¹ The Book of Jubilees is a haggadic expansion of Genesis and the early chapters of Exodus. Presently extant in its entirety only in Ethiopic, it was originally composed in Hebrew around the middle of the second century BCE. For a review of its composition and translation into Greek, Syriac, Latin, and Ethiopic, see VanderKam, J. C., Textual and Historical Studies in the Book of Jubilees (Harvard Semitic Monographs 14; Missoula, Mont: Scholars, 1977) 1–15Google Scholar. VanderKam establishes the date of composition as being between 163–1 and 140 BCE (Ibid., 207–85). See also the general introduction to the text in translation by Wintermute, O. S., ‘Jubilees’, in Charlesworth, J. H., ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (New York: Doubleday, 1985) 2.35–50.Google Scholar

² For Charles', R. H. attempted explanation of this etymology, see The Book of Jubilees or the Little Genesis (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1902) 88 n. 12 (on 11.12).Google Scholar

³ On the role of Mastema and his demons, see Testuz, Michael, Les Idiés religieuses du Livre des Jubilés (Geneva: Droz/Paris: Minard, 1960) 82–6.Google Scholar

⁴ Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2.79.

⁵ That Gen 15.11 was capable of inspiring such expansions is indicated by Apoc. Abr. 13 (which dates from the decades following 70 CE), in which Azazel, the chief of the fallen angels, takes the form of an unclean bird and alights upon the divided carcasses of Abraham's sacrifice. Abraham drives Azazel away, then after a brief conversation with the patriarch, Abraham's guardian angel drives off the bird once more (cf. Pesch, R., Das Markusevangelium [HTKNT 2; Freiburg; Basel; Wein: Herder, 1980] 1.243Google Scholar). Berger, Klaus (Das Buch der Jubiläen [JSHRZ II.3; Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1981] 388Google Scholar note 11e) mistakenly attempts to trace the episode in Jubilees 11 to the obscure reference in LXX Epistle of Jeremiah 54 to idols being ‘helpless as the crows’, on which see Moore, C. A., Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions (AB 44; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977) 352–3.Google Scholar

⁶ According to Brock, S. P. (‘Abraham and the Ravens: A Syriac Counterpart to Jubilees 11–12 and Its Implications’, JSJ 9 [1978] 140Google Scholar), ‘Jubilees gives the episode of the ravens in order to introduce Abraham as the inventor of the seed-plough (Jub. 11.23–4)’, but this attribution is incidental to the narrative's broader themes of fruitfulness, covenantal fulfilment, and the role of demonic opposition in the lives of God's people.

⁷ It is interesting to note that in the tradition represented by the Syriac versions, a frustrated Abram must, like Noah, appeal directly to God for help: see Brock, ‘Abraham and the Ravens’, 137–8,140.

⁸ Pesch (Markusevangelium 1.232, cf. 243) simply observes that the parallel indicates the evangelist's ‘allegorische Intention … Diese Intentionen wird noch plastischer, wenn man Anschauungen als verbreitet voraussetzen darf, die Jub 11 im Zusammenhang der Schilderung der Verbesserung ders Pfluges durch Abram belegt sind … Vgl. bes. 11,11, wo die allegorisch Deutung Mk 4,15 anklingt.' Cf. Marcus, Joel, The Mystery of the Kingdom of God (SBLDS 90; Atlanta: Scholars, 1986) 60 n. 169Google Scholar; Davies, W. D. and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew 2 (ICC; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991) 383, 400.Google Scholar

As Pesch's comments indicate, Jubilees 11 is also compared to this parable in order to clarify the unusual order of sowing before ploughing: see the summary discussion (citing Dalman, Jeremias, and talmudic debate) by Drury, J., The Parables in the Gospels: History and Allegory (New York: Crossroads, 1985) 56–8Google Scholar; cf. Essame, W. G., ‘Sowing and Ploughing’, ExpT 72 (1960–1961) 54Google Scholar. It should be pointed out, however, that unlike Jubilees, the parable makes no actual mention of ploughing.

⁹ See Schweizer, E., Das Evangelium nach Matthüus (NTD 2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973) 213CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Maurer, C., ‘ριζα’, TWNT 6 (1959) 985–8Google Scholar, cited in part by Pesch, Markusevangelium 1.233. Cf. Marcus, Mystery of the Kingdom of God, 60 n. 169.

¹⁰ On this metaphor in 4 Ezra, see Knowles, M. P., ‘Moses, the Law, and the Unity of 4 Ezra’, NovT 31 (1989) 268–70Google Scholar; and in relation to the parable of the sower, see Pesch, Markusevangelium, 1.231 and n. 12; Drury, Parables in the Gospels, 26–8, 52–3; Marcus, Mystery of the Kingdom of God, 47–50.

¹¹ Davies and Allison, The Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 400. The episode in the Talmud serves to elucidate David's discovery of Bathsheba: when David shoots an arrow at the bird, it instead strikes the screen behind which she is bathing, thus revealing her.

¹² Thus answering the objection of Foerster, W. (‘σατανȃς’, TWNT 7 [1964] 160)Google Scholar: ‘Gegen die gegebene Deutung auf die Wirksamkeit des Teufels spricht der Plural der Vögel, spricht auch, daß man bei den Verfolgungen und auch beim Betrug des Reichtums genau so gut wie im ersten Fall an das Wirken des Bösen denken kann.’

¹³ This is notwithstanding Brock's contention (‘Abraham and the Ravens’, 151, cf. 140) that the Syriac text, in which God sends the crows or ravens as a punishment for idolatry, represents an earlier version of the story. As pointed out by Charles (The Book of Jubilees, 80 n. 8 [on 10.81) the names ‘Satan’ and ‘Mastema’ are etymological equivalents in Hebrew. Cf. Hos 9.7 and, more generally, the discussion by Rönsch, Hermann (Das Buck der Jubiläen oder die kleine Genesis [Leipzig, 1874; rpr. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1970] 418)Google Scholar of the possible links between Jubilees and the devil’s various appellations in the NT (note that Mark 4.15 is cited in the wrong category).

¹⁴ Unlike the Jubilees episode, the Markan parable does not include the key feature of authoritative rebuke, although such rebuke is elsewhere a significant feature of Jesus' ministry (e.g. Mark 3.11–12, 15, 22–7; 5.1–20).

¹⁵ Evidence of Jubilees at Qumran (e.g. CD 16.2–4; lQapGen; 4Qm 16 Jub^a; 4Qm 17 Jub^b; 11Q Ps^a; Creat 26, etc.); possible literary relationships between Jubilees, 1 Enoch, and the Testament of Levi (on which see the summary by Wintermute, ‘Jubilees’, 49–50); and the probability that this work was originally composed in Hebrew all point to its widespread currency in the intertestamental period. The presence of parallel motifs need not, however, imply a direct literary link between Jubilees and either the teaching of Jesus or the Gospel of Mark, since the story of Abram and the birds clearly circulated in more than one form (as demonstrated by Brock, ‘Abraham and the Ravens’, 151).

¹⁶ Mystery of the Kingdom of God, 50; cf. 60.

¹⁷ A broad consensus in contemporary scholarship indicates that the parable's interpretation (Mark 4.13–20) is secondary. For brief summaries of the history of the interpretation of Mark 4 and of the history of parable interpretation generally, see Marcus, Mystery of the Kingdom of God, 1–6 and Blomberg, C. L., ‘Interpreting the Parables of Jesus: Where Are We and Where Do We Go From Here?’, CBQ 53 (1991) 51–62Google Scholar. Conversely, for a recent and provocative proposal as to the unity of this parable and its interpretation, understood as apocalypse, see Wright, N. T., The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992) 393–4.Google Scholar

¹⁸ See, e.g., Taylor, V., The Gospel according to St Mark (London: MacMillan, 1955) 258–61Google Scholar; Schweizer, E., Das Evangelium nach Markus (NTD 1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967) 53–4Google Scholar; Hooker, M. D., The Gospel according to St Mark (BNTC; London: A & C Black/Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991) 129–32.Google Scholar

¹⁹ The New Testament and the People of God, 394. The widespread metaphor of Israel as the Lord's «planting’ (noted above) is consistent with this reading of the parable.

²⁰ I wish to thank my colleagues Byard Bennett, Ann Jervis, Van Johnson, and Grant LeMarquand of Wycliffe College for their helpful suggestions in response to earlier versions of this study.