Fairy Tale Spotlight: Jubilees [Book Review]

This was a very, very long book. It actually kind of wore me out a little. But anyways, I finally made it to the end and can write this review. Whew.

"Jubilees" is a book found within the "Apocrypha." It's author is unknown. It is a different perspective on the book of "Genesis," providing a better look at what happened from the creation of the universe up to the point at which Moses met with God on Mount Sinai. Everything is very carefully dated, which is very cool.

The story itself actually is presented as a story told by God to Moses on his first visit to Mount Sinai. This is where he is told to write the famous beginning books of the Bible and is told the story of all the things that has happened up to that point. The narration of "Jubilees" is actually God talking to Moses, so whenever you see the pronoun "you," it actually refers to Moses.

Because this book is a closer look at the story of "Genesis," there were very particular things in it that I noted down that were a bit clearer than they were in the original book. I'm just going to list them all out and then call it a day. Here we go:

1. In the Garden of Eden, animals could talk. They had that ability taken away after Adam and Eve was cast out. I thought this was pretty awesome because this ability is probably going to be restored in the new Heaven and Earth. I personally want to talk to the otters.

2. The book and story of Enoch was acknowledged heavily in "Jubilees."

3. The reason Adam lived to nearly 1000 years was because God keeps records as one day being 1000 years. And since Adam was to die in the same day he ate of the fruit, he did not make it past 1000 years, which is a day in God's record-keeping.

4. The reason man's days were clipped down to 120 years was because God's spirit no longer abided on him. After the flood, the days still went over 120, but gradually they became less and less until nobody could breach the 120 limit.

5. God did not really like any of Noah's family. The only reason his sons were allowed on the ark was for Noah's sake. His wife was simply a necessity to keep the humans from going extinct.

6. All people, be it human, demon, or angel will be judged in all places, be it Heaven, Earth, or Sheol. Everybody will be judged. Period. You can't escape from it no matter what happens. If you die before you get a chance to be judged, you will still be judged. If you are not human, such as an angel or a demon, you will still be judged. This opens the possibility that a demon can be judged as righteous. Simply being a certain thing has nothing to do with an automatic punishment.

7. Although it was not as clear in the book of "Enoch," "Jubilees" does suggest that the evil angels were also having sex with animals, causing strange animal hybrids to be formed by it. This could be the origin of satyrs and/or the cynocephali (dog-headed men of legend).

8. There is a "nerd rant" from God to Moses about that people need to always follow the 364-day calendar that had been explained to Enoch, otherwise none of the special days, such as the Sabbath, will be on the correct days. He is extremely passionate about this and profoundly goes off on Moses about his frustrations about it.

9. Apparently Abram was quite the innovator when it came to farming techniques.

10. After the Flood, Kainan found some stone writings from the evil Watchers that he kept to himself and probably used to bring back demons and such from the pre-flood era. Yeah, it makes you wonder why God even bothered with the Flood if people were going to go back to their evil ways so quickly.

11. "Jubilees" claims that the original language was what we now call Hebrew. Don't dismiss that too quickly. There are reasons this could be true, but I honestly don't know for sure either way. It is entirely possible.

12. Some entity called Mastema challenged that Abram was not as loyal as he seemed which led God to call for Abram to sacrifice his son. This is similar to what happened in Job with Satan. Mastema is mentioned a lot in "Jubilees" as some sort of evil influencer. The term Satan is also mentioned a lot. It's possible that they are just two words for the same thing, but it's hard to say.

13. Lot was disliked by God. The only reason God saved him at all was for Abraham's sake. It also claims that Lot had an incestuous relationship with his daughters willingly rather than it being forced on him. His wife is never mentioned in the book. It makes you wonder why Lot was moving to Sodom and Gomorrah in the first place. The place had a terrible reputation and was well known at the time. Why did he go there?

14. Sinning in ignorance is still a sin and needs to be dealt with. This is a difficult one because it doesn't seem fair, but that latter point is why it may be true. Honestly, I don't like fairness. I think we need to just be adults and accept certain unknowns and deal with them the best that we can. At the end of all things, we'll be judged for our ability to be humble and to repent. I'm not really interested in a safety net. So if this is true, I'm rather okay with it.

15. The birth of the twelve tribes of Israel was ridiculous. It was Jacob having sex with a bunch of women. The whole chapter sounded like an orgy.

16. The gangrape of 12-year-old Dinah was compared to the child sacrifice to Moloch. I already suspected that pedophilia was akin to child sacrifice, and I do agree with "Jubilees" on this point. If you have sex with a child, it is near the same as if you killed them.

17. Remember the Book of Life? According to "Jubilees," there is a second book that includes all the names of the unrighteous and damned. God has a nice and naughty list.

18. Confirmed. Er and Onan pulled out. There was a tiny, little porn scene about it. God killed them because they merely used her for pleasure.

19. Things got real bad in Egypt after Joseph died. Egypt went to war with Canaan and lost. Once they pulled back, they began to persecute the Jews who were originally happy citizens of Egypt. This is what ultimately lead to the Moses story.

20. This was interesting. "Jubilees" claims that the reason that the Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea was because they had done the selfsame thing to all the Jewish children some years earlier. Poetic justice!

Whelp! Those are all the major notes that I took. It was a long road, and I thought it would never end. I can't really confirm if this book is true, but it is a good read. If you were ever interested in getting a closer look at "Genesis" then I do recommend "Jubilees" to you. It's 50 chapters of very straightforward exposition, and then it closes up right before Moses heads down and sees that damnable golden calf. If that is something you want to read, then go for it.

As for me, I'm just eagerly awaiting those otters. ♥

This blog was written on July 15, 2022.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. Also stop by my Amazon.com listing by clicking this link: https://www.amazon.com/T.K.-Wade/e/B07BQK9RTZ

Check out my books! Thanks!