The Abraham of Genesis is already one of the most compelling figures in all of ancient literature. But the Abraham of the Book of Jubilees is even richer. Jubilees doesn't just repeat the Genesis account — it fills in decades of Abraham's life that Genesis skips entirely, including his childhood, his early confrontation with idolatry, his relationship with his family, and his gradual movement toward monotheism.
According to Jubilees, Abraham grew up in a household that worshipped idols — his father Terah was an idol-maker. From childhood, Abraham was troubled by this. At a young age, he reasoned his way to monotheism: the sun and moon are created things, subject to change and seasons; the God who governs them must be greater than they are. He prayed, he sought, and eventually he burned his father's idols to force a confrontation with the truth.
Jubilees also expands the testing of Abraham — the Akedah, the binding of Isaac — by introducing an adversarial figure called Mastema (literally "Hostility"), who challenges God to test Abraham as Satan challenged God to test Job. This connection makes the binding of Isaac a cosmic test of faithfulness rather than just a personal trial.
For readers of the New Testament, these expansions in Jubilees help explain Paul's theology of Abraham. When Paul uses Abraham as the template for faith righteousness in Romans and Galatians, he's drawing on traditions about Abraham that Jubilees preserves — traditions in which Abraham's faith was cultivated over decades, through struggle and seeking, not just in a single obedient moment.