

Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the
Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 112-114.

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of research, which would not depend as heavily on arguments for "influence." If we dismiss a
genetic relationship between Esau and Achilles' speeches, the similarities between them are still
undeniable. The presence of such striking parallels between two texts that do not have a genetic
relationship would illustrate that the literary worlds of Jubilees and Homeric epic are not as far
apart as some might initially expect. Whether the author of Jubilees or modern scholars have
recognized it or not, this Palestinian Jewish composition participates in literary and cultural
discourses that extend beyond the borders and boundaries of Jerusalem.

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Skehan, Patrick W. and Alexander A. Di Lella. The Wisdom of Ben Sira: A New Translation with
Notes. New York: Doubleday, 1987.
Smith, Jonathan Z. Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the
Religions of Late Antiquity. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Stewart, Andrew F. Faces of Power: Alexander’s Image and Hellenistic Politics. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1993.
Sweeney, Marvin A. Zephaniah: A Commentary. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003.
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The Works of Jonathan Swift. Edited by Laing Purves. Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo,
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Judeo-Hellenistic Works. New York: Doubleday, 1985.
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Dines. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
Wright, R.B. “Psalms of Solomon: A New Translation and Introduction.” Pages 639-670 in The
Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Volume 2: Expansions of the ‘Old Testament’ and
Legends, Wisdom and Philosophical Literature, Prayers, Psalms, and Odes, Fragments
of Lost Judeo-Hellenistic Works. New York: Doubleday, 1985.
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2004.

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APPENDIX I
NOTES ON THE TEXT OF JUBILEES 37:17-25
4QpapJubh 2.4.1-15 (// Jub. 37:17-38:1a)1

[

] (1)

[h]«oØwbCb h[tafj

] (2)

[Md]|ah ynbl ØNØya[ wl rmayw waCyo hno zaw .htfpCn hkybal htobCn rCa tobw] (3)
hlal «h«l[a wCqby Mwy lwkw .Mlwo do wobCn obCh rCa hnm]|a»n howbC MyC|j[nlw] (4)
[d]|o yØn|b[ taw ytwa ynanCt htaw .wrx taw wbywa ta C]ya wgwrhy hkkyh |h[or] (5)
Kl rb|d[m ykwna rCa hlah yrbd ta omC .hwja h]|km«o tw«C|o|l Nyaw M[lwo] (6)
[ly]|a ynrqk «MØy»n[rq wC]warb wloyw K«r[y rmxk wroC taw wrw]|o ta ryzjh «KØw|p|h[y Ma] (7)

ØwCoy [Maw

.yl ]|ja htyh a»w[l yk Nmam MydC wdrpn .hwja ]hkmo h|Coa za »N[waxw] (8)

[byfyh]«l [Mhylo] Mbl Øyhyh»y[ Maw Mhl qxhw Mlkwa ytlb]|l Mylf^h^ |M|o «MlC |M[ybaz^h^] (9)
[dmxy Maw] ØN[y]|m|amw or rwC[l hyra hyhy Maw .MwlC hkylo ]Øyblb hyhy za |M[hylo] (10)
yk od [za t]|aqk Mybrwoh[ wnybly Maw .hkmo MwlC hCoa z]|a |d|j|a l»w|o «C|r|j[w wmo] (11)
.MwlC |h[kl N]»yaw hkynb Myt|r[knw hta trkh .MwlC hkmo] |h|C[oaw hktwa y]|t[bha] (12)
qjdmw a|b[w ]»wgrwhl[ wCpn lwkmw wylo wblm waCyo orh yk bwqoy har rCakw] (13)
wynbl rm«a[ z]|a .wnmm[ gwsy awlw wtwa grwhhw wtwa rqwdh jmwrh la abh ryzjk] (14)
»w|hØyba bw[qoy la hdwhy rbd Nk yrjaw .wyrbj lwk low wylo lpnthl wydbolw] (15)

1

Transcription taken from J.C. VanderKam and J.T. Milik, “223-224. 4QpapJubh,” in Qumran
Cave 4 VIII: Parabiblical Texts, Part 1 (ed. H.W. Attridge et al; DJD XIII; Oxford: Clarendon,
1994), 118.

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Transcription of the Syriac Version of Jub. 37:17-252
m( lLMw )rG) l( mQ qLSw )trdd )(r8t dX) )twBYhrB )dXM (17)
yttN) l( yN)YBtd tYt)d )Y)YwB rYP$ )M hL rM)w yhwX) wSY(
oM oYN*Bz oYtrt kM)LwkwB)L tYMY)d )tM8wM oYN) oYLh .ttYMd
.ktM8wMB tY+X .nwhtwM mdQ
)tM8wM )tww8XLw )$N*YNBL tYL rM)w bwQOYL wSYO )NOw (18)
.)t$8YB oYLhL oYLh oYOB mwYLK )L) .)d*dXL nwM)Nd )tr8Yr$
kMO dBOML yL tYLw .mLOL )MdO yNB8Lw yL kYN*B w tN) )BB8dLOB (19)
yBLB tY) )L )t$YB )N) .yX) dBOt )L bwQOY rM)w : )ML$
OrP[w )tY*SK )zXw )hL) tY)d Od .)t$YB yLO b$Xtt )L .kYLO
)BhrwSB mdM dBOt )Lw kzGwrd )tMX xYN) .yhwd8B[O kY) dX lKL
: )t$YB kYLO )tYtw
n) .kL )N) rM)[d oYLh OM$ tY)Y$Q rM])w wSYO yNP oYdYh (20)
)LY)d )tNr8Q h$YrB oQ8SN n)w )KYKr )rM(L hK$M )rYzX pLX[M
.)twX) kM( )N) dB[( oYdYh
nwhL nw$)BN )Lw )r8M) m( )ML$ )B8)d nwdB(N n)w (21)
.)rYN hM( dGN{w )rwtL )rBX )Yr) )whN n)w (22)
: )ML$ kM( dB() oYdYh )Q8Q kY) )SQr8Q nwrwXN n)w (23)
yhwL( wSY( )t]) htY(rt h[LKBw hBL hLKBd bwQ(Y )zX} dKw (24)
.hL+QNd
.yhwL( nwQPNd yhwN*BL bwQ(Y rM]) oYdYh (25)

2

Transcription taken from Vanderkam, The Book of Jubilees: A Critical Edition, 291-292.

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Notes
Here we offer some selective notes and observations on the Hebrew, Syriac, and Ethiopic
versions of our passage and some immediately surrounding verses. We focus on comparing and
contrasting the extant Hebrew text with the Syriac and Ethiopic, as well as the disagreements
between the Syriac and Ethiopic texts in places for which Hebrew evidence is lacking.
v. 17: Very little of this verse is preserved in the Hebrew. The verse originally occupied lines
1-3, but we are left with only a handful of letters from the end of line 2: [h]«oØwbCb h[tafj ("sin
against the oath"). The Ethiopic !"#$ % &'() ("transgress from the oath") and the Syriac
ktM8wMB tY+X ("sin against your oaths") have general agreement with what we can

reconstruct from the Hebrew, although the Ethiopic speaks of transgressing/departing from the
oath rather than sinning against it and the Syriac pluralizes "oath" while adding a pronominal
suffix. The Syriac and Ethiopic are in fairly close agreement for the rest of the passage where the
Hebrew is lacking, with word-for-word correspondence in some places. For example: rM)w
yhwX) wSY( m( lLMw ("And he spoke with Esau his brother and said . . .") and *+,-.

%

/#0 % &12 % 345 % *67 ("And he spoke with his brother Esau and said . . ."). There are,
however, a few differences. The Syriac is slightly more expansive at points. For instance, it
opens with a description of the hastiness with which Jacob closed the gates
()twBYhrB )dXM; "At once he hastily . . .") which has no parallel in the Ethiopic. The
Syriac also has Jacob "go up" (qLSw) before he "stands" (mQ) on the tower while the Ethiopic

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merely has him stand (!"). Despite these small expansions, we do witness the Syriac tendency
of abbreviation in the omission of any equivalent for #$%&' ( ")*+ ( ,-.+ ( '/01+. Other
noteworthy differences include the already mentioned plural form of "oaths" in the Syriac
()tM8wM) versus the singular in the Ethiopic (")2), the inclusion of a second person singular
pronominal suffix on the second occurrence of "oaths" in the Syriac (ktM8wMB),3 and the use of
the noun to refer to the deaths of both parents (nwhtwM) rather than a singular verb to refer
to Isaac's death (345). If VanderKam and Milik are correct that "one letter separates the visible
letters from the left margin" then the Hebrew supports the Ethiopic in using a singular noun for
"oath."4 The plural form in the Syriac can easily be explained as a stylistic change based on the
fact that Esau actually swore twice.

v. 18: Fortunately more of this verse is preserved in the Hebrew. From the end of line 3 we
have: [Md]|ah ynbl ØNØya followed by hnm]|a»n howbC MyC|j[nlw] at the beginning of line 4. At the end of
line 4 we have hlal «h«l[a and the beginning of line 5 reads C]ya wgwrhy hkkyh |h[or]. The Ethiopic
mirrors the extant Hebrew fairly well, as does the Syriac apart from its tendency towards
abbreviation. In their English translations both Wintermute and VanderKam translate -67'

89: as "beasts of the field."5 The phrase, however, often refers to serpents.6 Both the Hebrew

3

VanderKam and Milik (122) note that at least one Ethiopic manuscript also has the suffix.
VanderKam and Milik, “223-224. 4QpapJubh,” 119.
5
O.S. Wintermute, “Jubilees,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. James H. Charlesworth;
Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1983).
4

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and the Syriac support this reading. The Hebrew has hnm]|a»n howbC ("faithful oath") where the
Ethiopic has !"# $%& ("righteous oath") and Syriac has )tr8Yr$ )tM8wM ("lasting" or
"trustworthy oaths" with the plural again). The Hebrew and Syriac have plural demonstratives
(hlal «h«l[a and oYLhL oYLh) where Ethiopic has singular ones ('() *'()). The Ethiopic uses
a singular form of the verb for "kill" (+&,-) while Hebrew has the plural (wgwrhy) and the Syriac
lacks any equivalent. The Syriac and Ethiopic are fairly close in the places where Hebrew
witness is lacking with the aforementioned Syriac omission. Ethiopic does begin with the phrase

./01 23 (reconstructed as za by VanderKam and Milik), while Syriac begins with a simple
waw. Syriac specifies Jacob as the recipient of Esau's speech with bwQOYL against the
Ethiopic and presumably against the Hebrew, which has no space for it.

v. 19: Portions of six words from this shorter passage are preserved on lines 5 and 6 of the
Hebrew. At the end of line 5 we find [d]|o

h]|km«o tw«C|o|l Nyaw M[lwo].

yØn|b[ and the beginning of line 6 reads:

The Ethiopic closely reflects the extant Hebrew. There is some

disagreement between the Ethiopic and the Syriac in the Hebrew lacunae. The Ethiopic reads

.,4-56 5(1 789 ./:%9 whereas the Syriac reads yNB8Lw

yL kYN*B w tN) )BB8dLOB.

The Ethiopic uses an imperfect 2ms verb with a 1cs object suffix followed by an independent
pronoun and a pronominal intensifier ("And-you-will-hate-me you me"), while Syriac uses a
6

Wolf Leslau, Concise Dictionary of Ge’ez (Classical Ethiopic) (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz,

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noun with an implied copula followed by an independent 2ms pronoun and a noun with a 2ms
pronominal suffix as the subject, and then two lameds of disadvantage prefixed to a pronominal
suffix and and a noun with a 1cs suffix respectively ("Enemies (are) you and your sons to me and
to my sons"). Beyond the different vocabulary (enemy vs. hate) and syntax, the Syriac also
specifies that Jacob's sons will be in enmity with Esau and his sons. VanderKam and Milik have
back-translated from the Ethiopic to fill in the lacuna in the Hebrew. Since we are giving
preference to the Ethiopic witness, we will assume this to be correct. However, it is possible
that the original Hebrew said something like ynblw yl hta bwya ("You are an enemy to me and to
my sons"). A second disagreement between the Ethiopic and Syriac is the word choice at the end
of the second clause. Ethiopic reads !"# (back-translated as hwja by VanderKam and Milik)
while the Syriac reads )ML$. It is possible that Mwlv was in the Hebrew here.
The Syriac also contains an extensive addition which is lacking from the Ethiopic. Before
the Qumran discoveries the originality of this passage was an open question. However, since
there is no room for it in the Hebrew manuscript it seems to have been abandoned as a later
addition.7 The purpose of such an addition is quite understandable, as it makes Esau's speech
seem like less of a monologue and more of a conversation. It also provides Jacob with an
opportunity to warn Esau and plead with him, thus underlining the fact that Jacob did all he
could to avert violence with his brother. The expansion reads as follows:

1989), 136.
7
VanderKam and Milik, “223-224. 4QpapJubh,” 123.

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.kYLO yBLB tY) )L )t$YB )N) .yX) dBOt )L bwQOY rM)w
lKL OrP[w )tY*SK )zXw )hL) tY)d Od .)t$YB yLO b$Xtt )L
)BhrwSB mdM dBOt )Lw kzGwrd )tMX xYN) .yhwd8B[O kY) dX
: )t$YB kYLO )tYtw

Jacob said "Do not do (this), my brother. As for me, there is no evil in my mind against
you; do not plan evil against me. Be aware that there is a God, and he sees secrets and
repays each one in accord with what he does. Calm your great anger and do nothing
hastily. Then evil would come upon you."8

v. 20: Very little of Esau's imperative to Jacob ("Hear . . .") is preserved in the Hebrew. At
the end of line 6 we see: Kl rb|d[m. While the Ethiopic uses an object suffix (!) on the verb the
Hebrew used a preposition and pronominal suffix (Kl). There are some differences in the Syriac.
Because of the words of Jacob that were added at the end of v.19 the Syriac must begin with an
introduction to Esau's speech in v.20: tY)Y$Q rM])w wSYO yNP oYdYh ("Then Esau
replied and said harshly . . ."). Syriac lacks an equivalent noun where the Ethiopic has "#$%,
merely using a plural demonstrative oYLh ("these [words]"). The use of the plural demonstrative
differs from the Ethiopic, where we see the singular demonstrative &'( ("this, my word").
VanderKam and Milik's conjecture preserves the noun with the 1cs pronominal suffix but
pluralizes it and includes the plural demonstrative (hlah yrbd). Given the space, it seems more
reasonable that the longer reading of the Ethiopic and the plural demonstrative (which is longer in
Hebrew than the singular demonstrative) would be present.

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The first part of the protasis is partially preserved in the Hebrew on line 7: K«r[y rmxk wroC

taw wrw]|o ta ryzjh «KØw|p|h[y Ma]. The extant text supports the Ethiopic witness. The Syriac is
shorter: )KYKr )rM(L hK$M )rYzX pLX[M n) ("If the boar changes his hide to soft
wool"). The second part of the protasis is on the remainder of line 7 and the beginning of line 8:

»N[waxw ly]|a ynrqk «MØy»n[rq wC]warb wloyw. Again, this agrees quite well with the Ethiopic. One
difference is the repetition of the conditional particle in the Ethiopic (!"#), which is also
present in the Syriac (n)w). Again, the Syriac abbreviates: )LY)d )tNr8Q h$YrB oQ8SN
n)w ("and if the horns of a deer emerge on its head"). The apodosis on line 8 reads: hwja

]hkmo h|Coa za, which again confirms the Ethiopic. The equivalent for $"% is again lacking in
the Hebrew. However this time the Syriac agrees with the Ethiopic ()twX)), providing
definite support for the reading hwja.
The Hebrew does not clarify the identity of the horned animals as well as we might like. The
Ethiopic identifies them as a &'( ("ibex" or "mountain goat")9 and )*+, ("rams"). The Syriac
abbreviates, mentioning only one animal, )LY) ("stag").10 The Hebrew clearly has two animals,
with the first at the end of line 7 and the second at the beginning of line 8. The first letter of the

8

We noted in previous discussions that this addition offers an interesting parallel to M.W. 37.3,
which claims that Jacob spoke to Esau with “words of peace, friendship and brotherhood.”
9
Leslau, Concise Dictionary, 3. VanderKam translates this as “deer.”
10
R. Payne Smith, and Jessie Payne Smith Margoliouth, A Compendious Syriac Dictionary,
Founded upon the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith D.D. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press,
1903), 13.

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first animal appears to be an aleph and the final letter of the second animal seems to be a nun.
Based on the initial aleph and the versions, it seems likely that VanderKam and Milik's
reconstruction of lya is accurate. This word can be pointed as lˆyAa to mean a ram or as lÎ¥yAa to
mean a stag. The typical LXX translation for lˆyAa is krioß.11 The typical translation of lÎ¥yAa is
e¶lafoß. In the Ethiopic Bible e¶lafoß is translated as

!"#.12 This would seem to indicate that

the Greek translator of Jubilees read lya as lΥyAa ("deer"), which the Ethiopic translated as !"#.
The Syriac translator similarly reflects lΥyAa ()LY)). VanderKam and Milik's translation reads it
instead as lˆyAa ("ram"). Based on the evidence of the two versions, it might be best to read this as
"stag" rather than "ram." However, as we will see below, the horn of the ram is emphasized in
other second-century B.C.E Palestinian writings, making it likely that the ram is actually in view
here.
VanderKam and Milik reconstruct the second animal, for which we only have a final nun, as

Nwaxw ("flock"). This has support in the Ethiopic, where we find $%&, which is a common
translation of pro/baton, which in turn is a common translation of Nax.13
Unfortunately very little of the odd statement about breasts being separated is preserved in

|

the Hebrew. On line 8 we have only: ja htyh a»w[l. The Syriac omits it entirely. In our
translation we have translated from VanderKam's critical Ethiopic text. However, we noted in
our discussion above that there are other possible readings.
11

Gen 15:9; 22:13; 31:38; 32:15; Exod 25:5; 26:14; 29:1, 3, 15, 22; etc.
For example in: Deut 12:15, 22; 14:5; 15:22; Ps 17:36; 28:8; 41:1; 103:19; Job 39:1; Isa 34:15;
35:6.
12

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v. 21: The Hebrew for this verse is quite partial and difficult to read. It does, however, offer
us some very useful data. The wolf/lamb protases begin at the end of line 8 and run through to
the beginning of line 10. The first element in the first protasis reads: Mylf^h^ |M|o «MlC |M[ybaz^h^] wCoy

[Maw ("And if the wolves make peace with the lambs"). The Ethiopic closely reflects this,
although it has a singular lamb (!"#$) where the Hebrew has a plural (Mylf^). We learn here that
the Hebrew term behind !"#$ ("young kid, lamb, suckling") is Mylfh (the h is supralineal).
This is a rare term for "lamb" in the Hebrew Bible, occurring only in 1 Sam 7:9; Isa 40:11; and Isa
65:25. The second and third elements of the first protasis are two result clauses which are almost
entirely missing in the Hebrew: Mhl qxhw Mlkwa ytlb]|l. The Ethiopic here is fairly simple: %!

&'()$*+ ,%! &'-./0)*+ ("so that they do not eat them and so that they do not
injure them"). These are two brief verbal result clauses introduced by %!. The extant Hebrew
gives indication of a similar result clause(s) introduced by a lamed preposition. VanderKam and
Milik observe that there is enough space in the manuscript for both of the negative result clauses,
but that there is not space for a repetition of ytlbl.14
The second protasis reads: M[hylo byfyh]«l [Mhylo] Mbl Øyhyh»y[ Maw ("And if their heart will be
upon them to do good towards them").15 VanderKam and Milik explain the form Øyhyh»y as an
error in which the scribe "forgot he had written the initial hy and wrote the jussive yhy after it. He
seems to have marked the extra letter for erasure."16 Again, the Ethiopic mirrors the extant
13

For example: Gen 4:2; 27:9, Exod 10:24; 12:21; Lev 1:10.
VanderKam and Milik, “223-224. 4QpapJubh,” 123.
15
Cf. 2 Sam 15:13.
16
VanderKam and Milik, “223-224. 4QpapJubh,” 123.
14

200

Hebrew fairly well. The Ethiopic uses the plural "hearts" (!"#$%&) as opposed to the
singular in the Hebrew (Mbl), which is a fairly minor difference. The Hebrew also seems to
introduce a result clause with a lamed preposition (byfyh]«l), while VanderKam's text introduces
this verb with a conjunction ('!()*). VanderKam and Milik note that the form should be
corrected to reflect a + preposition rather than the conjunction. The Hebrew also may have read

M[hylo, which is lacking in the Ethiopic.
The apodosis is found on line 10 of the Hebrew: MwlC hkylo ]Øyblb hyhy za ("then there will
be in my heart peace towards you"). This is essentially identical to the Ethiopic, although the
Ethiopic uses an independent compound preposition (,-./) rather than a simple prepositional
prefix.
The Syriac again abbreviates the protasis: nwhL nw$)BN )Lw )r8M) m( )ML$
)B8)d nwdB(N n)w ("If wolves make peace with lambs and do not harm them"). It places

the apodosis at the end of the other conditional statements. This is interesting, since it
effectively turns the final three conditional statements into a single unit, thus separating them
from the opening statement about the pig. The Hebrew and the Ethiopic likewise isolate the pig
statement from the rest through the inclusion of the statement about the breast separation.

Ø

v. 22: The Hebrew is partially preserved in fragments 22 and 23. On line 10 we read: N[y]|m|amw

or rwC[l ("to the ox a friend and a trusted one"). One of the differences between the Hebrew
and the versions is in word order: in the Hebrew the ox is placed before the word for "friend."

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More significantly, the Hebrew includes "and a trusted one," which is lacking in both versions.17
Thus the lion will be both a friend and a trusted one (or confidant) to the ox. VanderKam and
Milik suggest that this fell out of the tradition due to a case of homoiarchton.18 The evidence for
the remainder of the verse is less certain. Line 11 has been read as: z]|a |d|j|a l»w|o «C|r|j[w ("And
plows one yoke") which has essentially the same meaning as the Ethiopic, except for some
difference in syntax and the specification of "one" yoke in the Hebrew. This is also present in
Ethiopic mss. 20, 25, 35, 38, 39, 42, 47, 48, and 58. According to VanderKam and Milik's
reconstruction there is not enough space for a Hebrew equivalent of !"#$ %&' ()*+ in the
Hebrew ms. This line is also missing in Ethiopic mss. 42 and 47. The Syriac again offers an
abbreviated protasis, with the apodosis pushed to the end of the final three conditional
statements: )rYN hM( dGN{w )rwtL )rBX )Yr) )whN n)w ("if the lion becomes
the friend of a bull and draws the yoke with it").

v. 23: The Hebrew for this verse runs from the middle of line 11 through the end of line 12.
On line 11 we find t]|aqk Mybrwoh, showing us the specific bird terms used in the original: ravens
and (most likely) pelicans (taq). This agrees with the Syriac ()Q8Q; although the Hebrew is
likely singular), but is contra Ethiopic "raza bird" (,-). Very little of the apodosis is preserved:

MwlC hkmo] |h|C[oaw hktwa y]|t[bha] yk od [za. What is present fits well with the Ethiopic text.
17

Concerning the reconstructed participle ØN[y]|m|amw, a hif'il participle of this verb only occurs in
two places in the Hebrew Bible: Deut 1:32 and Isa 28:16. It occurs at Qumran in a handful of
places, specifically: 1QS 4:3, 4Q200 f4:4, our passage, and 4Q424 f3:1.

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Again, the Syriac abbreviates, omitting the first part of the apodosis but finally offering the
apodosis for the last three conditional statements: )ML$ kM( dB() oYdYh ("Then I will
make peace with you"). Esau follows his conditional statements with a curse against Jacob and
his sons: .MwlC |h[kl N]»yaw hkynb Myt|r[knw hta trkh ("You be cut off and your sons be cut off,
there is no peace for you"). This again parallels the Ethiopic well. The presence of Myt|r[knw
confirms, as we might expect, that the Hebrew verb ultimately behind !"# is the nif’al form of

trk. This line is absent from the Syriac.
A few words should be said about the identity of the taq, which we are translating as
"pelican." The animal makes several appearances in the Hebrew Bible, but the meaning of
the term is disputed. It appears in the lists of unclean birds in both Leviticus (11:18) and
Deuteronomy (14:17), as one of the creatures that will inhabit desolate Edom (Ps 102:6)
and Nineveh (Zeph 2:14), and finally the afflicted Psalmist compares himself/herself to a
rD;b!dIm tAaVq (Ps 102:7). The confusion over the identity of this creature can be seen in the
versions, where we often see different renderings of the term in the various passages. The
Greek translators, for instance, chose peleka/n (Lev 11:18; Deut 14:17; Ps 101:7;
Aqila/Symmachus/Theodotion Isa 34:11; and Aqila Zeph 2:14), o¡rneon (Isa 34:11),
camaile÷wn (Zeph 2:14), and ku÷knoß (Theodotion Zeph 2:14).19
Translations by commentators have included options such as: "scops owl,"20 "jackdaw,"21
"pelican,"22 "tawny owl,"23 and "Saharan owl."24 The primary motivation for maintaining

18

VanderKam and Milik, “223-224. 4QpapJubh,” 124.
The major English translations have for the most part continued this inconsistency:
KJV: “pelican” (Lev 11:18, Deut 14:17, and Ps 102:6) and “cormorant” (Isa 34:11 and Zeph
2:14). RSV: “pelican” (Lev 11:18 and Deut 14:17), “hawk” (Isa 34:11), and “vulture” (Zeph 2:14
and Ps 102:6). ESV: “tawny owl” (Lev 11:18 and Deut 14:17), “hawk” (Isaiah 34:11), “owl”
(Zeph 2:14), and “desert owl of the wilderness” (Ps 102:6). NIV: “desert owl” (all occurrences).
20
Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New
York: Doubleday, 1991), 663; John W. Kleinig, Leviticus (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House,
2003),245.
19

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the translation "pelican" seems to be the evidence of the versions, which tend towards
identifying the bird this way. The primary motivation for the alternative suggestions is
the context of the passages which imagine the bird as an inhabitant of the wilderness or
desolate cities like Nineveh. Commentators and translators have reasoned that such
settings would be unsuitable for the pelican.25 There are two difficulties with this
objection to the translation "pelican." First, we should not necessarily expect exact
zoological precision from an Israelite prophet, especially for a foreign city like Nineveh.
The taq may have been included with traditional lists of animals representing desolation,
with its status as a carnivore and carrion eater (both traits of the pelican) being the
primary reason for its inclusion. Such traditional lists might then be applied even to
locales where the individual species would not be present. Second, we should not dismiss
the possibility of the pelican dwelling in places like Nineveh, which is in fact near rivers.
Those who would identify the taq as some kind of owl face further difficulties in light of
our passage, which clearly portrays it as a white creature. Very few owls are
predominantly white, and a survey of the distribution of contemporary owl species
shows that the owls inhabiting Palestine and the Middle East in general tend, like most
owls, to be brownish. Indeed, the translators and commentators have sometimes opted
for "tawny owl." Most species of the pelican, on the other hand, are white. The fact that
they appear together with the raven in several passages (Lev 11:15, Deut 14:14, and Isa
34:11) and that they are white probably led our author to pair them with the raven.
v. 24: Only two brief portions of this verse have been preserved in the Hebrew: qjdmw a|b[w

]»wgrwhl[ on line 13 and wnmm[ on line 14. The only thing that is of interest in the Hebrew is the
reading qjdmw which gives us an idea of the verb that ultimately lays behind !"#$%&. The Syriac

21

Adele Berlin, Zephaniah: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York:
Doubleday, 1995), 115; Frank Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 3: A Commentary on
Psalms 101-150 (trans. Linda M. Maloney; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011), 18.
22
Marvin A. Sweeney, Zephaniah: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 149.
23
Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 162.
24
Baruch Levine, Leviticus (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 68.
25
“. . . there have been difficulties in explaining why a bird normally associated with water
should appear at the site of Nineveh, which is inland along the Euphrates river.” Sweeney,
Zephaniah, 153. Cf. J.J.M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (Louisville, KY:
Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991), 193.

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reads hL+QNd yhwL( wSY( )t]) htY(rt h[LKBw hBL hLKBd

bwQ(Y

)zX} dKw ("And when Jacob saw that with all his heart and all his mind Esau came against him in

order to kill him . . ."), omitting any reference to Esau as a wild boar. One interesting thing to note
about the Ethiopic text is its use of !"#$ for "boar." This is different than the term used for
swine in v. 20 (%&'(). Unfortunately, the reference to the boar only survives in the Ethiopic.
The use of two different terms for swine raises the question of whether or not the original
Hebrew likewise used two different terms. VanderKam and Milik’s reconstruction of the verse
answers this negatively, suggesting ryzjk ("like a pig"). It seems clear from the hunting context,
however, that what is in view is not a domestic swine, but a feral pig or wild boar. The one
instance in the Hebrew Bible where a wild swine is clearly envisaged is Ps 80:13, where the
phrase roym ryzj ("pig from the forest") is used. This phrase was treated differently by both the
LXX and the Ethiopic translations, with the LXX opting for suvß as opposed to its more typical
u!ß or u¢eioß. The Ethiopic opted for %)'(

%*+. In his discussion of similar questions in the

Animal Apocalypse Bryan notes that the Mishnah uses different language for the wild and the
domestic pig (m. H!ul. 9.2) and conjectures that the Aramaic Vorlage for 1 En. 89:10 read rbh

Nyryzj for "wild boars" and simply Nyryzj for domestic swine, which have been rendered in the
Ethiopic text as %&'( ,-. and /012 respectively.26 Did a phrase like roym ryzj or rbh ryzj
exist in 37:24 of Hebrew Jubilees, thus giving rise to the use of two different swine terms in the
Ethiopic translation? It is certainly possible that this was the case in some manuscripts, but

26

David Bryan, Cosmos, Chaos and the Kosher Mentality (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1995), 16.

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based on the spacing in the Hebrew fragment we do have, it seems best to read ryzjk and to
understand the choice of !"#$ as an attempt by the Ethiopic translator to distinguish this wild
boar from the domestic pig mentioned earlier. It is possible that such a distinction was already
made in the Greek translation of Jubilees.27 The word choice in the Ethiopic is still somewhat
puzzling when we look at 1 En. 89:10, where we find the phrase %&'( )*+. We are left
wondering why the Ethiopic translators of Jubilees did not use the same phrase in v. 24.

v. 25: The end of line 14 of the Hebrew reads: wynbl rm«a[ z]|a. It agrees with the Syriac in its
reading of "to his sons" against the Ethiopic's more generic "to his followers." The Syriac again
abbreviates: yhwL( nwQPNd yhwN*BL bwQ(Y rM]) oYdYh ("then Jacob told his sons to
attack him.")

27

See Il. 5.783 for a distinction between wild and domestic swine.