Abraham and the Burning of the Temple of Idols: Jubilees' Traditions in Christian

Chronography
Author(s): William Adler
Source: The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 77, No. 2/3 (Oct., 1986 - Jan., 1987),
pp. 95-117
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1454470
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THEJEWISHQUARTERLY LXXVII, Nos. 2-3 (October, 1986-January, 1987) 95-117
REVIEW,

ABRAHAM AND THE BURNING OF

THE TEMPLE OF IDOLS: JUBILEES' TRADITIONS
IN CHRISTIAN CHRONOGRAPHY

By WILLIAM ADLER

North Carolina State University

In the proemium to his XDvoXt; 'ITloptiv, the Byzantine uni-

versal chronicler George Cedrenus specifically identifies the "Little
Genesis" as one of the works that he has consulted directly.1 No
one need take seriously his implication that he had access to a
complete copy of the work. At best, he might have known some
highly epitomized version of it, compiled from various sources.
But his acknowledgment of Jubilees points to the work's great
prestige among the Byzantine and Syriac chronographers. In
spite of occasional warnings and prohibitions against it, these
chronographers quote more extensively from Jubilees than from
any of the other Jewish pseudepigrapha of the Second Temple
period.2
One of the most frequently cited episodes from Jubilees in the
chronographers is the legend recounted in Jub. 12 of Abraham's
destruction of the temple of idols in Ur and his escape to Haran.
There are in all four witnesses in the Byzantine chronographers to
the episode of Abraham in the temple and the events leading up
to it. All of these witnesses present forms of the legend that
deviate to varying degrees from the account found in the Ethiopic
text of Jubilees. Syriac chronographers, as will be seen below,
also have their own distinctive version of this same legend. In this
paper we hope to reconstruct the development of the tradition in

'
Ced. 6.2-4 (ed. I. Bekker [CSHB 21], Bonn, 1838).
2
For warnings against this work see John Zonaras 1.18.4-10 (ed. M. Pinder
[CSHB 50]; Bonn, 1841); Sync. 4.22 (ed. A. Mosshammer; Leipzig, 1984); Michael
Glycas 392.18-393.3 (ed. I. Bekker [CSHB 26]; Bonn, 1836). Partial collections of
citations from Jubilees in the chronographers can be found in H. Ronsch, Das
Buch der Jubilien (Leipzig, 1874), pp. 278-322; A. Denis (ed.) Fragmenta pseude-
pigraphorum quae supersunt graece (PVTG 3; Leiden, 1970), pp. 70-114.
96 THE JEWISH QUARTERLYREVIEW

Byzantine chronography, offering as well a few observations

about the relationship of this tradition to its Syriac counterpart.
For purposes of discussion we furnish here the four Greek
versions of the legend. These are found in the Logothete chronog-
raphers, in George Syncellus (9th century), George Cedrenus, and
George the Monk3:

a) The Logothete chronographers (LG 19.9-20.15; cf. Cramer

2:253.17-254.9; TM 21.6-31; JP 84.1-86.10) preserve the follow-
ing account of Abraham's conversion and his destruction of the
temple of idols in Ur. The narrative is a digest of material from
Jub. 11-13:

Terah fathered Haran and Nachor besides. And Abraham

receives from his father Sarah as a wife. When people every-
where were sick with the deceit of (LG nicpi; TM, JP ?ni1)
idols, he (Abraham) alone recognized the true God. And Haran
took a wife and obtained a son Lot and a daughter Melcha.
Nachor takes her as a wife. When he was 60 years of age,
Abraham, when he saw that he was not persuading his father
and the others in his family to turn away from superstition for
idols, escaped secretly by night having burned (TM titnpijoaq;
JP tp7cupioa;; LG CnpijpoGat)the house of idols. Now as these
idols are being destroyed (LG au&rv &vac00oOvTcov;TM a6cdTv
avako[tovov; JP acTCov&avakouttvco)v), his brothers, compre-
hending this (niptvocwavTvgc),jump to their feet, hoping to
pull the idols from the midst of the fire. But Haran, committing
himself more zealously to the task (LG 7rpozcy6y,aTcl; TM, JP

3 For editions of Cedrenus and Syncellus, see above, notes 2 and 3. One of the
two chronicles preserved in the unpublished Paris ms. 1712 also has the same
version as Cedrenus. Edition of George the Monk, by C. de Boor (Leipzig, 1904).
The Logothete chronographers include a) Leo the Grammarian (ed. I. Bekker
[CSHB 36]; Bonn, 1842); earlier edition in J. A. Cramer, Anecdota graeca
(Oxford, 1839) 2:243-381 (hereafter LG); b) Theodosius Melitenus (TM) (ed.
L. Tafel [Monumenta saecularia. Koniglich Bayerische Akademie der Wissen-
schaften zur Feier ihres hundertjahrigen Bestehens, 3.1; Munich, 1859); and
c) Julius Pollux (JP) (ed. I. Hardt; Munich, Leipzig, 1792). The term "Logothete"
comes from the superscription to a fragment of a chronicle, also found in Paris
ms. 1712, which appears to belong to the same family of chronographers. For
discussion see Heinrich Gelzer, Sextus Julius Africanus und die byzantinische
Chronographie (Leipzig, 1885-88) 1:57, 2:281 (hereafter SJA).
 JUBILEES'TRADITIONS-ADLER 97

tpacyLaTt), is killed in the midst of the fire. And after his

father, who lived near (LG ?yyib Xv; TM, JP ?v) the city of
Ur, buried him, he emigrates, leading out his whole household
(navTaq &ato(pp6oiCvoS TOVgoiKEioUv) to Haran in Mesopo-
tamia. After residing there with his father for 15 years, Abra-
ham one night stops to consider the character (TM, JP Tiiv
rcot6oTra; LG PTv m6oriTa) of the succession of the seasons
from the movement of the stars. For his father's training in all
such knowledge was not trivial. And then, after he had learned
to distinguish each of the things he had inquired into, he
realizes that all curiosity of this type was superfluous, and that
God, if He were to desire it, would change according to His
own will what had been predicted. And after he had foresworn
with his whole heart and in all earnestness all these things and
things like this, and after he had furnished complete proof of
his piety towards the divine, he hears from God, "Go out from
your land, and from the house of your father." And going out
together with his wife Sarah and his nephew Lot, he migrates
to the portion of land assigned to his forefather Arphaxad,
which the Canaanites possessed and called Canaan; he was 75
years of age.

b) George Syncellus (111.6-17; cf. also Michael Glycas, Annales

2:246.7-9) reports in tandem a collection of isolated traditions
about Abraham, culled from Jubilees 11-13 and Josephus' Antiq-
uities. Included among them is the story of Abraham in the
temple of idols:

Little Genesis says that the grandfather of Abraham on his

mother's side was called Abraam, but his sister Sarah was of
the same father as Abraham (cf. Jub. 11:14, 12:9).
AbrahamfirstproclaimedGod as the creatorof the universe(TIpcoTOg
'Ap3pactL brltoupyOv TOvTCOv 6o4ov OeOvaVE?KrpvUE;cf. Jos.
v
Ant. 1.155: TrpoTzoouv To4Lsba tnopV ivaoQat 8rjLtioupy6v
TOvOXov Eva).
Abraham first surrounded the altar with branches of date
palms and olives (cf. Jub. 16:31).
At the time of Abraham an angel is first named in divine
Scripture. From him the Egyptians first learned the placement
98 THE JEWISH QUARTERLYREVIEW

and movement of the stars and knowledge of arithmetic (cf.

Jos. Ant. 1.167).
In his 14th year Abraham discovered the God of the universe,
and worshipped Him. And having destroyed the idols of his
father, he burned them along with their house, and Haran was
consumed along with them when he was eager to worship the
fire. He advised his father to turn away from idolatry and the
making of idols, as Josephus says (cf. Jub. 11:16-17).
After a brief interlude dealing with Melchizedek (111.18-26), Syn-
cellus furnishes a few additional references from Jubilees concern-
ing the same events (112.1-12):
The angel speaking to Moses said to him: "I have taught
Abraham the Hebrew tongue according to the way that the
fathers spoke it from the beginning of creation, as it is reported
in Little Genesis (cf. Jub. 12:25-27).
In the 3373rd year of the world, the 61st year of Abraham,
Abraham burned the idols of his father, and Haran, desiring
to worship the fire at night, was consumed along with them.
And Terah went out with Abraham in order to go to the land
of Canaan. But he changed his mind in Haran, being obsessed
with idols up to his death. In the 3387th year of the world,
which was the 75th year of Abraham, he (Abraham) departed
from Haran by a divine oracle ... (cf. Jub. 12:12-15).

c) George Cedrenus (47.19-49.8, ed. Bekker = Paris ms. 1712

30v.):
Terah fathered Haran and Nachor besides. And Abraham
receives from his father Sarah as a wife. When people every-
where were sick with the deceit of idols, he (Abraham) alone
recognized the true God. And he was the first to surround the
altar with date palms and olive trees. And at his time an angel
is first named in holy Scripture. And from him the Egyptians
learned the placement and creation of the stars and the knowl-
edge of arithmetic. (That) in the 24th year (K6' icEI) of his
youth Abraham discovered the God of the universe and wor-
shiped Him. And an angel of the Lord taught him the Hebrew
tongue, just as this very angel spoke to Moses, as it is reported
in the Little Genesis ... When he was already 60 years of age,
 JUBILEES'TRADITIONS ADLER 99

Abraham, when he saw that he was not persuading his father

and the others in his family to turn from superstition for idols,
slips out secretly by night, having burned the house of idols.
Now as these idols were being destroyed, his brothers, com-
prehending this, jump to their feet, hoping to pull the idols
from the midst of the fire. But Haran, committing himself
more zealously to the task, is killed in the midst of the fire.
And his father, a maker of idols in Ur, buries him, and rises up
and comes to the city of Haran in Mesopotamia. After residing
there with his father for 15 years, Abraham one night stops to
consider the character of the succession of the seasons from
the movement of the stars. For his father's training in all such
knowledge was not trivial. And then, after he had learned to
distinguish each of the things he had inquired into, he realizes
that all curiosity of this type is superfluous; and that God, if
He were to desire it, would change according to His own will
what had been predicted. And when he had foresworn all these
things, and things like this, with his whole heart and in all
earnestness, and furnished complete proof of his piety toward
the divine, he hears from God, "Go out from your land, and
from the house of your father." And going out together with
his wife Sarah and his nephew Lot, he migrated to the portion
of land assigned to his forefather Arphaxad, which the Canaan-
ites possessed and called Canaan; he was 75 years of age. This
was the 3387th year of the world.

d) George the Monk (92.18-94.21):

When he was 70 years of age, Terah fathered Abraham and

Nachor and Haran the father of Lot, who also died before
his father Terah, and after this Terah lived 135 years and he
died having lived 205 years in all. And he was a sculptor,
molding and selling gods from stone and wood (i?v 65 Kcaio6To;
&yaTkaoWoto S6 ao
t ki OO)VKai iUX(ov0COg TcKaocoupyo6v Kai
IrutpaoKcov). But the period up to him in the 20th generation
encompasses 3332 years, and never in the previous generations
of men did it appear that a son died before his father, but
rather the fathers died before the sons, leaving them as succes-
sors to their affairs. And let this not be said of Abel, for he did
not die on his own, but by a violent death. At that time Terah
100 THE JEWISH QUARTERLYREVIEW

acted in rivalry with God because, through his own making of

statues, he fashioned idols ... and he was imitated by his own
children. For Haran died in the fire in which Abraham burned
the idols of his father when Haran went in to rescue them (?v
TO) ?iuptipcGp 'j ?Vivsptosv 'A3ppactg [KrcaUat]T6t s'Soka
TOOraTpp6ca5coD fv TO dioseXOsiv'Apav ?4c?6Oc0at acTa).
Therefore divine Scripture, wondering at this, says: Haran
died before (Fv(0itov) Terah his father. For Abraham being 14
years of age, and at that time deemed worthy of divine knowl-
edge (6 yap 'AppaaH itapptpv ?TCOvt6' Kai TOT60soyv0ocyia
i
&atioC00) vouVO0Tt), admonished his father: "Why do you
cause mankind to stray because of a pernicious greed? There
is no other God except the One in the heavens, who even
made the whole universe." In this way he is reported to have
been considered worthy of divine knowledge .. . (and) he went
around each day laboring hard, and with a heart that loved
God sought out the God who really exists. And in this way,
seeing the heaven at one time shining, at another time dark-
ened, he said to himself: This is not a god. Similarly seeing the
sun and the moon, the one often being hidden and becoming
dark, the other waning and falling, he said: Nor are these gods.
But inquiring closely into the course and movement of the
stars (for he was an astronomer extremely well trained by his
father) and not finding the Creator either through these or
through some other phenomena, he became extremely down-
cast and despairing. Having seen his desire and enthusiasm,
the Creator .. appeared to him and urged him to make the
journey to the land of promise, saying: "Go forth from your
land and your kin and from the house of your father, and go
forth to the land which I will show to you." And immediately
taking the idols of his father, and having broken some and
burning others, went out from the land of the Chaldeans with
his father. And when he had gone forth to Haran his father
died.
The Development of the Tradition
It is relatively easy to reconstruct the transmission of this
legend in the Byzantine chronographers. Of the four versions
presented above, George Mon. and George Ced. have the more
 JUBILEES'TRADITIONS-ADLER 101

conflated and derivative forms of the episode. George Mon.'s

preliminary discussion of Terah and the death of Haran before
his father is based ad verbum on Epiphanius' Panarion 3.6.4
According to Epiphanius, Haran was the first biblical patriarch
to die before his father. Apparently George has included the
Jubilees story of Abraham's burning of the temple idols in
order to explain how it came about that Haran died prema-
turely. George has also emended the chronology according to
Epiphanius' notice. Epiphanius' reckoning to 3332 years from
Adam to Abraham is derived from the 3rd century chronicle of
Julius Africanus, who assigned 3202 years to the period from
Adam to Abraham. But since he did not include the post-diluvian
Qainan in his calculations, Epiphanius, and following him George
the Monk, have simply counted in the 130 years that Africanus
had left out. As will be seen below, the Logothete chronogra-
phers' dating of this event ab Adam preserves an unemended
form of the chronology of Africanus.
George Mon.'s report of Abraham's rebuke to his father for
trafficking in idols and his subsequent destruction of them is also
conflated. Here he combines Jub. 12:1-13 with a related tradition
attested in John Malalas, the latter incorrectly attributing the
story to Eusebius (Malalas, 57.1-9; cf. also Cramer 2: 240.12-19):
And Abraham attained knowledge of God, and determined
that the statues which his father Terah was making were of
mortal humans, and that it was not necessary to worship them
as gods in heaven, since they were of earth and dust. And he
criticized his own father Terah, saying, "Why do you lead
astray men because of greed? There is no other God, except
for the One who is in heaven, who created all things visible.
And he took all the statues and broke them, and he departed
from him and went out to Mesopotamia, as Eusebius "son" of
Pamphilus, the wise chronographer, has recounted.
Unlike the Jubilees version, Malalas reports that Abraham de-
stroyed the idols by smashing them. This is a tradition that
appears to have developed independently of the story found in

4 Ed. K. Holl (GCS 25; Leipzig, 1915), p. 178.

102 THE JEWISH QUARTERLYREVIEW

Jub. 12.5 George Mon. has simply fused the two traditions;
Abraham, he says, "broke some idols and burned others." Finally,
the chronicler's ordering of events does not follow the sequence
found in the other chronographers who recount this episode on
the basis of Jubilees. Jub. 12:1-8 says that Abraham did not
admonish Terah for his idolatry until some 14 years after his
experience of God at age 14. In the above account his rebuking of
Terah begins immediately after his encounter with God at age 14.
In addition, according to Jub. 12:16-31, Abraham's stargazing
and the call by God to migrate to Canaan take place after he
had sojourned in Haran. George Mon. has set this whole episode
in Ur.6
Cedrenus also furnishes a conflated and largely derivative ver-
sion of events. Like the account in the Logothetes, his narrative
follows on the heels of Serug's introduction of idolatry. Most of
this passage parallels the account of Abraham's conversion found
in the Logothetes. It is not, however, strictly a digest of them. In
the first place Cedrenus has emended the date of Abraham's
migration to Canaan. Whereas the Logothetes date this event in
A.M. 3277, Cedrenus, following Syncellus (cf. Sync. 105.14), has
emended it to A.M. 3387. Similarly, Cedrenus has woven into the
narrative a collection of testimonia about the "firsts"of Abraham,
a more expanded collection of which is found in Syncellus and
was gleaned mainly from Jubilees and Josephus' Antiquities.7
As in many other cases, what Cedrenus has done is sew together
two independent witnesses to Jubilees.8 From this we must as-

5 For other witnesses to the tradition that Abraham smashed the idols in Ur,
see Philaster, On the heresies 147.2 (CC Series Latina 9): "Abraham beatissimus
frangens idola iustificatus est"; Gen. Rabbah 38.7. For discussion see Louis
Ginzberg, Die Haggada bei den Kirchenviitern und in der apokryphischen Lit-
teratur (Berlin, 1900), p. 95.
6 The account recorded in Suidas (s.v. 'Appaccu) also gives a sequence of

events virtually identical to George the Monk's.

7 The reference in Cedrenus to Abraham's
knowledge of God at age 14 refers to
Jub. 11:16-17, at which age Abraham "separated himself from his father so that
he might not worship idols with him. And he began to pray to the Creator of all
things that He might save him from the errors of the children of men." Nothing
about Abraham's burning of the temple of idols survives in Josephus' Antiquities,
a lapse which may be due to the juxtaposition of material from both sources.
8 For other
examples in Cedrenus of conflation of Syncellus and the Logothetes
see, for example, Ced. 27.11-15 (on the Jub. 8 story of the stelae discovered after
 JUBILEES'TRADITIONS ADLER 103

sume that the Logothetes and Syncellus have earlier and less
corrupt forms of the legend. The difference between their respec-
tive accounts strongly suggests that they originated in independent
sources.
Although the Logothete chronographers do not identify the
origin of this legend as Jubilees, there is no reason to assume that
they knew it from any source other than a Greek text of that
work. This family of chronographers elsewhere explicitly identifies
Aencri rFveotq as a source.9 If they are inconsistent in identify-
ing the work by name (sometimes using a shorthand expression
like "Moses says,"'? at other times leaving a tradition unattested),
it is because the Logothete chronographers are chronological
epitomes, often abbreviating, paraphrasing, or omitting material
from earlier chronicles. The chronicler from whom they have
epitomized in this case is Julius Africanus (3rd century C.E.). As
Gelzer was able to demonstrate years ago, the Logothete chronog-
raphers are one of the best witnesses for this lost work." Traces
of Africanus are unmistakable in this account as well. In the
chronological summary that is affixed to this episode, there is the
following notice: "Altogether these are the years up to the migra-
tion of Abraham. The division of the world occurred in the
beginning of the days of Peleg. From the division of the earth
there are 1006 years; from the flood 1015 years; from Adam 3277
years." This is a precise synopsis of Africanus' chronology, reck-
oned according to his era ab Adam. We know from other sources
that Africanus counted 2262 years from Adam to the flood
(3277-1015 = 2262). And Syncellus reports that in his chron-
icle Africanus reckoned that in the 3277th year of the world
"Abraham went up to the promised land of Canaan."'2

the flood); this combines the two independent notices, the one found in Sync.
90.11-12, the other in Leo 12.8-14; see below, p. 116, n. 52.
9 Cf. Theod. Mel.
2.3; Leo 5.14-15 (= Theod. Mel. 11.15-16).
'0 Cf. Leo 8.21-22 (on the death of Cain).
" SJA, 2: 293-94. On the Greek text of Jubilees preserved in the Logothete
chronographers see also J. T. Milik, Recherches sur la version grecque du Livre
des.Jubiles, RB 78 (1971): 545-57, especially 546.
2
Sync. 105.4-5. Syncellus himself rejects this reckoning out of hand (6oicp
a6vvactov 1tCpUKE).It will be noted also that Cedrenus, independently of the
Logothete chronographers, appends to his account of Abraham's destruction of
the temple a notice about the derivation of the name "Hebrew," which, as Gelzer
104 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

If we turn now to the actual chronology of events represented

in the Logothetes, we see that it is chronologically more consistent
than the one presented in the Ethiopic text. According to Leo,
Abraham burned the temple at age 60 and spent 15 years in
Haran, departing for Canaan when he was 75. The Ethiopic text,
on the other hand, states that Abraham was 77 years of age.13
Although the Logothetes' text of Jubilees evidences many other
variants from the Ethiopic text, it is impossible to say here
whether Leo's sequence of the events after the burning of the
temple is a correction by Africanus of the chronology of Jubilees,
or simply reflects an earlier stage in the history of the transmission
of that work.14
* * *

This leaves Syncellus' account of the affair in the temple.

Entirely independent of the account found in the Logothetes, it
represents the most creative use of Jub. 12. Syncellus alone refers
to the story for the practical purpose of resolving a well known
chronological problem in Genesis, namely Terah's age when he
15
died.
In Jewish and Christian exegesis of Genesis a perennial problem
in chronology had to do with an apparent contradiction in Gene-
sis' ordering of events after Abraham and Terah departed from
Ur to Haran. By placing the death of Terah (Gen. 11:32) before
the migration of Abraham to Canaan (Gen. 12:lff.), Genesis
appeared to imply that his death preceded Abraham's migration.
But this raised a chronological inconsistency. If Terah was 70
years old when Abraham was born (cf. Gen. 11:26), and if Abra-
ham left Haran at age 75, Terah could have been no older than

saw, owes its origins to Africanus' chronicle. For discussion see Gelzer, SJA 2:
291-92.
13 See below, pp. 110-12.
14 The
Ethiopic text of Jubilees contains many chronological inconsistencies;
see E. Wiesenberg, "The Jubilee of Jubilees," RQ 3 (1961-62): 3-40, especially
32ff. For a discussion of the textual value of the Jubilees citations in the Logothete
chronographers see Milik, "Recherches sur la version grecque," pp. 549-56;
Gelzer, SJA 2: 280-94. For an in-depth discussion of the textual history of
Jubilees see James C. VanderKam, Textual and Historical Studies in the Book of
Jubilees (HSM 14) (Missoula, 1977), pp. 1-95.
15 Sync. 105.6-108.11.
 JUBILEES'TRADITIONS-ADLER 105

145 when Abraham departed; Genesis, however, recorded his age

as 205. The problem took on a special urgency for Christian
exegetes, because Stephen's speech in Acts 7:4 states explicitly
that "after his father died, God removed him from there into this
land in which you are now living."16
After rejecting other proposed solutions Syncellus maintains
that if Moses placed the death of Terah before Abraham's depar-
ture, it was not to imply that Terah had physically died before
it.17 In the first place, he says, Scripture regularly transposes
(i)c?pa[3ctKit)qkyouL)a) the order of events, e.g., the sequence of
Noah's blessing of his sons and the naming of the city of Babylon
before its actual foundation.'8 The reason why Moses placed the
death of Terah before Abraham's departurefrom Haran should be
clear, he says, to anyone who wants to investigate the ypa(ptKcv
vouv of the passage. The probable explanation is that Terah died a
"spiritual death (WultKO6vOvaTov)" after Abraham's departure.19
Moses, Syncellus says, intimates this when he reports that
Terah, with the rest of his family, left Ur of the Chaldees. His
departure implied that while still living in Ur, Terah had received
a call from God. Proof that Terah himself had originally resolved
to go with Abraham to the land of Canaan is suggested in Gen.
11:31, where it is stated that "Terah took Abraham and Nachor
and Lot and Sarah and led them out from the region of the

16
Interpreters identified a whole range of related problems in the Genesis
narrative. One problem was that if Terah was not dead when Abraham departed
for Canaan, Abraham's abandoning his father while the latter was still alive
implied irreverence (see below, pp. 106-07). For Christian interpreters Stephen's
speech cast the sequence of events into further doubt by referring to a first call,
when Abram was still in Mesopotamia but not yet in Haran (cf. Acts 7:2). The
LXX at these verses contributed to the uncertainty by saying that "the days of
Terah in the land of the Haran (sv yf Xappav) were 205 years." Some LXX mss.
were event more explicit by prefixing to this verse cr6oat;this raised an obvious
problem, since Terah clearly had spent some of his years in Ur.
17 Syncellus rejects here the opinion of certain chroniclers who had suggested
that the expression "Terah begat Abraham, Nachor, and Haran" when he was 70
years of age did not mean that he fathered them all at once. Instead, it refers only
to the time when Terah began to produce offspring, Abraham being last in order.
The same explanation is found in Augustine's Questions on the Heptateuch 25.2
(CC Series Latina, 33).
18 Sync., 105.21-28.
19
Ibid., 106.28.
106 THE JEWISH QUARTERLYREVIEW

Chaldeans to go forth to the land of the Canaanites."20From this

Syncellus infers that Terah had originally resolved to renounce
idolatry; when, however, he reached Haran, he reneged on his
promise and reverted to idolatry, the profession which he had fol-
lowed in Ur and which was the source of material gain for him.
Because Terah remained in Haran after Abraham's departure,
Moses considers the events after Abraham's departure as years of
"spiritual death." Evidence for this, Syncellus states, is found in
Genesis itself. For Scripture says that "all the days of Terah in
Haran were 205 years and Terah died in Haran." This is not
strictly accurate, and the conclusion to be drawn is that this is a
shorthand expression, Moses having joined together in this notice
the affairs in Terah's life before and after Abraham's departure
from Canaan.21
The closest extant parallel to Syncellus' solution of the problem
of Terah's death appears in Genesis Rabbah; like Syncellus, it
too allegorizes the meaning of Terah's death:

Now what comes before this passage? "And Terah died in

Haran," [which is followed by] "Now the Lord said to Abram:
Get thee." R. Isaac said, "From the standpoint of chronology
a period of 65 years is still required. But first you may learn
that the wicked, even in their lifetime, are called dead. For
Abraham was afraid, saying, "Shall I go out and bring dis-
honor upon the Divine Name, as people will say, "'He left his
father in his old age and departed?'" Therefore the Holy One,
blessed be He, reassured him: "I exempt you from this duty,
though I exempt no one else from this duty. Moreover, I will
record his death before thy departure." Hence, "And Terah
died in Haran" is stated first, and then "Now the Lord said
unto Abraham."22
The posing and solution of the problem parallel Syncellus.23If
Abraham left Terah after the latter had died, there was a chrono-
logical inconsistency; if, however, Terah was still alive, Abraham

20
Ibid., 106.31-107.2
21
Ibid., 107.5-11.
22
Gen. Rabbah. 39.7-8 (trans. H. Freedman; London, 1939).
23 For discussion see L.
Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia,
1925) 5:219, n. 54.
 JUBILEES'TRADITIONS-ADLER 107

had committed an act of impiety by deserting his father. The

answer is that God had recorded Terah's death before Abraham's
departure for two reasons: 1) in order to relieve him of the charge
of impiety, and 2) in order to suggest that Terah, even while alive,
was in a figurative sense "dead." Presumably what is meant here
is that Terah spent his remaining years in spiritual death, that is
to say, in idolatry.
What distinguishes Syncellus' account from Genesis Rabbah's,
however, is his appeal to other sources. The basis for Syncellus'
contention that there had been a prior call to Abraham in Meso-
potamia owes its origin to Stephen's speech in Acts, where God
is said to have appeared to Abraham "when he was still in
Mesopotamia." Syncellus alludes as well to a tradition according
to which Abraham had rejected the cult of idols and set fire to
their temple when he was still in the land of the Chaldeans. When
this temple was set ablaze, Abraham's brother Haran was also
consumed in the fire, because he was eager to worship the fire
"before his father Terah."24 The meaning that Syncellus draws
from this episode is that Terah had, after the conflagration and
under pressure from Abraham, initially renounced idolatry and
left Ur25;but in Haran greed and an obsession with idols caused
him to stray. "From all these things, it can be shown," Syncellus
concludes, that
Terah and all the remaining members of his family, having
received the promise along with Abraham, went forth to the
land of Canaan, as Scripture says, especially if we think that
Abraham was admonishing them. But having come to Haran,
the city which is even now idolatrous, they settled there because
of greed and mania for idols. And thus Abraham, seeing that

24
Sync., 107.24. Here Syncellus wants to interpret Gen. 11:28, "Haran died
before (Fv6intov) his father Terah", not in the chronological sense but in the sense
that Haran died in the presence of Terah.
25 Eusebius of Emesa also considers it likely that Terah and the rest of Abra-
ham's family had received a first call in Mesopotamia; how else to explain why
Terah went out to Haran with Abraham? But he too concludes that Terah
changed his mind after he reached Haran. As evidence for this he adduces Josh.
24:2, which states that "your fathers sojourned beyond the river, even Terah, the
father of Abraham and the father of Nahor; and they served other gods" (in
L'Heritage Litteraire d'Eusebe d'Emise (ed. E. M. Buytaert; Louvain, 1949),
p. 106, on Gen. 11:31-12:5).
108 THE JEWISH QUARTERLYREVIEW

they had died in spirit and did not want to share in the
inheritance of the divine promise to him, but were rather
faithless to God, was resettled by God to the land of promise
after the death of his father, that is a spiritual death. In this
way also our Lord knew that the dead are those who do not
believe in him, even if they live a temporary life, as Scripture
says somewhere, "Let the dead bury their own dead."26

Anyone familiar with Jubilees will recognize close parallels

between Syncellus' account and the famous story recorded there
about Abraham's burning of the temple of idols in Ur. But there
are several notable departures from the preserved Ethiopic text of
Jubilees. The first concerns chronology. According to Syncellus'
ordering of events, Abraham was 61 years of age, not 60. The
variant does not appear to be a scribal error, because it corre-
sponds to the year that Syncellus gives ab origine mundi.27 Syn-
cellus states as well that Abraham was 75 years of age when he
departed for Haran, implying thereby that the duration of time
spent in Ur was 14 years. It would thus seem that here, as in the
Logothetes, we have an instance in which the Greek text of
Jubilees is either earlier than the text reflected in the Ethiopic or
else a corrected form of it.
The second feature of Syncellus' report has to do with his
attribution of the legend. It is true that after describing the
episode in the temple, Syncellus soon thereafter expressly cites
from Jubilees, referringto several incidents recorded there leading
up to and following the burning of the temple.28 But Syncellus
himself does not trace this particular tradition about the burning
of the idols in Ur expressly to Jubilees. In the discussion described
above he says only that the legend is "reported frequently (nok-
kaXoD i[ccopdiatc),"29 implying that the tradition has a wider
circulation than in only one work. Moreover, when Syncellus
subsequently identifies one of the written works that he knows as
the source of the tradition, he names not Jubilees but Josephus'
Antiquities.30

26
27
Sync. 107.26-108.5.
Ibid., 112.7.
28
Ibid., 111.6-112.15.
29
Ibid., 107.22.
30
Ibid., 111.13-17: "In his 14th year, Abraham came to know and worship the
God of the universe. And he tore down the idols of his father, and burned them
 JUBILEES TRADITIONS ADLER 109

As it turns out, Syncellus has erroneously ascribed this tradi-

tion to Josephus; the Antiquities contain nothing like this. Since
this false attribution to Josephus is interspersed with material
correctly attributed to Jubilees, Syncellus' error was possibly a
simple scribal lapse on his part. Other instances of inadvertent
error can be found also in Syncellus and in other Byzantine
chronographers. But the pattern of misattribution to Josephus by
Syncellus and other Greek chronographers is so consistent that
we can hardly avoid the conclusion that Syncellus knew a text of
Josephus that had undergone deliberate interpolation from Jubi-
lees. Indeed Syncellus even suggests in one place that Josephus him-
self was directly influenced by Jubilees.31We can only guess about
his motives behind these interpolations from Josephus. But be-
cause the pattern of interpolation always proceeds in one direction
-from Jubilees to the Antiquities, and not the other way around-
the interpolator was probably motivated to do this in order to
enhance the prestige of Jubilees by making the highly esteemed
Antiquities of Josephus a corroborating source.32What is in any
case clear is that by the time Syncellus knew the Jubilees legend
of the burning of the temple, it has found its way into other
sources; if we can trust his own words, the episode of Abraham's
burning of the temple was a widely circulating tradition.
Syncellus here does not identify the source of these excerpts
from Jubilees and (pseudo-)Josephus. Elsewhere, however, he as
much as allows that his knowledge of Jubilees was transmitted to
him through earlier Christian historians.33 As Gelzer has sug-
gested in his influential study of this question, most of Syncellus'

together with their house. Haran, the brother of Abraham, was consumed with
them when he was eager to worship the fire. And Abraham exhorted his father as
well to turn away from idolatry and the manufacture of idols, as Josephus says
(606qpyotv6 'Ibocnrnos)."
31 This at any rate seems to be the implication of his statement that "authors of
Jewish antiquities ('Iou6aiKaq &pXapatooyioa)and Christian histories had written
on the basis of Little Genesis and the so-called Life of Adam" (Sync. 4.19-22).
32 For a discussion of the other
passages in Syncellus' Antiquities interpolated
from Jubilees see Gelzer, SJA 2:279-80. Gelzer argues that the interpolation was
the work of one of Syncellus' Alexandrian authorities, but this is uncertain. For
further discussion see Heinz Schreckenberg, Die Flavius-Josephus-Tradition in
Antike und Mittelalter (Leiden, 1972), pp. 110-12, 134-36, 152-54; Robert Eisler,
IHEOYS BAEIAEYE OY BASIAEYEAS (Heidelberg, 1929), pp. 521-27. Eisler
believed that this material was taken from a genuine work of Josephus.
33 Cf.
Sync. 4.20-22.
110 THE JEWISH QUARTERLYREVIEW

excerpts from Jewish pseudepigrapha were known to him only

through two fifth century Alexandrian monks and chroniclers,
Annianus and Panodorus.34In this case also we may suppose that
Syncellus' knowledge of the tradition about Abraham's burning
of the temple, and his allegorical explanation of Terah's death,
had its origin in these same chroniclers.
* * *

In the foregoing analysis we have attempted to demonstrate

that the Byzantine chronographers a) knew from earlier Greek
sources a chronologically consistent version of the episode of
Abraham's burning of the temple and the flight to Haran; and
b) appealed to this tradition (as well as to Stephen's speech in
Acts) to solve the anoopia of Terah's death. Several Syriac chro-
nographers also preserve a form of the same legend. How does
this latter account compare with the tradition found in the Byzan-
tine chronographers?
In a recent article on the Syriac legend of Abraham's destruc-
tion of the temple of idols in Ur, Sebastian Brock offers the
suggestion that the Syriac form of this story, while not attested
before the 7th century, has its origins in a very old source or
tradition; this tradition, he says, is both independent of, and
earlier than, the composition of Jubilees.35 His argument takes
the following form: Among the great variety of explanations
offered to the problem of Terah's death, one ingenious solution is
mentioned by Jerome. According to a Jewish tradition that he
knew of, Abraham's 75 years of age when he departed from
Haran were reckoned not from birth but rather from the time
when he rejected the cult of idols and fled from Ur.36This would

34 On Syncellus' sources from Jewish pseudepigrapha see Gelzer, SJA 2:249-76.

35 "Abraham and the Ravens: A Syriac Counterpart to Jubilees 11-12 and its
Implications," JJS 9 (1978): 135-52. The episode of Abraham's destruction of the
temple is described in Jub. 12:12-15. The principal witnesses to this Syriac
tradition are the so-called Catena Severi and a letter of Jacob of Edessa addressed
to John of Litarba. Edition of Jacob's letter by W. Wright, "Two Epistles of Mar
Jacob, Bishop of Edessa," Journal of Sacred Literature 10 (1867): 4*-25*. The
Catena Severi is published with Ephrem's commentary on Genesis by P. Benedic-
tus, Ephraemi Syri Opera omnia (Rome, 1737), pp. 156-57. English translation of
the relevant passages by Brock, pp. 137-39. For other Syriac witnesses to the
same tradition see Brock, pp. 140, 147-48.
36 Quaestiones hebraicae in Gen. 12:4 (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina,

72, 1.1), 15: " ... ex illo tempore ei dies vitae et tempus reputetur aetatis, ex quo
 JUBILEES TRADITIONS ADLER 111

mean that according to this chronology Abraham was 60 years of

age when he took flight from Ur. Now Brock quite perceptively
noted that 60 years was the same number that the Syriac tradition
offered as Abraham's age when he burned the temple of idols and
left Ur. Accordingly Brock inferred that the Syriac tradition
presupposed the same solution of the chronology of Terah's
death as the one mentioned by Jerome.37
From this chronological symmetry between Jerome's Jewish
tradition and the Syriac account, Brock goes on to propose an
intriguing theory about the relationship of the Syriac version to
the parallel account recorded in Jubilees. Like the Syriac tradi-
tion, Jubilees also records the episode of Abraham's destruction
of the temple of idols; moreover, when the burning of the temple
occurred Abraham, according to Jubilees, was 60 years of age,
just as Jerome's tradition and the Syriac account report. But in
comparing the Syriac version with the Jubilees' account Brock
observed some important differences. In the first place Jubilees
records a three year hiatus between Abraham's burning of the
temple and his departure from Ur, thus severing what in the
Syriac account is a very logical cause/effect relationship between
the burning of the temple of idols and the flight from Ur. Further,
because of this three year gap in the Jubilees account Abraham is
77 years of age when he leaves Haran for Canaan, 14 years after
his flight from Ur, a sequence which contradicts the chronology
of Genesis. The Syriac version, however, assigns 14 years to the
entire period between the flight from Ur and Terah's death,
thereby leaving time for Abraham to bury his father and leave
for Canaan a year later at the age of 75.38 Since the Syriac
ordering of events is both more consistent than that of Jubilees,
and since both stories presuppose Jerome's Jewish tradition about

confessus est Dominum, spernens idola Chaldaeorum." The same interpretation is

found in Augustine, City of God, 16.15. It is possible that this explanation
accounts for the variant readings of several LXX minuscules (569, 44, 129) in
Gen. 11:32, which have, instead of 205 years, 75 years for the number of years of
Terah in Haran. The tradition is not found in any of the preserved Midrashim.
For discussion of Jerome's solution in its Jewish context see Moritz Rahmer, Die
hebriischen Traditionen in den Werken des Hieronymus: Quaestiones in Genesim
(Breslau, 1861), pp. 26-27; B. Beer, Das Leben Abraham's nach Auffassung der
jiidischen Sage (Leipzig, 1859), pp. 112-13, n. 136; 125, n. 195.
3Brock, pp. 143-46.
38 For discussion see
Brock, pp. 143-45.
112 THE JEWISH QUARTERLYREVIEW

Abraham's age at Terah's death, the episode of the burning of the

temple and the flight from Ur recorded by the Syriac chronog-
raphers is, Brock claims, not only independent of Jubilees; it
reflects as well an earlier and purer form of the legend, which the
author of Jubilees has only imperfectly comprehended.39
The Syriac version of the episode in the temple forms only one
component of what appears to be a very complex web of tradi-
tions about Abraham and Terah in Ur. It is, however, not neces-
sary here to spell out all the details of this tradition or Brock's
analysis of them.40The question that we want to consider is his
theory about the date and the origin of the Syriac tradition and
its relationship to Jubilees and to the Jewish tradition in Jerome.
It is first of all extremely unlikely that the Syriac account and
Jerome's Jewish tradition refer jointly to the same thing. In none
of the Syriac representativesof this tradition is there any reference
to the chronological solution to Terah's death mentioned by
Jerome. Bar Hebraeus and Isho'dad of Merv, for example, both
know the chronology of events represented in Jacob of Edessa,
but neither appeals to the Hebrew solution mentioned in Jerome;
instead they propose what appears to be a standard explanation
for the problem, namely, that Abraham made two trips, of which
Genesis records only the first.41 Secondly, the chronology pre-
supposed in Jerome's Jewish tradition differs from the Syriac. In
order for Jerome's solution to work, Abraham must have spent
75 years in Haran, not 14 years as the Syriac tradition says.42
This can be illustrated by the following table:43

39 Brock, pp. 144-49, 151. "The compiler of Jubilees," Brock says, "simply
took over certain elements from this chronological framework and re-used them
without comprehending the rationale that lay behind them" (p. 151).
40 Among the more intriguing of Brock's proposals is his conjecture that the

sequence and chronology of events described in Jerome and in the Syriac account
lay also behind Stephen's speech in Acts 7, not, as is generally believed, the chro-
nology found in the Samaritan tradition; cf. "Abraham and the Ravens," p. 147.
The reason it is generally believed that Stephen's speech (Acts 7:4) reflects the
Samaritan tradition is that the Samaritan Pentateuch states that Terah died at the
age of 145.
41 See Bar Hebraeus, Scholia on the Old Testament, ed. Martin Sprengling and
William Creighton Graham (Chicago, 1931), p. 49 (on Gen. 12:4; passage quoted
by Brock, p. 143); see also Isho'dad of Merv, Commentary on the Old Testament,
tr. C. van den Eynde (CSCO 156, Scriptores Syri, 75): 154.23-155.12.
42 I fail to understand Brock's explanation of this inconsistency ("Abraham and

the Ravens," p. 144).

43 The numbers given in parentheses are derived from the chronology.
 JUBILEES'TRADITIONS ADLER 113

Syriac
Jubilees Jerome Tradition

Age when temple destroyed 60 60 60

Age at flight from Ur 63 60 60
Period of time in Haran 14 75 15
Age when Abraham (77) (135) (75)
migrates to Canaan (75 years
from flight
from Ur)

It is clear that Jerome and the Syriac chronographers knew of

two related but not identical traditions. One connection between
Jerome's Jewish tradition, Jubilees, and the Syriac account does,
however, deserve some attention. The tradition that Abraham
was 60 years of age when he publicly rebelled against the cult of
idols appears in all three sources, even though, as will be seen,
Jerome reports it on the basis of a Hebrew legend that is entirely
different in character from the Jubilees based episode. One ques-
tion certainly worth pursuing, then, is how Abraham's age, which
appears to be presupposed both in Jubilees and in Jerome's
Jewish tradition, was arrived at.
The most persuasive argument against any genetic relationship
between Jerome's tradition and the Syriac is the actual content of
the tradition that Jerome knew. When he refers to the solution
that dates Abraham's age from his departure from Ur, he links it
to an account of the circumstances leading up to the flight from
Ur that is entirely different from that found in the Syriac tradi-
tion. According to it, Abraham, unwilling to worship the fire of
the Chaldeans, was thrown into the furnace in Ur. After he was
rescued by God, he escaped with his family to Haran. Now the
Jewish tradition that Jerome refers to is not the one found in
Jubilees, but is a much better known rabbinic legend, of which a
typical account is found in Genesis Rabbah 38.13.44 Since the
Syriac tradition has the other account, which like Jubilees traces

44 When Jerome describes the solution of Terah's death date

by reckoning
Abraham's death date from the time when he rejected the idols, he states that it
originates in "illa Hebraeorum traditio, quam supra diximus" (Hebraicae Quaes-
tiones in Gen. 12:4); in his reprise of this tradition, Jerome states: "Tradunt autem
Hebraei ex hac occasione istius modi fabulam quod Abraham in ignem missus sit,
quia ignem adorare noluerit, quem Chaldaei colunt, et Dei auxilio liberatus de
idolatriae igne profugerit" (Hebraicae Quaestiones in Gen. 11:28). For other
114 THE JEWISH QUARTERLYREVIEW

the origins of his flight to his burning of the temple, it cannot

possibly be linked directly to the one described in Jerome.
In my judgment the Syriac tradition, as in Syncellus and the
Logothetes, represents a development which not only occurred
later than the composition of Jubilees but also originated in the
same Greek chronographers known to the Byzantine chroniclers.
Syriac chronographers were certainly familiar with Jubilees, as is
evidenced by the extensive and often very literal renderings from
it in the anonymous chronicle ad annum Christi 1234.45Moreover,
the anonymous chronicle's account of the burning of the temple
preserves, at least in part, the chronology of the Syriac variants,
not the version known in the Ethiopic text of Jubilees. It is thus
clear that at least in this particular example the two traditions
were not wholly independent of one another. We can gain, more-
over, a fairly good idea of the provenance of the tradition from
other internal considerations. As Brock observes, there are intima-
tions of its Greek provenance in the form of the Syriac tradition
as it is reported by Jacob of Edessa. The spelling of Haran with
alephs representing Greek alphas in Jacob of Edessa's account of
this event is one indication of this. Moreover, Jacob's quotation
from Gen. 11:28 appears to reflect readings from the Septuagint
against the Peshitta.46
The Greek origin of this tradition is suggested even more
directly by the character of the Syriac sources that preserve it.
Most of the representatives of the tradition are either themselves
chronographers or else familiar with the principles of chronogra-
phers, e.g., Jacob of Edessa, Isho'dad of Merv, the anony-
mous chronicle ad annum Christi 1234, Michael Syrus, and Bar
Hebraeus. In the prologue to the latter three chronicles, the
authors identify as their principal sources several Greek universal
chroniclers;for primordialhistory, these include Eusebius, Andron-

witnesses to this same story see John Bowker, The Targums and Rabbinic
Literature (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 187-89.
45 Cf. E. Tisserant, "Fragments syriaques du Livre des Jubiles," RB 30 (1921):
55-86, 206-32. Text and Latin translation of this chronicle in CSCO 81, 82, 109;
Scriptores Syri, 36, 37, 56 (ed. and tr. I.-B. Chabot).
46 Cf. Brock,
p. 146. Jacob quotes Genesis to the effect that Haran died "before
(=Gr. Evcdntov) Terah," which reflects the Septuagint against the Peshitta. But
his account follows the Peshitta in referring to "Ur of the Chaldeans," instead of
the Septuagint's "region (Xcpa) of the Chaldeans."
 JUBILEES'TRADITIONS-ADLER 115

icus, Africanus, and Annianus "the monk of Alexandria."47Now

the two latter chroniclers are, as has already been observed, the
major sources for the pseudepigrapha excerpts (including Jubi-
lees) preserved by the Byzantine chronographers. That the Syriac
chronographers knew Jewish pseudepigrapha through these same
sources is certain. Michael Syrus, for example, explicitly credits
"Annianus the monk of Alexandria" as the source for his excerpt
from 1 Enoch and apparently for at least one citation from
Jubilees.48 Such circumstances create a very strong likelihood
that the Syriac tradition of the burning of the temple originated
in Greek chronography and reflects, as in the case of the Byzantine
chronicles, either a correction of Jubilees or a chronology based
on Jubilees that is earlier and less corrupt than the Ethiopic text.
Since moreover the chronographers name Jacob of Edessa as one
of their authorities, it does not seem to be an unreasonable conjec-
ture to suppose that they knew the tradition through the chronicle
of Jacob, who, as we have seen, is the earliest attested Syriac
witness to it.49
In passing from Greek to Syriac chronography, the account of
Abraham's burning of the temple seems to have undergone certain
adaptations and absorbed several secondary accretions. Syncellus'
allegorical explanation of Terah's death, adapted from his 5th
Alexandrian sources, does not appear to have found any support
in the Syriac chronographers who used these same sources. Al-
though Syriac interpreters, like Syncellus, accept the possibility
of literary transposition, they prefer, instead of the idea of Terah's

47 Cf.
Anonymous Chronicle ad annum Christi 1234, 27 (Syriac); 18.3-4 (Latin
tr. Chabot); see also the preface to the chronicle of Michael Syrus (ed. and tr.
I. B. Chabot; Paris, 1899-1910). On Michael's sources see Chabot's introduction
to his translation, pp. xxiv-xxxvii.
48 For Michael's and Bar Hebraeus'
knowledge of Jewish pseudepigrapha
through Annianus see Gelzer, SJA 2:297; 431-41; for Annianus' mediation of
1 Enoch to Michael see also Sebastian Brock, "A Fragment of Enoch in Syriac,"
JTS 19 (1968): 626-31.
49 Jacob's
chronicle, composed in the early 8th century, survives only frag-
mentarily; English translation of Syriac fragments by E. W. Brooks (CSCO 6;
Scriptores Syri 6.3), pp. 197-258. For Michael's use of Jacob see Chabot's
introduction to his French translation, p. xxvi. Since John of Litarba also knew
the tradition, it is not inconceivable that Michael knew the legend from John's
chronicle as well; for Michael's use of John of Litarba see Chabot's introduction,
pp. xxvii-xxviii.
116 THE JEWISH QUARTERLYREVIEW

"spiritualdeath," the more straightforwardexplanation that Abra-

ham journeyed from Haran twice.50 One accretion, apparently
unique to the Syriac chronographers, reports that the temple of
idols burned by Abraham was named after Qainan, whom the
Chaldeans venerated as a god because of his discovery of astrol-
ogy. Brock believed that this legend about Qainan shows the
independence of the Syriac tradition from Jubilees, since the
latter traces the beginning of idolatry to Serug (cf. Jub. 11:4).51
But the Syriac story about Qainan is probably an expansion of
the Jubilees tradition, according to which Qainan discovered the
stelae of the fallen Watchers; on these stelae were inscribed "the
omens of the sun and of the moon" (Jub. 8:2-3). Since Qainan
was believed to have been one of the forefathers of the Chaldeans,
it would have been a logical conclusion for Syriac interpreters to
conclude, as Bar Hebraeus does, that Qainan was the father of
Chaldaism and was venerated as a god.52
It is also true that Jacob of Edessa, when he reports the tradi-
tion in his letter, names only "Jewish histories" as its source,
implying that the legend is attested in more than one place. But
this need not suggest that the tradition arose independently of
Jubilees. Because the Byzantine and Syriac chronographers knew
little, if anything, about the Jewish pseudepigrapha firsthand,
their citations from these works tend to be extremely garbled,
ranging from fairly literal renderings to paraphrases or quotations
highly conflated with other sources. Some of the citations are left
unattested, sometimes attributed to Jewish tradition, sometimes
to Josephus, and on several occasions simply to "Moses," or
"Scripture"; there are, moreover, several pseudepigrapha men-
tioned by chronographers that appear either to be based upon

50 See above, p. 112.

5 "Abraham and the Ravens," p. 150.
52
Bar Hebraeus, 9 (tr. Budge). The Jubilees story about Qainan's discovery of
the pre-flood stelae of the Watchers is found in Sync. 90.11-12; Cedrenus 27.11-
15 (who also knows a tradition that attributes this discovery to Sala). In the
Logothete chronographers these stelae were discovered by Sala in the "land of the
Chaldeans" (cf. Leo Gr. 12.8-14). The tradition that astrology and Chaldaism
began with Qainan and not with Serug is also found in a scholion to the Catena
of Nicephorus; see Ronsch, 274. For a discussion of the legend of Qainan's stelae
in relation to the origins of Chaldaism see Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism
(Philadelphia, 1974) 1: 242.
 JUBILEES'TRADITIONS-ADLER 117

Jubilees or to be closely related to it.53Multiple attestations of the

same tradition, in this case the burning of the temple of idols,
could easily create the impression that the story was widely dis-
seminated. Indeed, this is precisely the way Syncellus reports the
story. It will be recalled that when Syncellus cites the origin of the
temple burning episode, he says first that it is "frequently re-
ported," and elsewhere attributes it to Josephus. The Syriac
chronographers reflect the same complicated tradition associated
with Jubilees as do the Greek chronographers. What must have
happened instead is that in the course of transmission, traditions
from Jubilees have become dissociated from the work itself. By
the time that the tradition was introduced into Syriac, its origins
were simply known as "Jewish histories."

53 Milik ("Recherches sur la version grecque du Livre des Jubiles," pp. 550ff.)
discusses the character of the attributions in the Logothete chronographers. For
material from Jubilees attributed to Josephus' Antiquities, see above, pp. 108-10.