Abstract
Todd R. Hanneken offers a new approach to identifying the genre of the Book of Jubilees in The Subversion of the Apocalypses in the Book of Jubilees. He locates his book within the larger scholarly discussion by stating, ‘the problem is not so much that a prior study is incorrect but rather that there simply has never been a thorough examination of the relationship of Jubilees to the apocalypses of its day in terms of literary genre’ (p. 4).
The book is organized into five detailed chapters. The first chapter takes the reader through: (1) the problem: the uncertain relationship of Jubilees to the genre of apocalyptic literature; (2) its solution: Jubilees subverts the genre of apocalypse; and (3) some examples of subversive texts are offered for comparison. Hanneken states, ‘Not every apocalypse that introduces new ideas can be called subversive. Jubilees, however, goes beyond innovation’ (p. 50). The next three chapters of the book demonstrate how Jubilees subverts the genre of apocalypse.
Chapter two examines the ‘spatial axis’ of apocalyptic emphasizing the way that Jubilees views the cosmic forces of good and evil. The main point of this chapter is that while Jubilees uses the genre apocalyptic, it inverts the genre’s typical position on the cause of evil in the world, blaming humans for sin and evil and leaving out angelic rule and demonic affliction (p. 51).
Chapter three examines the ‘temporal axis.’ The author notes that apocalyptic literature typically describes ‘the content or meaning of history from a broad perspective’ and tries to ‘situate the reader in a view of history that is not empirically obvious.’ Jubilees, however, ‘consistently adapts and frequently inverts the ideas typically conveyed by contemporary apocalypses’ (p. 119).
The fourth chapter examines the central aspect of apocalyptic: revelation. This is where Hanneken sees Jubilees as being at its most subversive. He states, ‘The genre ‘apocalypse’ creates reader expectations that something new is going to be revealed, but Jubilees presents something derivative’ (p. 195). In addition to this, the chapter shows how Jubilees continues its subversion of the genre by downplaying the role that coded language or allegories play in understanding revelation.
The final chapter explains the main conclusion of the preceding chapters that, ‘Jubilees conforms to the apocalyptic genre at the level of literary morphology but radically departs at the level of the ideas raised by the genre’ (p. 259). In sum, Hanneken suggests that the author of Jubilees deliberately subverted the other apocalypses of its day because its author believed that there was no legitimate new revelation. Its author sought to use the features of the apocalyptic genre to re-focus attention upon the familiar and well-known Jewish traditions.
Despite the fact that this book is written to contribute to the academic debate about Jubilees, it is still accessible to the non-specialist. Hanneken’s careful examination of related apocalyptic texts shows that there is clearly more to Jubilees than scholars have previously supposed.