A Jubilee (50) of Fascinating Facts about the Book of Jubilees

What is the Book of Jubilees? Jubilees is an example of Rewritten Bible, or Rewritten Scripture. Broadly speaking the term Rewritten Bible refers to “literature written in the Second Temple period [or beyond, c. 200 bce–200 ce] that either expands biblical stories, retells biblical stories, or uses biblical stories as platforms to write new texts” (Simkovich: 279. Simkovich points out the terms Rewritten Bible/Scripture are somewhat controversial, 221–22).

Jubilees rewrites Genesis and the first half of Exodus. It begins with Genesis 1 and ends with the covenant at Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19–24 (VanderKam 2001: 11).

“ ‘Jubilees’ was apparently not the original title of this book. The earliest reference to its title is found in the Damascus Document (col. 16:3–4) of the Dead Sea Scrolls community [Qumran] where it appears as ‘The Book of the Divisions of Times according to Their Jubilees and in Their “Weeks.”’ ” (Kugel 2013: 273—emphasis in original).

Which is older, the Masoretic Text (MT) or Jubilees? Jubilees predates the Masoretic Text by several hundred years. The Masoretic Text, what is today the established reading of the Hebrew Bible, and MT’s popularity only goes “back to the first century of the Common Era. Before that period, only the proto-rabbinic (Pharisaic) movement made use of MT, while other streams in Judaism used other Hebrew textual traditions,” explains Emanuel Tov. “In other words, before the first century of the Common Era, we witness a textual plurality among Jews, with multiple text forms conceived of as ‘the Bible,’ or Scripture, including the Hebrew source upon which the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint (LXX), was built” (Tov).

“There is strong reason to believe that Jubilees was written by a priest. This follows from the nature of the book with its heavy emphasis on priestly concerns, from the special attention devoted to the line of righteous men through whom the sacerdotal legislation was transmitted from earliest times, and from the extraordinary status of Levi among the sons of Jacob” (VanderKam, 1992: vol. 3, p. 1030).

Jubilees was written c. early 2^nd century. bce, or perhaps earlier. “In general one may say that the book was probably written at some point between 170 and 140” (Vander-Kam, 1992: vol. 3, p. 1030.)

There are fifty (50) chapters in The Book of Jubilees.

Jubilees’ chapters outline is: 1: Introduction; 2–4: Creation and Adam Stories; 5–10: Noah stories; 11–23.8: Abraham Stories; 23.9–32: Digression on Abraham’s Death; 24–45 Jacob and his family; 46–50: Moses Stories (Wintermute: 35).

“Jubilees was prized by the Dead Sea Scrolls community” (Kugel 2013: 272), and while some early Christians considered the book to be sacred; the Rabbis [Rabbinic Judaism] did not consider it sacred.

Jubilees disappeared for centuries until “discovered” in the mid-19^th century—found in some church documents in Abyssinia.

O. S. Wintermute’s translation of Jubilees appears in volume 2 of The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by J. H. Charlesworth. Wintermute’s translation with minor modifications appears in Outside the Bible: Ancient Writings Related to Scripture (JPS: 2013). The most reliable text of Jubilees with textual variants is the edition published by J. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees: A Translation. (1989). See bibliography.

Jubilees’ author is very familiar with Scripture, “which enables him to bear widely scattered biblical texts in his discussion of a problem” (Wintermute: 40).

The form of the book is a first-person monologue both written for Moses, as well as dictated to him on Mt Sinai by God’s “Angel of the Presence” (see Jub 1.27; 2.1).

The creation account begins in chapter 2.

Jubilees is sometimes referred to as Lepto-Genesis or Little Genesis. It is also termed the Apocalypse of Moses, but it should not be confused with another document titled the Apocalypse of Moses, which is also termed the “[Greek] Life of Adam and Eve.”

Jubilees has some characteristics of apocalypse writing, such as being pseudonymous and being conveyed privately, but it does not have such items as bizarre imagery, a preoccupation with beasts, horns, rivers of fire, or terrifying objects (Wintermute: 37).

Much of the content of Jubilees shares parallels with the Genesis Apocryphon (Wintermute: 43), which was also composed between the early and middle 2^nd century bce. The Genesis Apocryphon is part of the Qumran community’s Dead Sea Scrolls.

The “existence of Hebrew fragments of the text in Qumran suggest that the book [of Jubilees] is not a Qumranic composition but was already accepted as an authoritative text” at Qumran (Bohak: 381).

19. Leviticus 25:8 assigns 49 years to a Jubilee period; Leviticus 25:11 assigns 50 years to a Jubilee period. The Book of Jubilees follows the counting of Leviticus 25:8, and each jubilee period of 49 years divides into seven sections termed “weeks.”

20. Jubilees was probably first written in Hebrew by an unknown Jewish author. It was then translated into Greek, then Latin, and then into Ge’ez (an ancient language of Ethiopia).

21. In Ethiopic translations the title of Jubilees appears as “This is the account of the divisions of times—according to the Torah and the Testimony—of the events of the years, of the weeks of their jubilees throughout all their days of yore as was related to Moses on Mount Sinai” (Kugel 2013: 273, see 282).

22. Hebrew had been the original language that God used when creating the world. It had been the common tongue until “the day of the Fall” (Jub 12.25). In Jubilees, “the Fall” refers to the collapse of the Tower of Babel, not the Fall of humans. “Jubilees knows of no such concept” (Kugel 2013: 339, n. 12:25).

23. There are “Heavenly Tablets” which were inscribed and kept in heaven since the beginning of time. They include the laws given to Moses, some halakhic rulings, and a record of future events (Kugel 2013: 278).

24. Jubilees “envisages neither a messiah … nor a resurrection of the dead. A messiah is never mentioned” (Vander-Kam 1992: vol. 3, p. 1032).

25. The “original text of Jubilees underwent modification during the course of its transmission. An anonymous writer, [termed by Kugel] … the Interpolator, inserted … passages of his own into the book…. They are easily identified by their distinct terminology … the Interpolator frequently refers to laws that are ‘ordained and written in the heavenly tablets’” (Kugel 2013: 278).

26. While “the Interpolator was surely no Pharisee, his insertions show a remarkable familiarity with issues and ideas known to us from rabbinic Judaism” (Kugel 2012: 292).

27. The “Interpolator did not invent the idea of the Heavenly Tablets,” for that concept is already found in “1 Enoch, a book that preceded Jubilees by perhaps fifty or a hundred years” (Kugel 2012: 213; 214).

28. The Interpolator’s “legal rulings sometimes conflict with the original author’s words … he sometimes even seems to have misunderstood what the original author meant” (Kugel 2013: 278).

29. The Interpolator and the original author have a hatred for and a horror of foreigners and their impurity.

30. Like the original author, the Interpolator “rejected the lunisolar calendar endorsed by other Jews, espousing instead a calendar based on the sun alone,” where the moon had no part (Kugel 2013: 278).

31. How does Jubilees’ legal material compare to that of the MT? “Students of the legal material in Jubilees have recognized that it does not correspond with the traditions of either the Pharisees or the Sadducees, but that it stands closer to what is known of Essene halakah. The Qumran [i.e. Dead Sea Scroll] literature has documented their thesis; the 364–day solar calendar is just one fundamental point on which Jubilees and the scrolls (including now the Temple Scroll) agree. It is likely, then, that the priestly author belonged to the movement that was later called Essene, whatever may have been its original name.” (VanderKam 1992: vol. 3, p. 1031).

32. “Sections about sabbath laws, which appear in chaps. 2 (vv 1, 17–33) and 50 (vv 6–13), form a kind of inclusio around the narratives of the book.” (VanderKam 1992: vol. 3, p. 1030–31).

33. The Cain-Abel narrative in Genesis 4 is much condensed in Jubilees. There the text merely states that “Cain killed Abel because the sacrifice of Abel was accepted” while that of Cain was not (Jub 4.2). The biblical text is much more ambiguous (Zucker 2020).

34. Jubilees 8–9 describes how the division of the earth took place after the time of Noah. It is “one of the largest extra-biblical supplements in the book” (VanderKam 2001: 40).

35. Jubilees provides names for various women not mentioned in Genesis and Exodus. Cain’s wife is his sister’ Awan (Jub 4.9) Seth’s wife is ‘Azura, also his sister (Jub 4.11); Methuselah’s mother is ‘Edni (Jub 4.20); Noah’s wife is ’Emzara (Jub 4.33), and the Egyptian princess at the time of Moses’ birth is named Tharmuth (Jub 47.5).

36. Jubilees downplays family conflict, a matter which is so visible in Genesis.

37. Unlike the explanation in the Torah, certain festivals predate the time of Moses (Wintermute: 40). Sukkot (Booths) was celebrated by Abraham (Jub 16.21–31; Shemini Atzeret (eighth day of Assembly) was established by Jacob after he was named Israel (Jub 32.27–29); Shavuot (Weeks) commemorates the covenant following the Flood (Jub 6.17); Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) is connected with the day that Joseph was sold into slavery (Jub 34.18–19).

38. Jubilees enlarges the roles of some characters of the Bible such as Enoch, and also Rebekah. In Jubilees Rebekah is a powerful figure who works alongside and directly with Abraham (Zucker 2019).

39. “Rebekah’s role in the ancestral history” is prominent, for she “supplements the obvious inadequacies of her husband. She functions as the real link between God and Jacob” (Endres: 73). In referring to Rebekah, Endres suggests that in Jubilees “A woman has taken her place in the company of men; a matriarch has joined the patriarchs” (Endres: 25–26).

40. “Levi, the third son of Jacob, lent his name to the tribe of Levites and thus was the titular ancestor of Israel’s priests according to the Bible. Yet nothing is said there about his actually functioning as a priest. In Jubilees, however, Levi himself becomes the divinely ordained priest who begins serving in this capacity at an early age” (VanderKam 1992: Vol. 3, p. 1031.)

41. Jubilees contradicts Genesis’ description of Abraham’s death. In Genesis he dies before the birth of Esau and Jacob (Gen 25:8). In Jubilees Abraham and Jacob are lying in the same bed when Abraham dies (Jub 23.1–3). This is while Jacob is a young man living with his parents.

42. Genesis explains that “Isaac favored Esau … but Rebekah favored Jacob” (NJPS; “Isaac loved Esau … but Rebekah loved Jacob”—NRSV, Gen 25:28). By contrast, Jubilees states that it was his grandfather, “Abraham [who] loved Jacob, but Isaac loved Esau” (Jub 19.15) (Zucker 2019: 74–75).

43. Rebekah thanks God “who gave to me Jacob, a pure son and a holy seed” (Jub 25.12). This term, “a holy seed,” is a crucial phrase for Jubilees. “Abraham’s descendants through Isaac and his son Jacob … alone are destined to become a ‘holy seed’ (Heb. zera kodesh … see Isa. 6:13 and Ezra 9:2), one ‘not … counted … among the nations’ (Num. 23:9), since they alone will be ‘the portion of the Most High’ (Deut. 32:9) … ‘a kingdom of priests and a holy people’ (Exod. 19:6)” (Kugel 2013: 352, n. 16.16–19).

44. The Angel of the Presence teaches Abram (Abraham) Hebrew, which might explain why Abraham is termed a Hebrew in Genesis 14:13 (Jub 12.25–27).

45. Various angels with different powers and characteristics as well as demons populate Jubilees.

46. Jubilees features an important Satan-like powerful angel, Mastema (Jub 10.8, cf. 10.1).

47. Concerning Evil in the world, Jubilees explains that “(1) It is superhuman; (2) but it is not caused by God; (3) therefore it comes from the angelic world, which has suffered a breach from God’s good order” (Wintermute: 47).

48. Mastema challenges God to test Abraham (Jub 17.15–16) in a scene reminiscent of Job 1:6–12.

49. According to Jubilees the Angel of the Presence is there with Abraham and Isaac on the mountain, as is the evil angel Mastema. God orders the Angel of the Presence to tell Abraham to stay his hand (Jub 18.9–11).

50. Mastema “does everything he can to foil God’s plan to free the Israelites” (Kugel 2012: 229).