Journal for the Study of Judaism 46 (�0�5) �-�7 Journal for the Study of Judaism brill.com/jsj The Sin of the Gentiles: The Prohibition of Eating Blood in the Book of Jubilees Todd R. Hanneken St. Mary’s University One Camino Santa Maria, San Antonio, TX 78228, U.S.A.
[email protected] Abstract Jubilees exhorts Israelites to separate from Gentiles in every way. Jubilees does not sim- ply repeat familiar arguments that Gentiles will lead Israelites to sin if they adopt their ways. Rather, Jubilees argues that merely being in the presence of Gentiles is dangerous because they are liable to a violent death at any moment for their abhorrent daily prac- tices. At the same time, Jubilees maintains a strict standard for God’s justice such that sinners must be warned of the crime and its punishment in advance. Jubilees main- tains that the ancestors of all nations willingly entered into a covenant which demands eradication of entire nations for the sin of eating blood. In order to make this point Jubilees interprets Genesis 9 and other sources to indicate that all nations are bound to a covenant which demands eradication for the crime of eating meat that was not pro- cessed according to Levitical procedure. Keywords Jubilees – Gentiles – separation – eating blood – Genesis 9 – Leviticus 17 – Aramaic Levi Jubilees maintains a radical agenda of separation from Gentiles.1 This is evident in the discussion of specific issues such as Sabbath (2:19), nakedness (3:31), 1 The most recent discussion of anti-Gentile rhetoric in Jubilees is that of Isaac Oliver, “Forming Jewish Identity by Formulating Legislation for Gentiles,” JAJ 4 (2013): 105-32, who discusses previous scholarship including Zeitlin, Rönsch, Schwarz, Werman, and Hayes.