Jacob and Esau

Vridar notes Łukasz Niesiolowski-Spanò, whose Habsburgworthy name I needs copy-paste to spell it out here, on the Jacob / Esau cycle in Genesis and The Lighter Genesis. “The Abraham and Esau-Jacob Stories in the Context of the Maccabean Period”, in Biblical Narratives, Archaeology and Historicity: Essays In Honour of Thomas L. Thompson.

LNS believes that Genesis holds to a complex narrative and that Jubilees' is simpler. Genesis doesn't necessarily portray Jacob as the clear victor in the twin brothers' squabble. Jubilees has Jacob flat kill Esau. (Thus Jubilees foreshadows Jewish hostility to whomever they'd tag as "Esau" in those later days.) LNS thinks Genesis and Jubilees rely upon parallel traditions and not on one another. Vridar, despiser of the American Christian subculture, pounces and seizes on that.

I am open to critiques of the Biblical text. And G-d knows I get hinky around our Christians here. However I do like to have good reasons for specific cases.

Vridar's commenters have imposed some constraints upon the timeline. Not least: the Septuagint, so-called, which contains a translation of the whole episode, without much deviating from the text. Russell Gmirkin, despite himself, brings a writer under Ptolemy IV who witnesses to the LXX here. The basic text, then, precedes 204 BC (how long precedes - I don't here care). Jubilees postdates the Animal Apocalypse in 1 Enoch, so after the 160s BC (how long after? again: don't care). And Jubilees presents the final Jacob-Esau battle as sequel to the Genesis baseline.

Never impute to parallel tradition what can be explained by midrash.

It didn't take the commenters long to figure all this out. I was thinking "but ... but... the LXX??" myself at the time. I posit that Vridar should have had the same thought before splurting it all out on his blog. I'd say the same to LNS' editor - except that he was the editor. You know what they say about a man self-representing at court having a fool for a client.

It seems that LNS has no leg to stand on. It also seems that Vridar betrays an animus to his targets.

CREDIT GIVEN 10/1: Vridar has responded in his own comments to back away from LNS.