Jewish apocrypha in the context of "Tree of life (biblical)"

The Book of Jubilees is an ancient Jewish apocryphal text of 50 chapters (1,341 verses), considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, as well as by Haymanot Judaism, a denomination observed by members of the Ethiopian Jewish community. Jubilees is considered one of the pseudepigrapha by the Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches. Apart from Haymanot, the book is not considered canonical within any of the denominations of Judaism.

It was well known to early Christians, as evidenced by the writings of Epiphanius, Justin Martyr, Origen, Diodorus of Tarsus, Isidore of Alexandria, Isidore of Seville, Eutychius of Alexandria, John Malalas, George Syncellus, and George Kedrenos. The text was also utilized by the community that collected the Dead Sea Scrolls. No complete Hebrew, Greek or Latin version is known to have survived, but the Geʽez version is considered to be an accurate translation of the fragments in Biblical Hebrew found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The intertestamental period (Protestant) or deuterocanonical period (Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) is the period of time between the events of the protocanonical books and the New Testament. It is considered to cover roughly 400 years, spanning from the ministry of Malachi (c. 420 BC) to the appearance of John the Baptist in the early 1st century AD. It is roughly contiguous with the Second Temple period (516 BC–70 AD) and encompasses the age of Hellenistic Judaism.

It is known by some Protestants as the "400 Silent Years" because according to their faith, it was a period when no new prophets were raised and God revealed nothing new to the Jewish people. Many of the deuterocanonical books, accepted as scripture by the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy, were written during this time, as were many pseudepigraphal works, the Biblical apocrypha and Jewish apocrypha. An understanding of the events of the intertestamental period provides historical and literary context for the New Testament.

In Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other Abrahamic religions Gabriel (/ˈɡeɪbriəl/ GAY-bree-əl) is an archangel with the power to announce God's will to humankind as the messenger of God. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Quran.

In the Book of Daniel, Gabriel appears to the prophet Daniel to explain his visions. Gabriel also appears in the Jewish apocryphal First Book of Enoch (e.g., 1 Enoch 20:7–8) and other ancient Hebrew writings incompletely preserved or wholly lost in Hebrew. Alongside the archangel Michael, Gabriel is described as the guardian angel of the Israelites, defending them against the angels of the other peoples.

In Judaism, angels (Hebrew: מַלְאָךְ, romanized: mal’āḵ, lit. 'messenger', plural: מַלְאָכִים mal’āḵīm) are supernatural beings that appear throughout the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), Rabbinic literature, Jewish apocrypha, Christian pseudepigrapha, Jewish philosophy, Jewish mysticism, and traditional Jewish liturgy as agents of the God of Israel. They are categorized in different hierarchies. Their essence is often associated with fire. The Talmud describes their very essence as fire.